Author: Guest

Real Estate Industry Trends That Will Shape 2022

Post author By Guest
Post date March 30, 2022

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Mortgage Rates

2021 was the lowest housing inventory year in recorded history, but 2022 has shown growth in sellers listing homes. This year, mortgage rates are expected to hover at an average of 3.3 percent, with a projection of 3.6 percent by the end of the year. While a good amount of homes are popping up on the market and rates are rising, it can make for a good or bad scenario, depending on income.

Location

The location of where you live used to be of high importance when it came to renting or buying. Properties that were close to work, loved ones, or grocery stores were a must when settling on a home. Sometimes, buyers would make certain compromises if their home wasn’t close to their preferred locations. However, this doesn’t look to be the case anymore. With the flexibility to work from home becoming the new norm, moving somewhere close to your job isn’t as big of a priority for many. According to Realtor.com, as of 2021, many buyers preferred remote work and considered it when purchasing their new home. The increase of convenient services, such as delivery or entertainment, has made the choice of location easier. You will more than likely see a spike in homes purchased in less densely populated areas where congested traffic is thinner and better tax rates are a possibility.

Virtual Tours

When a tenant or homebuyer had to see a property in the past, it would’ve had to be done physically. Ever since the pandemic, certain adjustments were made in order to make home viewings possible. While the outbreak of COVID-19 became more severe, in-person meetings couldn’t happen, but instead of removing properties from the housing market, many realtors began to utilize technology for remote tours. A study has shown that looking for homes or apartments online is far more practical than taking an in-person tour. While this doesn’t have to be the norm moving forward, it possesses a lot of perks for realtors and buyers. Scheduling times don’t have to be as tight, as room for more viewings can be done virtually. It’s helpful for anyone living outside the city or town they’re planning on moving to, as they’ll be able to see the home from a virtual tour on their computer screen. Realtors can expand their showings through virtual tours, as it can reach a wide selection of potential buyers.

Newer Generations

Now that millennial generations will be looking for their first homes, the industry will have to prepare for their new values. Properties that feature tech integrations and modern updates tend to be more attractive to younger homebuyers. Whether the home or apartment is for rent or purchase, accessibility to Wi-Fi and other technological advancements, such as motion sensor lights, remote access lights, and smart thermostats, is important. Our friends at Globe Property Management in Winnipeg recommend making upgrades to ensure efficiency and maximum comfort.

You can expect more properties will have these added amenities, as they’re more appealing to younger buyers and could lower the cost of specific utilities.

Mental Health Spaces

The stress that the pandemic has caused individuals was prominent, to say the least. Highlighting homes designed with health and wellness in mind will appeal to those looking for a calming environment after the last two years.

According to Zillow, spaces for meditation or reflection, reading nooks, spa-inspired bathrooms, earth tones, and natural lighting will be among many Zen-like features that home buyers will be looking for in 2022.

ESG Focus

ESG (Environmental, Social, and Governance) practices have been something sorely lacking in the real estate industry, until now. You can expect attention to form around ESG-focused developments, like materials that offer carbon emission savings compared to concrete or steel.

This is an appealing factor for buyers that are environmentally and socially conscious, and it’s becoming the new strategy in residential and commercial projects.

With so many housing opportunities on the rise, now is as perfect a time as ever to buy, or to rent out properties. Airbnb is a great way to utilize any extra property, or newly purchased spaces. Knowing the inner workings of renting out your property can be tricky. Knowing the inner workings, like average utility prices or differences between authorized vs. unauthorized basement suites, can save you a lot of trouble when designing a smart investment plan. Choose wisely when looking for a property and go with the best.

Tags Hosting Tips

All About Airbnb How to Start an Airbnb

How to expand your Airbnb business

Post author By Guest
Post date March 3, 2022

If you’ve been following the Airbnb scene at all lately, you know that it’s blowing up. People are making a killing by listing their properties on Airbnb and renting them out to travelers.

