We have interviewed above 30 Airbnb hosts during the pandemic (Between mid-March – July), and 4 out of 5 Airbnb hosts have broken even.
Some of them had to receive mid-term or long-term bookings, which they wouldn’t have done last year. Those bookings were from various people including 1) people who rented a place to work as a personal office while working remotely 2) people who go to secluded private rental for a getaway 3) a couple who don’t have to work in NY so just decided to stay in their rental in Florida.
You can hear their individual stories from our podcast blog. Here are 3 featured interviews.
Although the total amount of travel activities were significantly reduced, people are still using Airbnb. It’s worth noting that some regions have recovered fully or even doing better than last year.
Just over a year ago, me and my colleague were talking about what would be the highest rental yield one can make whilst working in London.
Out of many ideas, one thing that caught my ears was a story from this woman who is doing Airbnb rental arbitrage in Canary Wharf with twenty 2-bedroom units.
She would rent a 2 bedroom apartment at £1,800/month and she’d put that house on Airbnb at £180 per night.
I did a quick search on Airbnb and Zoopla to confirm those numbers, and yeah, those numbers made sense.
That meant if the house is 70% booked, it will make 3,600/month and after paying rent and other expenses, the profit could be easily above 1,000/month per unit. Seems doable.
The competition in Canary Wharf seems to be getting intense and I wanted to leave London and live somewhere else in the near future. There must be more better opportunities in other cities.
If I can continuously identify such opportunities, worldwide, I can be rich.
It’s easy to find out long term rental prices. But, how can I find out how much I can make on Airbnb? I can check out nightly rates from Airbnb website, but how do I know occupancy rates?
So I started searching for occupancy rates of Airbnb in different locations. The data doesn’t exist. Yes, maybe there is some data online saying “Airbnb occupancy rates in London is 45%” but it is too ambiguous. I needed more detailed information.
I’ve found one service offering Airbnb data outside of the US, but it was too expensive ($400+ to see data for 10 cities), and many reviews said data can be inaccurate.
That’s when I decided to work on building an affordable and accurate analytics platform.
I’ve started scraping data from Airbnb. Millions of listings. I’ve started interviewing Airbnb hosts asking them about their occupancy rates and ROI.
After a few months, I’ve started to see the patterns. I’ve built regression models on top of it. Then, scrape data, readjust the models, interview Airbnb hosts and repeat the whole process again and again.
The happiest moment is when Airbnb hosts tell me that my number is pretty close to theirs.
Feel free to take a look on my app, you can click below.
Vacation rentals in Europe have just begun to recover. We have analyzed over 300,000 Airbnb listings across various cities in Europe and the UK this week.
One major pattern that is observed in the past month is that the vacation destinations in countries with high domestic Airbnb guests have started getting more bookings in June 2020.
For example, the UK has been having high domestic Airbnb guest ratio with above 50% of guests are travelling from the UK. The major coastline destinations in the UK, such as Brighton and Cornwall have experienced a surge in Airbnb bookings as soon as the UK has relaxed the lockdown in 2nd July.
Countries like Spain and Italy have been relying highly on international travellers and their bookings aren’t so good yet.
Please note that many other cities are not in the below charts but are receiving a healthy amount of bookings. If you’d like to know the number of Airbnb reservations made in June in your area, please use our market research app! (Also, make sure to add your city if it’s not available in the platform)
Please read this post to understand how we have gathered these data. The charts show the YoY growths in a number of nights booked – from January to beginning of July 2020.
4 European Vacation Destinations show a sign of a recovery
More domestic travellers, less international travellers
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.
In this episode, we have had a chat with an Airbnb host from Oakland California. His name is Ansel and he owns one mobile house. Here are Some quick facts. He has been achieving above 90% occupancy rate. He makes about $20,000 per year from a mobile house which is valued around 40,000. It’s an incredible return on investment.
Summary!
How he got started with Airbnb rental 0:52
Occupancy rates & and his experiment with different pricings 2:34
Revenue is around $3,000 13:15
Net profit is around $1,700 14:13
How much would it cost to buy a tiny mobile like this in Oakland. 17:08
So tell me, how did you get started with running your rental on Airbnb.
