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To most people, being $12 million in debt sounds like an absolute nightmare. But for Michael Elefante and his wife, it’s the price of financial freedom.

In a recent X post (1), Elefante told his story. He and his wife walked away from six-figure jobs, borrowed hundreds of thousands to buy their first home in Nashville, and listed it on Airbnb. The gamble paid off. The property earned enough to cover the mortgage and then some.

Six years and 11 houses later, they claim to be earning $50,000 to $100,000 a month from short-term rentals — all while carrying millions in debt from their multiple mortgages.

Their message is simple: Instead of fearing debt, use it to buy assets and let those assets pay for your life. It’s a bold strategy, but is their attractive lifestyle a model to follow or a dangerous bet that could collapse under the wrong conditions?

On the surface, the pros are clear.

Elefante and his wife leveraged debt to buy income-producing assets and create financial freedom, allowing them to focus on family, travel and experiences. For those who value time and don’t want to work the 9-to-5 grind, it’s an appealing trade-off.

But the risks should be examined. Carrying $12 million in debt means their success depends entirely on Airbnb listings. Basing your income on another platform’s whims is always risky — if tourism slows, regulations tighten or expenses rise, they’re still on the hook for all 12 mortgages.

If any of their homes were impacted by natural disasters, the income they depend on would be suddenly limited. Even something as simple as a pipe bursting could have an oversized effect on their budget.

And while the couple claims they work only a few hours a week, the reality is likely more complex. Managing multiple properties typically requires full-time attention or the services of an expensive property manager.

On top of that, Elefante has built a side business around teaching others how to follow in his footsteps. He sells books, online courses and content that walk aspiring investors through the process, which suggests that their workload may be more demanding than it appears [2].

In short, managing multiple properties can be complicated — and sometimes you need a little bit of extra support.

That’s where Baselane can help you manage your properties more efficiently. Baselane can save investors an average of $5,000 a year through automated rent payments, visibility improvements and built-in financial tools. Its AI-powered bookkeeping software could even shave up to 150 hours off of your spreadsheet labor a year, depending on the size of your portfolio.

Even better, Baselane is already trusted by 50,000 plus real estate investors.

Baselane’s Core tier includes accounting, tax packages, Schedule E reports and automated rent and late fee reminders for free. You can even sign up today and get a 30-day free trial of their Smart tier, including fast rent deposits in 2 business days and VIP priority support.

Read more: US car insurance costs have surged 50% from 2020 to 2024 — this simple 2-minute check could put hundreds back in your pocket

Most people can’t walk into a bank without a job and qualify for the $420,000 mortgage Elefante used to get started. It’s worth noting that Elefante grew up in Chapel Hill, NC, a well-off area with strong schools, attended the prestigious Elon University (3), and both he and his wife had six-figure jobs before they began their Airbnb venture (4).

That doesn’t make his success impossible to replicate, but it does make it harder for the average person to follow in their footsteps.

Airbnb can also be unpredictable (5). Cities across the U.S. are tightening short-term rental laws, and oversupply in popular markets has already reduced bookings (6) and could cut into host profits.

A recession or shift in travel patterns could quickly change the math, which is an important consideration right now when travel to the U.S. is down (7). And, offloading those homes to get out of the mortgages if needed might not be easy as interest rates rise (8).

If you’re considering an Airbnb investment strategy for yourself, it’s important to start small and keep the risks low. Consider renting out a room or ADU (accessory dwelling unit) on your current property first to test rental demand. This can also help you learn the ropes before taking on a whole mortgage.

Before jumping in, ask yourself:

• Can I afford the mortgage if bookings dry up?

• Do I have cash reserves for repairs, vacancies or slow seasons?

• Am I comfortable being a landlord or paying someone else to do it?

• What are the local laws on short-term rentals?

• Are there any laws in the works that might impact short-term rentals?

The reality is, you don’t need to buy property outright to benefit from investing in real estate. For instance, direct access to the $22.5 trillion commercial real estate sector was long limited to a select group of elite investors — until now.