But what if you want to take your business to the next level? How can you expand your Airbnb empire and make even more money? In this article, we will discuss some tips for expanding your Airbnb business. Keep reading to learn more!

What is Airbnb and how does it work?

Airbnb is a website and app that allows people to list their homes or apartments for rent. Travelers can then search for listings in their desired location and book them for their trip. Airbnb takes a percentage of the rental fee as commission.

How to get started with Airbnb?

If you’re interested in listing your property on Airbnb, the first step is to create an account. Once you’ve created an account, you can list your property and set a price. You’ll also need to upload photos and write a description of your listing.

The next step is to wait for travelers to book your property. You can also actively promote your listing by sharing it on social media or paying for ads.

How to expand your Airbnb business

You can expand your Airbnb business by following the strategies listed below:

1. Look for new areas to list your property

One of the best ways to expand your Airbnb business is to look for new areas to list your property. If you’re currently only listing in one city or town, consider expanding to other areas.

You may find that there are more tourists in other areas who are interested in renting a room or entire house through Airbnb.

2. Set competitive prices to attract guests

Another way to expand your Airbnb business is to set competitive prices. If you’re not currently charging as much as your competitors, consider raising your rates. This may attract more guests and help you make more money.

Keep in mind that you don’t want to charge too much, or else people will be less likely to rent from you. Try setting your prices at a point where they are attractive but still affordable for most people.

3. Offer amenities and services that other Airbnb hosts don’t offer

You can set yourself apart from the competition is to offer amenities and services that other Airbnb hosts don’t offer. For example, you could offer breakfast or dinner for your guests, or you could provide airport pickup and drop-off service.

If you can think of any other perks that would be attractive to travelers, consider offering them!

4. Respond quickly to inquiries and bookings

Another way to expand your Airbnb business is to respond quickly to inquiries and bookings. If you can provide a quick, helpful response to potential guests, they will be more likely to rent from you.

Additionally, if you can confirm bookings quickly, this will also help attract more guests.

5. Keep your property clean and well-maintained

One of the most important things you can do to expand your Airbnb business is to keep your property clean and well-maintained. If your property looks run-down or dirty, guests will be less likely to rent from you.

Make sure you keep it neat and tidy at all times and fix any problems that may arise as quickly as possible.

6. Keep a positive attitude and be willing to help with anything your guests may need

One of the most important things you can do to ensure your guests have a positive experience is to keep a positive attitude throughout their stay. Be willing to help with anything they may need and go above and beyond to make sure they feel comfortable and at home.

It’s also important to be available if they have any questions or concerns. You want them to feel like they can reach out to you if they need anything, so make sure your contact information is easily accessible.

By providing an amazing experience for your guests, you’ll not only increase the chances of them coming back, but you’ll also increase the chances of them leaving positive reviews that will attract even more guests in the future!

7. Thank guests for their business once they’ve left

Thanking your guests for their business is a great way to end your stay with them. It shows that you appreciate them choosing your Airbnb over others, and it can leave a lasting impression.

Plus, it’s a good opportunity to get feedback from them on their experience with you. If they had any issues or suggestions, this is the time to address them.

By thanking your guests, you’re also setting the tone for future interactions should they choose to stay with you again in the future.

8. Investing in apartment buildings

One of the best ways to expand your Airbnb business is by investing in apartment buildings. By owning multiple units, you can list them all on Airbnb and make a significant profit. This is an excellent option if you have the capital to invest, as it can provide a steady stream of income.

However, it’s important to remember that this option comes with some risks. For example, if one of your tenants damages their unit, you may be responsible for repairs.

Additionally, if you live in an area with strict rental laws, there may be restrictions on how many units you can rent out. Before investing in apartment buildings, be sure to do your research and weigh the pros and cons carefully.

9. Promote your Airbnb business on social media and other online platforms

Finally, one of the best ways to expand your Airbnb business is to promote it on social media and other online platforms. Make sure you have a strong online presence and use all of the tools at your disposal to attract more guests.

