Interview with an Airbnb Host from Albemarle, North Carolina - S2 EP31
Welcome back to another episode of Into The Airbnb, where we talk with Airbnb hosts about their short-term rental experience.
Today’s guest is Jefferey Lambert, an Airbnb host who owns and manages a unit in Albemarle, North Carolina. In this episode, he will share how he found out about leveraging the unit as much as possible by doing market research and paying special attention to the market’s need for big event venues.
This episode is sponsored by Airbtics, short-term rental analytics for high return investment, comprehensive data for insights, ideas and inspiration. Go to app.airbtics.com to find precise Airbnb data such as occupancy rate, revenue, average daily rate and so on. So, without further ado, let’s get into it! So how did you get started in Airbnb?
Into The Airbnb Podcast S2 EP 31: High demand for wedding venues in Albemarle, North Carolina made this Airbnb unit successful: learn about your market needs and take advantage of it
You can also listen to this Into The Airbnb Podcast Episode on Otter.
Delia:
So how did you get started in Airbnb?
Jefferey Lambert:
Well, I’m not doing it as a business or a job. I think the best way to put it is, are you familiar with the expression, having your cake and eating it too? I didn’t want to have to sell that house, but intellectually, I couldn’t justify keeping it. You know, if I could have it paid for itself, then I can justify intellectually keeping it, why would I sell it if it’s paying for itself and use it when I want to. So I’m intentionally spending any money that comes in, from rentals back on the property to improve it, you know, yard work, put ceilings in the basement, you know, all kinds of maintenance and home improvement type things. It looked as good as now. I’m so proud when I pull up at the driveway when we spend the weekend there.
Delia:
So you don’t spend anything so far in the property?
Jefferey Lambert:
Oh, no, no, I’ve been spending a lot of money on it. But all the money is coming from the rentals, from the short-term rentals through Airbnb. All of it, I’m spending back on the property.
Delia:
So it pays for itself, it’s great! I’ve also seen the pictures of your listing, is really beautiful.
Jefferey Lambert:
I could not be more proud of that place. I designed that house and built it myself. Well, I hired carpenters and electricians to do the work. But I designed it myself and I built it in the footprint of my grandparents house, I had their house moved out and built that house there and that was in 2013. And I built it at the time I was married coming up on 30 years and I thought it would make everything better with the marriage. Well, she divorced me two years later and I had to leave the house for a year and a half, two years while we were going through the divorce. Then I had to take money out of my retirement to buy her out of the house, so I didn’t lose it. And then I lived there for a year by myself, a year and a half and spent all my weekends doing yard work. You know, it’s 3800 square feet heated an 800 square foot, two car garage underneath it and an 1100 square foot wraparound porch all under the same roof, that’s a lot for one person. Then the yard, I’ve seen pictures of the yard. I would spend all my weekends doing yard work and was still getting behind. Then I met Betsy, we met September 2019. She’s got a 550 square foot cabin out in the foothills of South Carolina, she owns no payment on it and I’m thinking why am I living here you know, but I couldn’t sell it. I just emotionally attached to the place. I looked at long term rentals. And it was difficult to, I’m not on a lake, I’m not in the mountains, I’m not at the beach, it’s just out in the country. So to find someone that would want to rent it long-term for what I needed just to cover the cost. What wasn’t what happened? I actually I went on the internet just looking out on my phone, “how do I, you know, do a listing with Airbnb? How does that work?” and I go through all these questions and then it says congratulations, you’ve listed your home, now add pictures and I’m like what? So I find some pictures I had on my phone to be put on and then I get a booking for Christmas. Now Betsy and I’ve been dating for two months. Well, September, October. We met in September, this is December. I look at Betsy and I’m like “are you serious about moving in together?” and she goes “oh hell yeah”. So we loaded up my jeep with everything I could get out of my house, that was my personal stuff. Put the rest inside the garage and we spent a week getting it ready. When we started I had three towels to have match. I had pillowcases as curtains on the windows downstairs. We spent a tonne of that week way more than I made it just buying towels, just getting it ready for guests emptied out all the closets, all the dressers, you know, we bought everything we needed, towels, curtains, Betsy helped me with all that. Then we started getting bookings after booking and I was shocked. I had no idea it would book.