Ansel 0:58 So one of the things That when I started I I was focused on the tiny house because I knew that nobody else had a tiny house in my area like an actual tiny house on wheels, the car you see on TV, and the thing about my location is that it’s not the ideal location there’s not a lot of places to to go either on bars. So if you’re looking for location most people would rent in another area right? So I asked myself what what else can I do to not necessarily compete but set myself apart? Because I’m dealing with the location issue. Now. I never had any issues with bookings, but I wanted to raise my price. So what I did was I did some research and and I determined that my tiny house needed to be Instagram bubble, right. I needed it to be Be a place where people wanted to take pictures, pictures, pictures, pictures. Now they already took pictures, because it’s a tiny house. But I decided to redesign my interior. I put up artwork, I painted for walls, new furniture, and I made it made it pop, right. I wanted people to say wow, like I really wanted to blow people away. And so when I did that it worked. To where I was, I was able to go from $60 a night to 90 a night.
Occupancy rates of his Airbnb listing in Oakland (CA) & and his experiment with different pricing
Jae Seok An 2:34 Right? Right and feature was it? Excuse me what year yeah 2019 right. So that’s when you first listed your that tiny house on Airbnb. 2018 is when I first listed it, right?
Ansel 2:52 And then a 2019 is when I remodelled it and then I raised the prices. I’ve been a super hostess My first evaluation period that was that was pretty easy because I do a lot of really big on cleaning and I only have one listing. So it’s easy for me to control quality control. Right, right. And once once I did that my occupancy rates Well, I could I could run at 100%. But I did more research and I realised that it’s better to have those higher price bookings. And, you know, if you’re, if you’re at 100% occupancy, your price is too low. That’s what they say. Right. And so in doing that research, I was able to, even when I raise the prices, people would still book so I kept raising the price right? In trying to find that sweet spot, but I never used any of the automated price. I never use any of the tools like the Airbnb has a tool And then there’s a, there’s a couple other platforms where they’ll adjust your price for you, I forget what they’re called. But out because I only had one listing, I wanted to do everything myself. And I also because I work full time as well, right, and I have a son, I didn’t want to overwork myself with cleaning because I didn’t outsource my cleaning. Because I feel like that was one of the things that would have really, really, really, really wanted to maintain my my five star rating. And I was afraid that if I hire someone, they wouldn’t clean it. The way I would think about entrepreneurship is sometimes you have to get out of your own way. Right? If you want to scale up, you have to outsource things. And because I wasn’t in the process of scaling, I never outsource my cleaning. So I increase my minimum, my minimum nice day, right and when I did that, It made it easier for me.
But then
my son’s mother, she had resigned from her job. And she had, you know, a lot of free time. I said, Hey, do you want to, you know, help out with the Airbnb? And she said, Sure. So then I went back to, to allow one night bookings, but I raised the price, right? So if you’re going to book one night, raise the price. If you booked for more nights, there’s going to be a discount. But to my surprise, people were booking at that ridiculous price.
Jae Seok An 5:35 Right? So what’s the discount that you’re giving if people book for more than a diet?
Ansel 5:42 at that? Well, right now it’s different, right? COVID-19 but at that time, I was, I want to say like 20% 15 10% so it wasn’t a lot, right. But I wanted to make it you know how to do it. value because a lot of people are looking for price, right? There’s some people that want to try a tiny house. And then there’s, you know, avid travellers, they’re trying to look for the best price. Right, in a clean space. So it was that it was that balancing act, you know, wondering, are people coming to me for the price? Or are they coming to me for the experience? Right. And I determined that the experience that I offer superseded price, right there were there was the market allow for a lot of people who really want to try out a tiny house, right. So people who are looking to save money. I didn’t have a problem because there were so many people travelling to San Francisco to the Bay Area. We have so many people travelling that that I didn’t have to worry about. I kept figuring out that I can continue to raise and raise and raise and then I got I got featured in the local news. They did a story on my tiny house. So I was able to raise the price again.
Jae Seok An 7:06 Right? So how much did you raise? Like?
Ansel 7:11 So I was at the highest that I went per night was 130 and night for days where there was like an event, because I told you, I’m next to the Coliseum. So for like concerts and stuff like that, that’s why we’re but on average, I was between 90 and 100. And remember, I started at 60.
Jae Seok An 7:34 Right, right. So when you’re at 9200, how much of the occupancy rate is you managed to get?
Ansel 7:41 I want to say I was at about 90%. occupancy.
Jae Seok An 7:44 Well, still, you’re at that. Yeah. Yeah. Why don’t you increase even further?