Benefits of using Airbnb

There are many benefits of using Airbnb for your business. Here are a few of the most important ones:

Airbnb is an affordable way to find short-term housing for your employees.
It’s a great way to test out new locations or properties before making a long-term commitment.
You can use Airbnb to supplement your income by renting out extra space in your home or property.
Airbnb gives you access to a global audience of potential guests.

By taking advantage of these benefits, you can make Airbnb work for your business!

Conclusion

Airbnb is a great way to find short-term housing for your employees, test out new locations or properties before making a long-term commitment, and supplement your income by renting out extra space in your home or property. Airbnb also gives you access to a global audience of potential guests.

Starting an Airbnb with a Minimal Budget

Airbnb vs Renting – Is Airbnb more profitable?

Tags How to Start an Airbnb

All About Airbnb How to Start an Airbnb

Starting an Airbnb with a Minimal Budget

Post author By Guest
Post date February 10, 2022

Although international travel may still be in flux, the surge in domestic travel continues. According to recent tourism reports, up to 80% of local rentals are getting booked months in advance as tourists embrace staycations. To take advantage of these opportunities, rental hosts don’t need massive capital. In fact, with an Airbnb business, hosts can start a successful rental property with a minimal budget.

For budding Airbnb hosts with a limited budget, here are the basic steps—from ideation to execution—to start your rental business:

Choose the right location

On a limited budget, you’ll first want to work with the existing assets you have. One of the primary Airbnb components that can immediately turn the tide in your favour is location. If your Airbnb is in a popular tourist area, you’re more likely to improve your ROI. According to landlord surveys, some of the most profitable Airbnb locations in the UK include cities like Cardiff. Here, homeowners can make up to 86% more than the average rental income. Thus, if you’ve already got an existing property, check if it’s in a profitable area. Otherwise, if you want to be a rental host without buying property, opt for rental arbitrage instead. In this way, you still earn sub-lease payments that get you closer to becoming an Airbnb millionaire.

Create a business plan

To be sure that every expenditure counts, that your efforts are legally compliant and that you will have a profitable Airbnb endeavour, it’s best to have a business plan. With this, you have a clear roadmap that can mitigate vulnerabilities and strengthen business longevity. The most important part of this business plan will be creating a budget. You need to know how much you need to make in order to be profitable, as well as plan for ongoing costs, such as toiletries, batteries, and lightbulbs, and hidden costs such as breakages. If you are unsure, investing in a financial planner will impact your budget, but will save you in the long run.

Develop your aesthetics

Once you’ve got your property and business plan sorted, you’ll want to concentrate on the creative aspect. And you can do this without breaking the bank. As much as your guests will be choosing your Airbnb based on location, they’ll also want to choose the most comfortable-looking one. To do this, you don’t need to spend an arm and a leg on renovations. Rather, be clever with how you’ve decorated your property. If you’ve got a great view, emphasise them with window treatments. If you’re low on room, use mirrors to create an illusion of space. Don’t hesitate to add homey details, either. Throw pillows, wall decor, and rugs can make a space more inviting for weary travellers. As an added bonus, stock your property for every guest. Include a rule book with emergency numbers for their reference. To make a good impression, leave a simple but meaningful gift basket. It’s these thoughtful small budget details that will give your property the “wow factor” from competitors. If successful, you may even score repeat guests.

Harness social strategies

Last but not the least, you’ll want to promote your Airbnb. One of the most affordable yet effective mediums for this is social media. This way, instead of waiting for would-be guests to find your listing on the Airbnb website, your listing will be coming to them via their feeds. First you will need to do some market research. Fortunately, social media is the world’s largest pool for market research and you can use it find consumer trends, such as the tourist demographic of your location, to make your Airbnb more attractive. You will also be able to use social media to measure client satisfaction. In order to reach more potential customers you will need to research social media advertising strategies online. This will show you the basics of posting and advertising your listings on social media, as well as creating content such as blog posts and videos to drive more traffic to your listing.