Delia:
How come? Did you not know that your area is popular on Airbnb? Or is it not? It’s just your listing?
Jefferey Lambert:
It is. There’s not a lot of listings out that way and most of the listings are not, because it’s a five bedroom house so we can have 16. We list 16, well, 12 guests is what we list, but for five bedrooms on 28. Now again, it’s not on a lake and it’s not in the mountains and it’s not at the beach, it’s just out the country. But we happen to be rather than relatively close to three different wedding venues. So people having weddings, they’re out of town families, three families can stay in my house for about the same money as staying in the Holiday Inn Express in Albemarle. So that’s huge that you had a 1100 square foot wraparound porch. There’s 22 chairs on the porch right now, for people to sit with ceiling fans in the summertime and then their own kitchen. I designed the house as a place for friends and family to gather. We’ve set ourselves there with 40 people at one table in the dining room living room, moved the furniture and put one long table down the middle, you know, there’s no place like that in Albemarle where you can have 20/30 people hanging out under one roof for the weekend. We started getting people wanting to have weddings in the backyard smaller weddings. So I’m thinking if we’re gonna do this, let’s do it right. Now just coming out of a divorce, I didn’t have a lot of capital. So on my credit card, I put it in a parking area beside the households, 50 cars I put in outdoor lighting and all the trees in the backyard so you can light it up at night. I bought 89 yards of mulch at $27 a yard and had my landscaper put it out in the yard for me fix it up nice and we got bookings for weddings. Then the COVID hit and all the bookings started stopping. I still had the money on my credit cards. But then the interest rates dropped and I refinanced and the money I saved refinancing that house covers all of our expenses here at the cabin. Then all these people that had these huge vacations planned during COVID, their own house on 20 acres out in the country sounded really attractive. So I started getting a lot of families coming in and the bookings filled back up. That first year, I think we took in almost, right at $50,000 in bookings in the first year.
Delia:
Is there an estimated amount of investment?
Jefferey Lambert:
Well, keep in mind, my goal when I started this was that the house pays for itself without being more work for me. I wanted to be relieved of having to work in the yard and doing all these you know pressure washing the house and all these maintenance things you have to do with that much property. I wanted that to happen. So my brother does landscaping and I told him, I said “look, I want you to do the house, but don’t make me a deal, whatever your normal rate is, charged me that” and he did. Betsy was doing the cleaning and I was paying her the $180 I have for cleaning fee, which I thought was in line. So it’s done that and that’s my goal. I don’t have to sell it if it’s paying for itself. Now, when I started this, when I refinanced the house was around just over $300,000 is what the market value was. Right now I’ve got a real estate agent calling me wanting to sell it for almost a million dollars and I’m telling him, I don’t want to sell it. So it’s tripled, the value of the property is tripled in three years. So you know, again, when I took my retirement money to buy the house after the divorce, I looked at it as a reinvesting my retirement in the property. But again, I’m still sentimentally attached to this property because that land has been in my family for many generations, my grandparents house was in the same footprint. You know, when I built the house, I took stuff from my grandparents house and my great grandparents house and incorporated it into the new house. The door for the basement that goes into the basement, was the front door on my great grandfather’s house, my parents moved, so a lot of the family heirlooms ended up in that house and they’re still there, we’ve got no place else to put them. So that really is my family home and we use it as a vacation home. But it’s been a sound investment obviously it’s taking in, this year, I’m going to show a profit because I’m taking in just, there’s only so much I can do. I’ve spent thousands of dollars in yard work. The yard has never looked this good. We’ve receipted over four acres of grass the last two years, three years and fertilised it twice a year. I mean, that’s thousands of dollars each time we do it, but the yard never looked this good. So the value of the property itself and not having to sell this piece of property because once I sell it I’ll never get it back. You know, it’s family property. That was my goal and that’s what we’re doing. This year, this April has just worked out to be the biggest month we’ve ever had, there’s five weeks and again, it’s kind of a weekend rental, rarely do we have a booking that does not include the weekend. There are five weekends in April, we normally don’t get a booking in weekdays, it’s a three night minimum, so that normally leaves a couple of days in the middle open, which is fine because it takes time to clean a five bedroom house properly, then we’ve had a few people fill in the weekdays. So this month, we’re taking in almost $10,000 in bookings and I just added it up, my housekeeper and my landscaper is about $2,500. This year is gonna be difficult not to show a profit.