Ansel 7:51 We said why didn’t there? Yeah.
Jae Seok An 7:54 COVID-19. All right. So you’ve been increasing and increasing and then the pandemic hits. Yes, yes. Okay, so what’s your currency trading now? Because I had a look on your calendar and similar night or
thousand dollars a night. Next?
Ansel 8:11 Well, the reason why I did that is because, well, I’m in the process of deciding do I want to shift to long term,
Unknown Speaker 8:23 right?
Ansel 8:24 Or do I want to stay with short term I’m definitely not doing any one or two, I think it’d be my minimum is going to be at the minimum, five or seven days. But because of the pandemic, I bought an ozone machine and ozone machine is supposed to kill anything in the house is very toxic. You can’t run it, whether it’s you know, plants or animals or anybody inside the house. But if you run the machine, it will kill anything and then you have to air it out. So I want to give myself at least three days between guessed right. And I also wanted to give myself some time to figure out what’s going to happen. So the reason why I set it at 1000 is because I don’t want to block off my calendar because I still want it to show up. And people searches, but I know nobody’s gonna book it right. So I still have people looking at it like, what the hell? Why is this $1,000 and they can feel send me a message and inquire but this is just to give myself time to really look at the market and decide which way I want to go because I really, really like Airbnb. And then I can easily put a long term tenant in there outside of the platform. Right But um, I like the platform a lot and I’m in the process of becoming an Airbnb plus, right. They started to actually have my inspection day was supposed to be this week. But the lady who was scheduled to do my inspection for Airbnb, she got laid off. Oh, so I don’t know what’s happening that Airbnb. But they laid her off. And I made all these improvements You know, there was only a few they only asked me to do a couple things to make it Airbnb plus already. Yeah, now I’m wondering like what’s going to happen with the plus programme? Because I don’t know. But the reason why I put in 1000 tonight is because I want to I want my calendar to be clear whenever I decide to you know, whenever I’m whenever I’m going to do so I still have a couple people holding on and I’m giving full refunds if they can’t if they ask me soon enough, but if they wait to the last minute because my my, my cancellation policy has is strict. And I I set it as strict because I don’t want people to book and wait to the last minute and then cancel. And you know, I only have one listing. Right, right. So now I have five days to try to fill that slot. It doesn’t work for me. Because I am confident that my listing is so cool. It has that cool factor Instagram factor that strict. It never stopped people from booking. Right. But for the people that booked in I had it set to strict. I’m still honouring those full refunds, if they can’t if they if they contact me with Apple time, you know, but some people don’t want to cancel, they want to wait. So I said I won’t be able to honour the full refund if they cancel at the last minute, right, but if they want to cancel now, I don’t know those refunds.
Jae Seok An 11:37 Right? I see. Yeah, you’ve mentioned that you were in the process of keeping increasing the price to like see what’s the sweet spot of the open rate versus price. Are you planning to do that again when the pandemic over? Yeah, as
Ansel 11:57 soon as the pandemic hit, I immediately drop my prices, right as nobody travelling, so I looked, I dropped it really, really low. Because you know, that’s just the market, right? If you want to get booked, right got to drop those prices when when the pandemic ends hopefully soon. I’m going to go by the market, right? I’m going to, you know, basically I’ll start off low, and then and then it is getting booked quickly, then I’ll raise it right. Because we don’t want to be at a I don’t want to be 100% occupancy. And then also because I you know, it’s on my property where my house is right next to it. And it’s kind of good to have a few days where I can do some deep cleaning, or just not have you know, guests coming because every time I have guests, I’m kind of on edge, making sure that things are perfect. I want them to you know, I’m really you know, serious about my ratings. So, I’m always making sure that they have everything they need. I give a lot of extra stuff. frozen food, instant ramen, water. Beer, I give a lot of extras because I really want them to have a really good experience, right? something different than the normal, right?
His Airbnb’s revenue is around $3,000 per month
Jae Seok An 13:15 Yeah, I see. When you said you had like a 90% occupancy rate, then at like hundred dollars per night, that’s around $2,700
revenue per month.
Ansel 13:31 And also higher.
Jae Seok An 13:32 Or even higher than that. Yeah. Including the light cleaning fees with additional gas. Yeah, yeah. Right. So how much was it around?
When you’re at the pink?
Ansel 13:45 I will say 3000.