To summarise, you don’t need a lot of money to begin your Airbnb business. By working with the assets you have and investing in the right efforts, soon you’ll be enjoying a smooth-sailing and profitable rental business.

Tags How to Start an Airbnb

Case Studies

A snapshot of the Indonesia Airbnb market in 2020 (VS Hotel)

Post author By Guest
Post date May 29, 2020

Indonesia may have been late to start in the Airbnb market but it’s one of the fastest-growing countries in Southeast Asia in terms of inbound travel. Indonesia ranked 20th in the world tourist industry in 2017. [1] Now, because of the worldwide lockdowns due to coronavirus pandemic, there is a significant threat in the whole Airbnb industry.

What will happen to the short-term rental market? Can the industry’s leading home-sharing industry survive? What is the current state of Indonesia’s Airbnb market? Let’s find out.

How Many Total Airbnb Listings are there in Indonesia?

Indonesia currently has over 61,000 listings as of May 2020. The top location is the Bali province which has around 34,000 listings. Next in rank is Jakarta with 6,000 listings.

Surabaya and Medan are the second and the third largest cities by population, they only have 870 and 250 Airbnb listings. For example, Paris has a similar size of the population as Surabaya, and it has 30,00 Airbnb listings.

Bali province shows the highest number of listings in all the Indonesian AirBnB market. It surpassed Jakarta which is Indonesia’s capital city and home to over 10 million people in terms of the average daily rate.

What is the average daily rate of Airbnb in Indonesia?

This chart shows the average daily rate of Airbnb 2 bedroom apartments and hotels [2] in Indonesia. Based on the statistics, the ADR of a 2 bedroom apartment in Indonesia is $100. The rest of the locations including Jakarta, Yogyakarta, and Surabaya are in the $30 – $40 range.

Bali has a lot more international travellers than Jakarta. We can observe here that there is a positive correlation between the high ratio of international travellers and high Airbnb ADR.

What is the occupancy rate of AirBnB in Indonesia?

The chart shows the yearly occupancy rate in Jakarta, Bali, Yogyakarta, and Surabaya (Data Captured in May 2020). The occupancy rates are calculated with the past three years of historical occupancy rate but weighing more to more recent occupancy rate.

The hotel occupancy rate is for 2016, and the Airbnb occupancy rate is calculated from the data between 2017 – 2020. Still, it is clear that the occupancy rate of hotels is higher than the occupancy rate of Airbnb.

What is the average revenue of the top 10% and 25% performing 2bedroom houses?

Here’s a graph showing the most profitable or the top-performing 10% 2-bedroom houses in Indonesia. Based on their yearly revenue, top10% 2-bedroom properties in Bali have estimated annual revenue of $28,000. This is followed by Surabaya at around $11,000

The chart shows the yearly revenue of the top 10% and 25% 2BR houses in Jakarta. South Jakarta’s top 10% leads with $9,000 yearly revenue followed by the top 10% of Central Jakarta which is at $8,000.

Amenities

Based on our data, 85% of 2BR houses in Bali and Jakarta have pools and only around 17% of the 2BR houses have hot tubs. Amenities are important factors that impact travel experience, especially for foreign travellers. When it comes to Airbnb vacation rentals, many people are looking for functionality first then comfort, and lastly perks such as pools, hot tubs, and free parking.

Conclusion

Jakarta, Surabaya, and Yogyakarta are large cities with a high ratio of domestic tourist, and their home-sharing markets are still at an early stage. Their ADR and the occupancy rate are low in comparison to the hotel industry. So, now is a good time to travel to these cities in Indonesia. Also, if you are thinking about starting an Airbnb in Indonesia, there are good opportunities, because there isn’t much competition due to the small amount of Airbnb supply.

Stay Insightful

Airbtics is the short-term and vacation rental market research platform. We help rental hosts, property investors, realtors to understand the rapidly changing rental market by providing insights via our web service.