First National Realty Partners (FNRP) allows accredited investors to diversify their portfolio through grocery-anchored commercial properties, without taking on the responsibilities of being a landlord.

With a minimum investment of $50,000, investors can own a share of properties leased by national brands like Whole Foods, Kroger and Walmart, which provide essential goods to their communities. Thanks to triple net leases, accredited investors are able to invest in these properties without worrying about tenant costs cutting into their potential returns.

Simply answer a few questions — including how much you would like to invest — to start browsing their full list of available properties.

And if you’re looking for consistent rental income, just like the Elefantes, you don’t need to go into debt or even lock in a mortgage. You can invest in shares of vacation homes or rental properties through Arrived.

Backed by world-class investors, including Jeff Bezos, Arrived allows you to invest in shares of vacation and rental properties, earning a passive income stream without the extra work that comes with being a landlord of your own rental property.

To get started, simply browse through their selection of vetted properties, each picked for its potential appreciation and income generation. Once you choose a property, you can start investing with as little as $100, potentially earning quarterly dividends.

For most people, the safest path to this type of financial freedom is through gradual growth. Build equity in your current home, save aggressively and scale up after building a financial cushion. While Elefante’s path isn’t impossible to follow, it may not be as easy to replicate as his online content makes it seem.

Taking on millions in debt can create a lifestyle of freedom, but it can just as easily backfire. The line between financial independence and financial ruin often comes down to the financial resources that you start with, timing and risk tolerance.

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@melefante6 (1); Skool (2); Elon University (3); Michael Elefante (4); Bloomberg (5); Air Hosts Forum (6); The Associated Press (7); FRED (8)

This article provides information only and should not be construed as advice. It is provided without warranty of any kind.

Introduction

Artificial intelligence (AI) has made significant inroads into health care, demonstrating capabilities that complement and challenge traditional pharmacy practices. For instance, AI tools trained on clinical notes from electronic health records (EHRs) provided clinical predictions—including in-hospital mortality and 30-day readmission—with accuracy exceeding state-of-the-art risk scores.¹ AI interpretation of routine imaging (eg, chest x-rays) has the potential to provide comprehensive disease risk assessments, including risk of heart attack, stroke, and diabetes.² Electrocardiogram interpretation by an AI tool, flagging high-risk patients and notifying physicians, was found to reduce patient mortality.³ Additionally, patient assessments of responses to their questions found that those from AI chatbots were of higher quality than those from physicians.⁴

Turning to pharmacy, current and future AI applications include drug safety, pharmacy operations, precision medicine, drug reference navigation, clinical surveillance, and electronic clinical quality measures.^5,6 Looking forward, AI has the potential to use comprehensive patient-specific data such as EHRs, imaging, omics, and real-time monitoring data, in combination with medical domain expertise built on a foundation of medical literature to support caregivers in a variety of clinical tasks.⁷

As these AI-driven innovations continue to integrate into medical and pharmacy practice, critical questions emerge: What becomes of the pharmacist’s role? Where can the pharmacist fit into this new paradigm to provide value supporting safe and effective medication use? To see the path forward, it is helpful to first look backward.

Pharmacy’s Historical Adaptability

The pharmacy profession has a long history of evolving to meet health care needs. Over the decades, we have witnessed the emergence of specialized roles—drug information specialists, informatics pharmacists, and pharmacogenomics specialists—that did not exist previously but were created to address specific needs in the health care system. When a gap was identified between the health care team’s capabilities and the patient’s needs, pharmacists developed the drug information, information technology, and genomic expertise to fill those needs.

Illustrations of pharmacy’s adaptability are limited to not only the emergence of new roles but also the evolution of skills required for the role of any pharmacist. Before the emergence of electronic medical records (EMRs) and computerized physician order entry (CPOE), pharmacists were routinely tasked with interpreting handwritten prescriptions. Due to the influx of hurriedly scribbled prescriptions, pharmacists needed to accurately interpret such prescriptions to maintain efficient pharmacy operations. This skill, which was only tangentially related to medication expertise, became essential for pharmacists then. With EMRs and CPOE, this skill has all but vanished from the modern pharmacist’s arsenal. Computer skills are another example. While these had little value in pharmacy about 40 years ago, now they can dramatically impact the productivity of a pharmacist. Valuable skills for pharmacists will continue to evolve, and what present-day skills will become obsolete remains to be seen.