And that wasn’t even 100. Right. A couple of days blocked off. Right? Yeah. And the know how much can you earn if you put that into the Long Term rental in that, oh, I will only be earning, you know, maybe maybe 12 to 1300 a month, like, you know, less than much less than 50%.
Jae Seok An 14:13 Okay, so like after $3,000, like how much of them? Are you spending on, like painting pay for the cleaning fees paying for supplies?
Ansel 14:24 I would say
I would say
about about 1300.
Jae Seok An 14:35 About 1300. So that’s around 1700 after like everything right, right. Yeah. Which is still higher than Yeah, much higher long term rental. Okay. Mm hmm. Are you thinking about like running a few more Airbnb properties because you’re doing well?
Ansel 14:53 I am exactly I’m actually going to buy another tiny house. I have. I have space on my property for two more tiny house. Okay, yeah. So and then I also have a studio I converted my garage into a studio. So I have a long term tenant in there. She’s a long term tenant. They’re a tiny house Airbnb and and I can get two more half space for two more tiny houses. So I’m definitely planning on doing that. I’m just waiting for the market to see you know, I want to get things at a discount, right? now’s a good time to buy stuff at a discount. But I also want to see what’s going to happen with travel. Right?
Jae Seok An 15:32 So yeah, so about the two of two houses that you’re thinking of by easy like we’re in the same building as your house.
Ansel 15:40 Yeah, but these are gonna be smaller. So mine is a my tiny house is 25 feet long, right? lumen, there’ll be 14 feet long. And then they’ll also have composting toilets, right? So it’s gonna be a little different.
Jae Seok An 15:54 Right? So are you we I don’t really get it. So are you buying the new
house? Or is it our already waiting you’re building.
Ansel 16:02 Oh, so yeah, I’ll be buying the tiny houses. They’re on wheels. They’re on the trailer.
Jae Seok An 16:07 Okay, yeah, so moveable house?
Ansel 16:11 Yes. Yes. They’re on wheels. They’re built like a regular house, but they’re on trailer. So we buy it, and then they deliver it and then I park it.
Jae Seok An 16:20 Right. Wait. So this house that you’re renting on right now is also the movable house.
Ansel 16:27 Yes. It’s a typo right
Unknown Speaker 16:29 there. You meant
Ansel 16:31 tiny house on wheels.
Jae Seok An 16:32 Yeah. Okay. Wow. Right.
Like, how does that
work? Do you have to also buy the right to like,
Ansel 16:39 park? No, no, no, it’s not my it’s not my property. So technically speaking my neighbor’s there was a time where they could they could petition the city to say that it’s a blight, you know, an eyesore yet, but I don’t live in that type of neighbourhood. As a matter of I have a nicest house in my neighbourhood. And my neighbours love me. So it’s not a blight per se.
Jae Seok An 17:08 Okay, and so do you mind sharing how much it would cost to buy a mobile like tiny house like the one you have.
Ansel 17:17 So mine’s right now probably be the one that I have right now probably 50,000 maybe a little less because of the market. And also depends on where you buy it. Like where in the United States where you buy it from, because things are cheaper on the east coast and down south and I’m on the west coast in California where the cost of living is more expensive, everything’s more expensive. But right now, I can get a 14 foot for 18,000 and possibly less if I do some of the work if I tell them you know, don’t paint it. Don’t you know, if I just get the shell and I tell them you know, I want to do the cabinets and stuff and can be cheaper. So I will be able to add two more listings for about $40,000.
Jae Seok An 18:08 Wow, that’s really a great return on investment because yeah, making around $20,000 per year.
Ansel 18:15 It cost me 35,000 to buy at the first one. Yeah.
I can’t think of any any other ROI like that.
Jae Seok An 18:24 Yeah, that’s, that’s really crazy. Yeah. Yeah. Finally, what are the top challenges about running Airbnb with the tiny house with the mobile house?
Ansel 18:38 I say that the, the challenges are
cleaning in and because it’s a smaller space. You really have to make sure you have to get into the tight spaces and clean right it takes a little while. It takes a little longer to clean. It I say about about a minimum two hours.
Jae Seok An 19:07 Right?
Ansel 19:09 Unless you’re rushing, right.
But I don’t have anything to compare it to, I would say cleaning. And
other than that.
Yeah, that’s the only the only challenge that I’ve had is, you know, making sure that I
Jae Seok An 19:26 give myself enough time to clean. Okay. Yeah. And then. Yeah, that’s it. All right. Yeah. I think you’ve got a really, you found a really nice,
good investment vehicle. Absolutely.