If you have any further questions about the case study, please contact us at [email protected].

All the data here without explicit references are sourced and processed by our technologies.

References

[1] https://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2018/10/23/indonesian-tourism-set-to-beat-thailand-in-5-years.html

[2] http://horwathhtl.asia/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/MR-Indonesia-1.pdf By STR and Horwath HTL

Case Studies

Impact of COVID-19 on Airbnb bookings in Seoul, Taiwan, Berlin, Milan

Post author By Guest
Post date May 15, 2020

The impact of COVID-19 has been quite severe in the last few months on the vacation rental industry. There was a significant number of cases reported in some cities that reversed the predicted drop of Airbnb bookings there. It has been observed that there is a reduction in the short term stays compared to the long term stays.

If you have been wondering how COVID-19 has impacted the bookings in major cities, and what can be expected in the upcoming months, then this will be a great article for you. Here, we will be particularly comparing the impact of the pandemic on Berlin with respect to Seoul, Milan, and Taipei.

Germany missed the chance they had, in February 2020

The number of Airbnb bookings was measured in the month of Oct, Nov, and Dec of 2018 as well as 2019. This percentage difference of 2018-19 was used to predict the number of bookings if there was no impact of the COVID pandemic in the cities.

It was observed that Seoul, as well as Milan, experienced a fall of about 25% bookings in 2020 Feb, and Taipei suffered from a 42% drop. On the other hand, Berlin had a normal Airbnb booking rate because people still traveled, and this was a good indicator of the surge of covid19 confirmed cases in March.

But the scenario has completely changed owing to the COVID -19 pandemic. There were 300 multiplied confirmed cases in Berlin between 5th March and 30th March.

Germany and Italy are worst hit by the pandemic and so is their Airbnb bookings:

In Seoul and Taipei, there were almost negligible new confirmed COVID cases in April. At the same time, Germany and Italy are the countries which are worst hit by the pandemic. This is the reason why we do not find any significant Airbnb activity in Berlin and Milan when Taipei is seen to perform the best among these four in the month of April.

After the year to year growth adjustment, Seoul is seen to have the maximum number of bookings. The decreasing order of bookings for the other cities includes Taipei, Berlin, and finally Milan.

The comparative analysis of predicted occupancy rate versus the actual rate in February, March, and April:

The global pandemic Covid-19 has affected the Airbnb bookings significantly as discussed below:

Seoul was expected to have a 25% fall in the bookings in February which rose to 61% in March and 73% in the month of April.
Taipei, as discussed earlier, was predicted to see a drop in Airbnb bookings by 42% in February but in March, there was a 68% drop and 84% drop in April.
For the month of February, Milan was thought to witness a 26% drop in the bookings but it was 95% in March and rose to 98% in April.
Compared to all the above cities, Berlin which had no drop in bookings in February witnessed a 70% drop in March and 95% in April.

Booking rates have fallen, still, the scenario is not that depressing:

Despite the above falling rates for booking, the future doesn’t seem to be depressing. This is because the number of future nights booked in Berlin for May is highest among the other cities, i.e Seoul, Taipei, and Milan. This portrays a good occupancy rate for the month of May which is expected to rise higher compared to the typical listings even though there is a good portion of mid-terms stays on Airbnb.

If we consider the case of Milan, this city and Northern Italy were the COVID-19 entry points for the European continent. Even though this has resulted in a major setback, short term rental markets will rebound quickly in case of successful containment.

Try out Airbnb Research Platform Now

Conclusion

The current impact of the COVID-19 demands changing the strategies for thriving in the short term rental industry. This necessitates analyzing the current data thoroughly as it will help in better planning for the business once the crisis gets contained. The demand has not completely stopped, it is just that its form has changed, i.e Airbnb is becoming a good option for travelers to seek medium as well as long term stays. Despite the low expectations of such vacation rental hosts, they open for business for all intents and purposes.

Stay Insightful

If you have any further questions about the case study, please contact us at [email protected].

