Interview with the owner of a Property Management for Airbnb from North Bay, Ontario - S2 EP34
Welcome back to another episode of Into The Airbnb, where we chat with Airbnb hosts about their short-term rental experience.
Today’s guest is Renee Meyer, the owner of Savvy Shores, a Property Management and Co-hosting business located North Bay, Ontario. In this episode, Renee will dive with us in her business, how does it work for both her side and the client’s side, what services do they offer and how has her company’s management positively impacted all her clients’ listings and increased their revenue!
This episode is sponsored by Airbtics, short-term rental analytics for high return investment, comprehensive data for insights, ideas and inspiration. Go to app.airbnb.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!
Into The Airbnb Podcast S2 EP 34: Increase your Occupancy rate by over 90% and mae Hosting easier – Savvy Shores Property Management in North Bay, Ontario
You can also listen to this Into The Airbnb Podcast Episode on Otter.
Delia:
So can you tell us how did you get started with Airbnb?
Renee Meyer:
So we originally started with managing long-term tenant properties for owners who generally live out of town and or out of province. We are having issues finding some good quality tenants for one of the vacant units and between us and the owners, we decided to give Airbnb a try. So that unit launched January 27 of 2022 and since then, it has had five days of vacancy.
Delia:
Oh, that’s great! You told me you have about four listings, right? Do you own all of them?
Renee Meyer:
I don’t own any of the listings. So all of our clients are investors, they generally invest in the property, we manage everything, so we turn their Airbnb into a passive income for them.
Delia:
Oh, so you don’t run these Airbnbs like personally? Are you part of a company?
Renee Meyer:
I own a business. Yes.
Delia:
You own a business. Oh, that’s great! Can you tell us a little more about your business?
Renee Meyer:
Absolutely. So long story short, we’re from the Hamilton area. We started The Spotless Samurai, which is a cleaning service with dealing with a multiple property management companies down, so we started doing Airbnb turnover cleanings. Right around before the pandemic hit, we moved up to North Bay. At that point we transitioned from just cleaning to managing not only Airbnbs, but long-term tenant and properties. So at that point, it felt right to open up Savvy Shores Property Management and Co-hosting. So now we manage and take care of Airbnbs and tenanted properties.
Delia:
Okay, so right now, under your management, you have only those four listings or do you have more?
Renee Meyer:
No. So those four listings we co-host completely. There are other listings that we build the Airbnb profile for our clients. We set their guests rules, we build their guests books. We’re speaking with a client right now in New Brunswick, they want their Airbnb listing setup out there, so we’re working on that.
Delia:
I see. That’s great! And can you tell us more about the services you offer in this business?
Renee Meyer:
Absolutely. So when it comes to Airbnbs, like I said, we like to make it a passive income for investors. Most of our investors are generally very, very busy. They don’t just own one property, they own multiple properties all over the world. So what we do is we take care of all our guests communications, we take care of our guests screening, we can go in, we can provide renovations or oversee those renovations before the listing gets started. We staged them, we clean them. We also offer listing optimization. So some clients have Airbnbs that maybe they’re not getting as many bookings as they’d like, so we can sit there and go through their listing, give them some tips on what we suggest to try to get more bookings because at the end of the day, you want the highest occupancy rate as you can.
Delia:
That’s great and can you give us like an example of how did you achieve some occupancy rate increasing in some of your client listings?
Renee Meyer:
So our biggest thing is the more amenities you offer your guests, the higher your nightly rate can be. So at the end of the day, you know, a lot of our properties up here in North Bay are waterfront. So guests want to come to a waterfront property, they want to be able to use a kayak or a canoe and maybe some lawn games. So at the end, you know, they don’t want to have to bring their own linens and towels, they’re already traveling with enough things. So we find that most of these properties that are having issues with occupancy rates, their amenities just aren’t quite there. Also updating is very, very important, right? So a lot of guests want to go to, you know, a rustic cottage feel, but they still want to have a nice updated fresh bathroom and kitchens.
Delia:
So you’d say that those are the main amenities that could work for listings in the North Bay area?
Renee Meyer:
Absolutely because like I said, North Bay is a lot of waterfront properties. So at the end of the day, the guests want to be able to have activities that they can do outside or things that they can do on the water. There’s a kayak or a canoe, they can go fishing, they can paddle out to, you know, one of the neighboring islands and explore. It just provides a lot more things for the guests to do when they come.
Delia:
That’s great and can you tell us a little bit about the area? Do you only co-host or offer your services for listings in the North Bay area? Or do you go to other places as well?
Renee Meyer:
So when it comes to co-hosting, like to be a local co-host, it does have to be in North Bay within 100 kilometer radius. So with being a local co-host, we offer emergency calls, so if there’s a problem with the cottage, the guests needs assistance with anything or there’s an emergency call to the cottage, we’re close enough that we’re able to attend right away for homeowners because generally they live at least four to five hours away.When it comes to online hosting, we can do that virtually where we are for anywhere in the world. So if clients just want us to screen their guests, to schedule their bookings, to send their cleaners, the schedule of when the turnovers need to be done, we can do that here anywhere around the world.
Delia:
That’s great and can your clients expect to be involved in any of these? Like, can they make suggestions, you work with them and stuff like that?
Renee Meyer:
Absolutely. So the biggest thing in this business is communication and compromise. So everybody has differing opinions as to what’s going to work what’s going to be best. So I think it’s very important to listen to what your clients want and need and at the end of the day to come to a compromise where not only us Savvy Shores are happy with how the listing is turning out, but that the clients are also happy. So some of our clients choose to be very involved within their Airbnbs, other clients choose to have a take a backseat and choose to have a take control over it.
Delia:
I see, that’s great! Can you tell us a little bit more about how do you manage pricing for all these listings? I can imagine you manage different end listings, like they have, I don’t know different amenities, they are different types of listings. How does a company like yours manage pricing for these listings?
Renee Meyer:
So generally what we do is we start with the general vicinity. So we just did one in Barry’s Bay not too long ago, myself nor my husband and co-owner have ever been to Barry’s Bay. So at the end of the day, you figure out what your occupancy rate for the cottage that you’re listing, you figure out what amenities you’re offering and then you go on Airbnb and you try to find comparable cottages based on those. Then from there, you can find kind of a starting rate. Obviously, you know, if you’re searching and you find that other cottages don’t have the amenities that you have and you have way more then your nightly rate can go up. So it’s a balanced game between having a low enough nightly rate that you’re getting bookings, but you still want it high enough that, you know, you’re also happy with the income that you’re generating.