Yeah, that was it about the interview. Okay.
I appreciate you. Your appreciate your time interviewing me. Yeah. I thank you so much for sharing your story. And thank you for being on here. All right. All right. I’ll talk Do you agree? All right, thank you. Have a nice day. Bye bye, YouTube.
Vacation rentals in the US have been rapidly recovering since June. We have analyzed over 200,000 Airbnb listings this week. Our research showed that the Southern States, like Texas, South Carolina and Florida, have successfully made a comeback, yet New York and California states are still struggling.
Please note that many other cities are not in the below charts but are receiving a healthy amount of bookings. If you’d like to know the number of Airbnb reservations made in June in your area, please use our market research app! (Also, make sure to add your city if it’s not available in the platform)
Please read this post to understand how we have gathered these data. The charts show the YoY growths in a number of nights booked – from January to June 2020.
More domestic travellers, less international travellers
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.
Recently, Airbnb CEO says post-COVID travel will never be the same again and added that people are more likely to travel domestically.
Our analysis also confirmed with this trend by analyzing 5 million short-term rental booking data from 2019 December to 2020 May.
In order to write this blog post, we have chosen 4 states from the US – California, New York, Florida, and Texas. And, we have selected Australia, Germany, Singapore, Portugal, Brazil, Canada, Mexico, Spain, France, Italy, Greece, Netherlands, Ireland, Japan, China and the United Kingdom.
For each booking, we have classified them into two categories, domestic and international. Then, grouped those booking data by each month and country to observe how the ratio has changed since 2019 December.
Please read this post to understand how we have gathered these data.
As you can see in the above charts, the percentage of domestic travellers has been increasing. However, I don’t see any further evidence that this isn’t a temporary increase. If you look at China, their international traveller ratio has been bounced back to the pre-Covid19 level.
Airbtics gathers and updates its data with this five-step process.
1. Source the data
Airbtics collects short-term and vacation rental data from dozens of sources, including Airbnb, independent property managers, and rental software providers.
2. Monitor the data on a regular basis
Acquiring rental data is just the beginning. This data is continually tracked, with various information collected and updated at different time points. This allows us to understand specific occupancy rates, pricing strategies, revenue, booking lead time, and guest demographics.
3. Use cutting edge technology to understand the profitability of rentals
We also use machine learning and statistical techniques, such as, binary classifications, natural language processing, time-series analysis, to understand seasonality and revenue. Binary classifications is the practice of classifying elements of a set into two separate groups based on a classification rule. At Airbtics, we use binary classification to find and recognize certain patterns in data, such as how the head to ratio or certain amenities can increase or decrease revenue in specific areas.
Natural language processing (NLP) is the process of using software to automatically manipulate natural language, the way we communicate with each other (speech and text). NLP allows us to take mass amounts of unstructured speech and text data generated every day and efficiently automate the analytics process. We extensively use NLP to analyze listings’ titles, summary and reviews to help identify insights that can make your short-term rental business unique.
The third statistical technique we use at Airbtics to understand the profitability of rentals is time-series analysis, which is a method of “analyzing time series data in order to extract meaningful statistics and other characteristics of the data”. This technique is significant because we use time series analysis to understand historical data and forecast future trends in a way that is helpful for STR investors.
Using the mentioned techniques, we are able to achieve our end goal, which is to understand the underlying factors that make vacation and short-term rentals profitable and bring substantial ROI.
4. Process calendar data
One of the most popular questions we get is: How do we know if the Airbnb calendar is booked vs. blocked by themselves?
Thanks to intensive qualitative research on dozens of Airbnb hosts to understand their common behaviors and patterns, we are able to create precise estimations of calendar availability. And by analyzing calendar data of listings at different periods, we are able to develop a model that can predict the availability of listings.
5. Analyze each market before showing them on our platform
For every region imported into the Airbtics platform, our team validates and ensures the accuracy of the gathered data through thorough research of that region. This is to clean up any data anomalies that come up. If you do not see your region on our dashboard, don’t hesitate to contact us.
The Airbtics data team is always reviewing their data processing models to give you the most accurate portrayal of the STR market.