All the data here without explicit references are sourced and processed by our technologies.

References

All the above Airbnb related data are retrieved from Airbnb Research Tool.

Covid related data are retrieved from CoronaVirusApp.

All About Airbnb Hosting Tips

Top Tips to Increase AirBnB Bookings During the Pandemic

Post author By Guest
Post date April 15, 2020

covid people wearing mask image

Any type of business that revolves around travel and staying away from home experiences difficulties during the Covid 19 pandemic. If you own one or more AirBnB rentals, you need to find a way to increase bookings in order to stay profitable. We have interviewed 3 experienced AirBnB hosts to ask how they are dealing with this. The following tips are safe and effective ways to get more attention on your properties and improve rental revenue overall.

Offer Self-Isolation With a Greater Benefits

Encouraging travel during times of recommended self-isolation is a challenging marketing method. However, when you have an attractive property in an interesting location, it may help get the type of attention you need. People dislike staying at home for long periods of time, so if you can offer them social distancing in a new place, they may just jump at the chance to see a different set of walls around them.

Focus on Deep Cleaning to Improve Comfort and Trust

While getting away from home seems a delightful proposition during this difficult time period, people are naturally reticent to trust other locations when it comes to their health. A large part of your marketing efforts should include assuring people that you use professional cleaners and proper sanitization methods to ensure that your property will not get them sick. Also, it is 100% necessary that you do so as unintentionally spreading Covid 19 to your renters would be disastrous both for their well-being and your business.

Increase Interest With Low Costs and Easy Cancellation

Although you must remain profitable even during the pandemic, drastically cutting rental prices works well to fill in your bookings calendar. Not only do you need to compete with other AirBnB units, but you also have to persuade people to leave their homes and visit someplace else.

Lack of surety about future travel bands or quarantine regulations may work against your rental business, too. Another tip involves making a simpler cancellation policy with absolutely 100% guarantees and transparency. This helps with marketing, but you should push for delayed bookings at a later date instead of canceling them completely.

Smart Marketing Techniques for Repeat Bookings

Think outside the box during this unique time. To market your AirBnB houses, apartments, and rooms to people who are specifically traveling to help out with the pandemic. Many medical professionals, for example, are volunteering their time in different cities and need places to stay. Go on Facebook, other social media platforms, and the usual booking websites and speak directly to these heroes who would be happy to spend their time in a comfortable home rather than an impersonal hotel room.

When it comes to increasing AirBnB bookings, all of the marketing methods in the world will not help you unless you instill the type of trust that people need to feel these days. Focus on low costs, easy cancellation, deep cleaning, and reaching out to new and former renters who just want to get away from it all for a while. You can maintain your profits and set your business up for increased success after these challenging times are gone.

You can find the full details of the Podcast interviews with hosts here!

Story from Teri – Charlotte, NC

Story from DeShan – Dallas, TX

Story from Renee – Grrenvile, SC

Story from Christian – Dallas, TX

Image credit: Designed by Freepik

Tags Hosting Tips

Airbnb Investment All About Airbnb

How to invest in Airbnb property – Kuala Lumpur Malaysia

Post author By Guest
Post date April 14, 2020

This post was written by Wei Hong Low.

Airbnb has grown 21% compared to August 2019 earning gross revenue $4,308,726,681. More impressively, it has grown to 150 million users and a current 6,370,563 property listings across 191 countries. So far, it has been very successful for Airbnb.

In Southeast Asia, Malaysia continues to be the fastest-growing country for Airbnb for the second year running. There is a total of 53,000 listings in Malaysia which brings in an estimated RM3 billion direct economic impact in 2018 alone. Knowing that Airbnb business is growing fast in Malaysia, there is a question keeps looming over my head.

What is the best area to start an Airbnb business in Kuala Lumpur — the capital of Malaysia?

Before thinking about the above question, there is another question that immediately pops up in my mind. What am I thinking about? I do not own a house yet, why am I thinking about this question? However, I still decided to google whether there are other ways and here is what I found.