Adaptability has been a hallmark of the pharmacy profession, allowing pharmacists to remain integral to health care teams despite technological and systemic changes. As we stand on the brink of an AI alteration in health care, this adaptability will again be tested.

Emerging Gaps, Evolving Roles, and Preparing for an AI-Enhanced Future

As AI reshapes the health care landscape, new gaps will emerge between AI’s capabilities and patients’ needs. Given the plethora of possibilities, the challenges of regulatory approval, and the complexity of implementing new technology into health care delivery, it is nearly impossible to predict where AI will impact practice. If the dawn of AI in health care looks anything like the emergence of technology into any other industry, it will not fulfill its full potential in one fell swoop. Imperfect AI applications will emerge sporadically and improve iteratively over the years. This means that the gaps for pharmacists are likely unpredictable and unstable.

In the setting of this uncertainty, high-level skills that are broadly useful to a diverse set of scenarios will be most valuable. The following tasks are well-suited to leverage pharmacists’ clinical expertise while incorporating new technological competencies: AI education and implementation, loop oversight, human-on-the-loop oversight (quality assurance), and interdisciplinary collaboration (Table).^6,8 To thrive in this evolving landscape, the pharmacy profession must proactively prepare for an AI-enhanced future through education and continuous learning, hands-on experience, and advocacy and leadership.

Conclusion

The arrival of AI in health care presents challenges and opportunities for the pharmacy profession. Although some traditional roles may be transformed, pharmacists have the potential to adapt and evolve alongside these technological advancements.

By embracing change, acquiring new skills, and positioning themselves at the forefront of AI integration in health care, pharmacists can continue to fill crucial gaps in the health care system. The future of pharmacy in the AI era is about leveraging technology to enhance capabilities and improve patient outcomes.

The AI transformation in health care represents a significant shift in how we approach medication management and patient care. By actively engaging with these changes and helping to shape the integration of AI in health care, pharmacists can work toward maintaining a crucial role in the evolving health care ecosystem.

REFERENCES

1. Jiang LY, Liu XC, Nejatian NP, et al. Health system–scale language models are all-purpose prediction engines. Nature. 2023;619(7969):357-362. doi:10.1038/s41586-023-06160-y

2. Topol EJ. AI-enabled opportunistic medical scan interpretation. Lancet. 2024;403(10439):1842. doi:10.1016/S0140-6736(24)00924-3

3. Lin CS, Liu WT, Tsai DJ, et al. AI-enabled electrocardiography alert intervention and all-cause mortality: a pragmatic randomized clinical trial. Nat Med. 2024;30(5):1461-1470. doi:10.1038/s41591-024-02961-4

4. Ayers JW, Poliak A, Dredze M, et al. Comparing physician and artificial intelligence chatbot responses to patient questions posted to a public social media forum. JAMA Intern Med. 2023;183(6):589-596. doi:10.1001/jamainternmed.2023.1838

5. Wong A, Wentz E, Palisano N, et al. Role of artificial intelligence in pharmacy practice: a narrative review. J Am Coll Clin Pharm. 2023;6(11):1237-1250. doi:10.1002/jac5.1856

6. Smoke S. Artificial intelligence in pharmacy: a guide for clinicians. Am J Health Syst Pharm. 2024;81(14):641-646. doi:10.1093/ajhp/zxae051

7. Moor M, Banerjee O, Abad ZSH, et al. Foundation models for generalist medical artificial intelligence. Nature. 2023;616(7956):259-265. doi:10.1038/s41586-023-05881-4

8. Nelson SD, Walsh CG, Olsen CA, et al. Demystifying artificial intelligence in pharmacy. Am J Health Syst Pharm. 2020;77(19):1556-1570. doi:10.1093/ajhp/zxaa218