Today’s guest is Michelle. She runs 5 Airbnb listings in Kimberely in British Columbia, Canada. This town is well known for its ski and golf resorts. The occupancy rate of her listings goes up to 95% during the high season like Summer, and down to 50% during the low season. During the high season, the net revenue is about $3,000 per month for a 2 bedroom apartment. For your reference, a quick google search shows that a 2bedroom apartment in Kimberely is between 150 – 200k USD.
Podcast summary!
How Michelle got started with her first Airbnb rental 4 years ago 1:04
Occupancy Rate during high and low season 5:21
Revenue during high and Low season. 6:08
Airbnb rental starting cost 8:36
Impact of Covid-19 in her Airbnb listings 10:15
Full Interview Transcript
Jae Seok An
When did you start your first vacation rental?
Michelle
It was almost four years ago now. We had been talking with some people that were renting out a year of all things on Airbnb that it was their, their home, but they decided to rent it out on Airbnb and rent a place for themselves long term because they made more money renting the yurt out. And you know, we we heard about that, talk to them about it. And then about a year later, we had one of our apartments our long term rentals came available and we decided as an experiment to try the Airbnb because we’ve had some really bad tenants and our laws and BC are very very stringent on evictions and getting people out. You just can’t they have more rights than the landlords. So we decided to experiment and see if we Airbnb at least if they’re bad, you know, they’re gone in two days. Yeah. So that took off like, like, we, it was unbelievable. We couldn’t believe how, how fast it booked up. And we didn’t we didn’t know we could make a lot more money than we were making. So that was a bit of a surprise to us. And so I think a month later another of our units came available. So we just put that on and we haven’t looked back as soon as you know, people of course, we didn’t push anybody out. But as soon as they moved, we just didn’t rent it out. Again. We just put it on Airbnb.
Jae Seok An
Right. I think See? So how many properties were you renting out or long term before?
Michelle
Just to start with it was four, right? But we renovated our building, and we now have five that we can rent out. We live in one. So there’s six total units. But we’ve created another unit as a direct result of our success on Airbnb and short term rentals.
Jae Seok An
Right? I see. So when you started your first Airbnb on 2016, you already had four available listings to start to it.
Michelle
Well, to start with, no, we only had the one and then the like we had them but they were all long term. So as they became available, so our first one, our first one we rented and then the second one was a month later and then about six months later, our third one came available. And very shortly after that, our fourth one came available. And then of course, the fifth one We have created,
Jae Seok An
right? You mean you build the house on the land?
Michelle
It’s a it’s a small commercial building with apartments in it. So it’s it’s an apartment building.
Jae Seok An
Right. So you have purchased the property or did you just rent? Oh, I
Michelle
see. Yes, yes. No, we bought the building probably about six years ago.
Jae Seok An
Right? And you just renovated to operate it as an Airbnb.
Michelle
Well, we renovated and initially to do short term rentals, right. But the the last unit we transferred some of the commercial space to create a unit for renting specifically on Airbnb.
Jae Seok An
I see understand, and what has been your occupancy rate like for those four listings well
Michelle
Until recently it’s been about 70 to 80% and climbing every day from from month to month it was going up and of course then this this whole thing hitting it crashed. But I was I was looking at a projected 98%. Within this summer coming summer, we would have been booked solid for all our units.
Jae Seok An
I see. Right.
What was the seasonal effect like in your area?
Pardon me? What’s your seasonal effect?
Michelle
Oh, yeah. our busiest season is the summer which is strange for a ski town but I think that’s due to the golfing and hiking. Then our next busiest season is of course the winter for for skiing. But our slow season is November and April. The rest of the time, our occupancy might be a little bit on the lower side like 50 to 60%.
In say May,
and maybe October, but the rest of the time. It’s been really good occupancy.
Jae Seok An
Right? That means above 80% Yes, usually. Gotcha. And how, how much of the profit Have you made per month with those 80% occupancy rate in the good month?
Michelle
In a good month, um, you know what, I’m just gonna I have my spreadsheet available. And I can tell you for I think our best month last last year was August and of course, we didn’t have our fifth unit online at that point and our actual net earnings after we pay all our taxes and fees, and all that That was about $8,000. Oh, nope, sorry, it was our better month was July. And our net was over $11,000, almost $12,000
Jae Seok An
or four properties, right?
Michelle
For four properties. Yeah, the fifth one we brought online just before this pandemic hit. So we didn’t have a chance to really get it going. And as soon as the pandemic hit, we took it off, and we’re not renting it at all, because it’s a lockout to our own place and just want to have the security there.