Delia:
Wow, that’s impressive! I think the good thing you’re doing is you know how to take advantage of the listing. I know there are many people out there with property that is this big and maybe people want to rent it out for a wedding, like you said or familiar gatherings and they don’t allow it But the fact that you allow it and their wedding venues around you, that is like a real good way to take advantage of the location of the property and the size of the property. So I get like you’re getting a great revenue.
Jefferey Lambert:
Again, I’m not in a big vacations spot, like the mountains. But I found out that town because there’s no place like it that you can compare it. Airbnb when I first started, they were like $70 a night. Well, 70$ no, I can’t clean it for $70, you know, you can’t clean that house. When the COVID hit the rental place in Albemarle didn’t deliver their chairs and tables anymore. So I bought 90 brand new white folding chairs that we use for outdoor wedding and I bought 10 five foot diameter banquet tables and we were able to store those in the downstairs garage that guests can use, we charge $2 a chair and $10 for the tables, that’s the same price as the Albemarle place, except they’re there, use them or don’t. If you need 20, take 20 If you need 30, take 30 and then whatever they use put back and they can pay for that through the Airbnb app. So we tried to just make it more of a convenience. But it’s been incredibly rewarding. If you read through our reviews, they’re great, but the real heartfelt messages that we’ve gotten in our guest book and we’ve had a young girl, I think she was eight, she met her godparents and caught her first fish at that house. We’ve had families the few times we’ve had weekends that weren’t booked, inevitably, at the last minute, we have a family for a funeral that are coming into town and they need a place to go and we’ve had families have big memorial services in the backyard. And just those type of things. I didn’t expect that I’ve always enjoyed hosting and I’m proud of that property. I love it when other families get to enjoy it like I do. But it’s been incredibly rewarding.
Delia:
I get it completely. I congratulate you for it, it’s really great what you’ve done! By any chance, do you find your area to be any seasonal? Are there any specific months where you don’t get that much bookings or something similar?
Jefferey Lambert:
I’ve looked back over the last couple of years. Typically January, February is the slowest months. The last year by March we were booked up every weekend for the rest of the year. I think we had one weekend in December. But I’ve been blocking July 4th weekend for my family, we have a July 4th party and I blocked a weekend between Thanksgiving and Christmas where all my family comes. This year we’ve got a few extra weekends that aren’t booked. I think there might be four or five weekends right now that aren’t booked. But I’m blocked a week in June, my dad and my mom are celebrating their 60th wedding anniversary and my dad’s turning 80. So we block that week for the house and all of our families meeting there to celebrate their anniversary and my dad’s birthday. The two weeks after that, I’ve a friend that’s getting married and they’re gonna have a big party and they’ve rented it out two weeks in a row. My son and his wife, volunteer at their church youth group and they’re doing it a camp out in the backyard a weekend in May. Those type of things again, I get to do that for people. We’ve had several neighbours on. Now the streets out in the country, there might be 12 driveways and two miles on this road, but we’ve had two neighbours, three neighbours rent the house for a Marines reunion, a birthday party and a wedding and that’s a huge compliment for me, for my neighbours to think that much of that place that they would want to rent it for their events.
Delia:
Because there are many neighbours out there that don’t like Airbnb properties around. So you’re very lucky with that.