There are two ways from which you could start an Airbnb business. One is to rent out one of your own properties, the other way is to rent other people’s property to launch an Airbnb business. In other words, I do not need to own a property to start!

If you want me to choose which way to start, I would go for the second option first. As it is more flexible, I could rent a property for a relatively short period of time compared to buying a property. The other reason is that I can have a taste of how is it like being a host in Airbnb, before buying a property just for the sake to start an Airbnb business.

In this article, I will be discussing how I manage to obtain the data for later analysis. Without further ado, let’s start!

Data Collection Journey

Before I start to crawl the Airbnb website, I came across this website which seems to change my mind to do other topics. In summary, the Airbnb website actually does not keen to share the data they have. Amsterdam government tried to scrape the website weekly appeared to have been given up in scraping this website.

Despite knowing that I will be facing a lot of issues, I still decided to try to crawl the website. Now, I am going to share some of the problems I faced when I was crawling the websites.

The first problem I faced is the dynamically changed Xpath or CSS path. Meaning that you can’t just use one example of the Xpath, and assuming that using this Xpath on all the listing’s webpages would give you the same piece of information you want.

Besides, the stability of the crawler is also another issue. Here are some of the ways I would suggest if you are scraping Airbnb. The most efficient way I found is to combine both rotating IPs and slowing down the crawler.

After spending hours inspecting through the network tab, I found a path in which you would be able to access the JSON that contains neater data. Therefore, my first problem has been solved! In order to increase the stability of my crawler, I rotated IPs and slowed down my crawler. Finally, I was able to crawl data in a much stable pace.

Data Cleaning Journey

After collecting the data, let’s do some data cleaning.

First, I obtained the highest price of listings which have at least one review. Let’s called this price — Price A. Moreover, I removed all the listings which are higher than Price A — outlier listings. In other words, outlier listings are listings that have a ridiculously high price but no one has ever left a comment.

Duplicated listings were removed based on localized neighborhood, which only left around 5590 listings. Moreover, the estimated prices of properties for the top 10 listings area were collected from edgeprop, brickz and propsocial.

Data Exploration

A good way to show the price distribution of Kuala Lumpur is to plot a choropleth. This map is segmented by the 11 federal constituencies of Kuala Lumpur. According to the figure, you can see that the northeast part of Malaysia has the highest average price while the central part of Kuala Lumpur has a fairly competitive price.

If you are budget traveller coming to Kuala Lumpur for a vacation, I guess you know which area to stay now!

Now, let’s have a bird’s-eye view of the listings distribution across Kuala Lumpur. As you can see, most of the Airbnb listings are accumulated in the city center area of Kuala Lumpur. That’s why the price of the listings are lower in the city area as supply is much higher.

Feel free to navigate the interactive graph to have a much deeper look into a specific area in Kuala Lumpur.

Data Analysis

The figure above shows the top 20 most expensive neighborhoods. The triangle represents the number of listings while the bar represents the mean price of listings.

What insight you could get from this graph?

Taman Bukit Maluri, Taman Golden, and Segambut have a relatively higher price and lower listings. One of the reasons might be that there is not enough supply for that area and thus the price is higher. If you are considering to start an Airbnb business, you can do some research on that area whether the place has demand and the cost of renting or owning a house is affordable.

Now, it is time to know the answer.

What is the best area to invest in Kuala Lumpur?

Let’s consider only the top 10 neighborhoods that have the most listings. Before I start to explain the calculation, let me explain some of the terms which I am going to use.

How to calculate the Return on Investment (ROI) in the housing market?

ROI (%) = (monthly rental * 12) / property value

Therefore, in our Airbnb case, I use occupancy rate * fee per night * 30 to calculate the monthly rental. Besides, base on the report by AirDNA, the average occupancy rate for Kuala Lumpur is 66% from 2018–2019. Assume there are on average 30 days each month.

Thus, the final formula looks something like this.