Jae Seok An
I see. You said each of that profit, so that means it’s after paying the
way do you need to pay the rent or mortgage or not?
Michelle
We do pay a mortgage, but our mortgage is very low. It’s only about 1200 dollars. So when I say the net profit, that’s not including our operating costs of Hydro and, you know, supplies and that kind of thing. But I’m just going by our net earnings as far as taxes and fees that we have to pay to the booking agents and the government.
Jae Seok An
I see understood Oh,
Michelle
after that, I would guess we’re probably looking for the 11 $12,000 a month, we’re probably looking at about $7,000 because we’re doing the cleaning ourselves right now.
Jae Seok An
I see.
So, yeah, so
about $5,000 per month were spent on mortgage, other bills, supplies, right, all those things. Yeah. I see. There’s two. What was the starting cost like for you to start your first project 40 from long term rental to occasion rental.
Michelle
Well, that’s that’s the amazing thing. We got very, very lucky. Okay, so we had to furnish these apartments obviously because the people being long term rentals, they were supplying their own furnishings. And that would have been really expensive except that we had a friend who is in the hotel business she she manages a local hotel and they were in the process of changing all of their decor and upgrading. So we were able to get most of our furnishings for all the apartments for free. So, you know, they were hotel casts off cast offs, but being that it was a higher end hotel. The furnishings were really, really good condition. And you know, you would think being a hotel that it may have a lot of wear, but they didn’t because It was a higher end hotel. And they, they were just changing it because to for them it was a dated decor. So, yeah, the only thing we had to really put out for was the mattresses because we didn’t want to use the hotel mattresses, and we just bought those off of Amazon. And, you know, for 200 to $300. Somewhere in there, delivered right to our door. They’re fantastic. We get lots of compliments on those.
Jae Seok An
Right. Okay, that’s that sounds good. And you’ve mentioned that now there are some regulation regarding the corona virus and you only can accept people travelling due to emergencies. And how does that affect your occupancy rate and price?
Michelle
Oh, well, we’ve we’ve slashed our rates for sure we snatched slashed our rates to almost half what they were and our occupancy rate is almost zero at this point. We are being Very, very particular about who we, who we allowed to come in, both for the safety of people who are already here and also to try and discourage this, this travel that seems to be happening all the time. So, we have right now, we have a young man who was planning on travelling before the pandemic gets, so he let his landlord know, I’m going to be travelling until the end of April. And then at the end of April, I’m going up north back to my job. So of course, his house was rented out, so he had nowhere to go. So we’ve rented to him. And then we have coming today, actually, someone from our utility, our internet utility and phone company. He’s coming here for repairs for work. So he’s going to be renting for about a week. So I mean, of course, that’s an essential service right now, especially in these times. So that kind of thing is what we’re renting for, you know, we’re being very proactive and very particular and turning away anything that isn’t necessary. Understood.
Jae Seok An
And how have you been doing your pricing before? before these Coronavirus?
Michelle
We we use wheelhouse and I discovered that fairly early on so we’re very fortunate that way had I not discovered it, we would not be making the amount of money we make. We would have left thousands and thousands of dollars on the table for sure. I’m still using wheelhouse but again, you know, I’ve just set my rates quite a bit lower. And it’s it’s been fantastic. I can’t say it enough good about wheelhouse. Right.
Jae Seok An
Finally, what lessons have you learned as an Airbnb host
Michelle
people don’t read
Yeah, it but I’ve learned that there, it takes all kinds to
make the world go round, I’ll tell you that. I’ve been shocked and surprised at a lot of things. I’ve learned that in order to run this business, you have to have a lot of patience. You have to have thick skin and big shoulders, and you have to be firm in your house rules.
When people ask for exceptions, that’s never a good sign.
It usually leads to trouble. So we’re just you know, very particular about who we let into our place because we were wanting to protect our units. But also, you know, there’s a lot of good people out there too. We’ve had people come and and just amazing people,
and they return. They return every couple of months. Of course, not now, but to It’s just been great.
Today’s guest is Jackie from Murfreesboro in Tennessee. She runs for Airbnb unit or within a 50 acres formula and she started her first listing with a mud house in the farmland. And now she is building the fifth unit (also within the farmland) to run on Airbnb. Her revenues from those four listings are somewhere between four to $7,000 per month and during this pandemic around 50% of the next 30 days or booked.