ROI (%) = (fee per night * 0.66 * 30 * 12)/ property value

The other variable I am looking for is the demand. However, if I need to get the actual number of bookings, I would need to build a larger scale of a web crawler. Therefore, for my case, I use number of reviews as a proxy to the demand.

The best areas to invest are Kampung Baru and Chow Kit, which lie in the top right quadrant. In order words, these neighborhoods have a high ROI (%) and demand. This graph is for an investor who wants to invest in real estate to start an Airbnb business.

On the other hand, for a person who can’t afford to buy a house, but who intends to start an Airbnb business, he or she will need to look into a slightly different metric. Instead of looking into ROI (%), he or she should be looking at airbnb expected monthly income/ monthly rental feewhich is equivalent to (fee per night * 0.66 * 30)/monthly rental fee. Here, I will define it as revenue to cost ratio.

If you do not want to own a house to start an Airbnb business, Chow Kit and Kampung Baru would be the place that you could consider.

All the estimated rental fee and housing price I collected is from some free websites. Therefore, if you want a more accurate number, you would need to subscribe to one of the paid services, for instance, brickz. Besides, all the data above ignore the seasonality effect, as I only scraped data from 29–11–2019 to 02–12–2019.

Final Thoughts

Thank you so much for reading it until the end. I really appreciate it!

What I would say is this mini-project really consumes quite some time for me, so if you do like or prefer this kind of content, do let me know in the comment below.

Besides, the collection of Airbnb data is very time-consuming as well. However, in order to thank you for your support this year, I would like to give it out for free!

The dataset I had collected contains a total of 71 neighborhoods in Kuala Lumpur. If you are interested to get the dataset so that you are able to play around with it, feel free to check out this link!

This post is featured in Tech In Asia, feel free to check out over here!

See you in the next post!

References

About the Author

Low Wei Hong is a Data Scientist at Shopee. His experiences involved more on crawling websites, creating data pipeline and also implementing machine learning models on solving business problems.

He provides crawling services that can provide you with the accurate and cleaned data which you need. You can visit this website to view his portfolio and also to contact him for crawling services.

You can connect with him on LinkedIn and Medium.

Tags Airbnb Investments

Mortgage Rates

Location

Virtual Tours

Newer Generations

Mental Health Spaces

ESG Focus

What is Airbnb and how does it work?

How to get started with Airbnb?

How to expand your Airbnb business

1. Look for new areas to list your property

2. Set competitive prices to attract guests

3. Offer amenities and services that other Airbnb hosts don’t offer

4. Respond quickly to inquiries and bookings

5. Keep your property clean and well-maintained

6. Keep a positive attitude and be willing to help with anything your guests may need

7. Thank guests for their business once they’ve left

8. Investing in apartment buildings

9. Promote your Airbnb business on social media and other online platforms

Benefits of using Airbnb

Conclusion

Choose the right location

Create a business plan

Develop your aesthetics

Harness social strategies

How Many Total Airbnb Listings are there in Indonesia?

What is the average daily rate of Airbnb in Indonesia?

What is the occupancy rate of AirBnB in Indonesia?

What is the average revenue of the top 10% and 25% performing 2bedroom houses?

Amenities

Conclusion

Stay Insightful

References

Germany missed the chance they had, in February 2020

Germany and Italy are worst hit by the pandemic and so is their Airbnb bookings:

The comparative analysis of predicted occupancy rate versus the actual rate in February, March, and April:

Booking rates have fallen, still, the scenario is not that depressing:

Conclusion

Stay Insightful

References

Offer Self-Isolation With a Greater Benefits

Focus on Deep Cleaning to Improve Comfort and Trust

Increase Interest With Low Costs and Easy Cancellation

Smart Marketing Techniques for Repeat Bookings

What is the best area to start an Airbnb business in Kuala Lumpur — the capital of Malaysia?

Data Collection Journey

Data Cleaning Journey

Data Exploration

Data Analysis

Final Thoughts

References

About the Author

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