A mud house Airbnb
Podcast summary!
How Jackie got started with first Airbnb listing with a mud house 2:11
Impact of the lockdown in Tennessee to her Airbnb houses 5:05
Seasonality of her listings 6:42
Occupancy rate across the units is between 50% – 65% 8:14
About Pricing strategy 9:04
Revenue breakdown by months 9:55
What are the challenges of running Airbnb 11:31
Full Interview Transcript
jaeseok an
I can see that you have four listings as a 50 acres, farmland. Mm hmm. So are they all located? Like one next to each others?
Jackie 1:15
Yeah, they are. each one is probably about a football field away from the other one. Like in all directions. So they all kind of have their own privacy and separate interests.
jaeseok an 1:29
Right. So you have two one bedroom houses wants to do one three bedroom houses. Is that
Jackie 1:38
right? Um, no, I don’t have any three bedroom I just have a studio that’s about 900 square feet. And a tiny house that’s about 500 square feet and then another tiny house that’s 300 square feet and then the hobbit house which is made of mud
jaeseok an 1:59
Oh, Okay, all right. Yeah. So yeah, how did you get started? What was your motivation when you start your first rental?
Jackie 2:11
Um well the first rental was actually the mud house and we actually just built that for fun. It was free to build we use all the materials were from the land so we actually it’s literally just made out of mud. And we weren’t using it for anything after we got done and as I put it on Airbnb as a joke, like Haha, this will be funny. And I had it. I think I had it priced at like $30 just like I said, as a joke and someone people started booking it and I was I had no supplies. I had to go run and get an air mattress and I was like, Oh my gosh, I can’t believe that this is actually happening. And then once I saw that, and mind you this, this building does not have running water it does not have a shower. It doesn’t have a toilet nothing and people were still coming. So I said, Wow, if I’m making money off of a mud hut, how good could I do with you know something else? And that’s what started everything.
jaeseok an 3:17
How much did you charge per night for the White House?
Jackie 3:20
The mud house I started I think like 30 or $35. But now it’s up to 100 and people are still still booking like crazy. Well,
jaeseok an 3:29
yeah, I’ve never heard about mode house Airbnb. Easy. Like, have you ever seen any other houses doing the same consum
Jackie 3:41
I don’t think I don’t know if there’s any other in Tennessee, but it’s actually you know, if you option under Airbnb, like unique stays. Yeah, it would be classified under earthen homes. So
jaeseok an 3:55
yeah, interesting. And rich. Where was it?
Jackie 3:58
That that I put On. Yep. I think it was 2018 or 2007, end of 2017 or early 18.
jaeseok an 4:09
Right. And when you decided to start your second house,
Jackie 4:14
um, I would say very shortly after probably a few months, right. And then it just trickled I was like, Oh, I want to do more and more and more.
jaeseok an 4:26
Interesting. Okay. And what’s your current situation with your rental close? I can see that at least 50% of your calendars for next 30 days. Seems to be booked. Are they real bookings? Are there available bookings? Are they real bookings? Or did you just block it because of the pandemic?
Jackie 4:48
Oh, no, they’re real. Yeah, I don’t block out there.
jaeseok an 4:51
Right. So okay, that’s that’s pretty nice considering the crime situation How about like, how much of how many of the cancellations did you get in the past month?
Jackie 5:05
Um, so when everything kind of, I think I started quarantine, here in Tennessee the 18th of March, and around then I started getting all these text messages cancellation cancellation. I was like, Oh, no, it’s happening. And then you know, part of the Facebook, you know, groups and everyone is freaking out. So it scared me. So, March was actually still continued to be a pretty good month, April, scared me the beginning of April because everyone dropped off but then towards like, the second week of April is when I feel like people were starting to get sick of staying at home. So they were like, hey, and, and there’s also strategies that I use as far as writing. I changed all the time. To secluded and mentioned that we’re on land, and you wouldn’t be me or anyone you know, and that I think that really even just changing those words in the titles, I got so many more hits and like questions and I just really tried to make the potential guests understand like, I would take care of it and they’re going to be safe out here. And there’s so much you know, they can bring their kids and let them run and get energy out. Instead of being in your neighbourhood stuck inside you don’t have a yard so people really get it spiked up a lot. So I was very thankful for that.
jaeseok an 6:42
That’s, that’s nice. That’s, that’s good. When are your busiest month and when were your high this month?
Jackie 6:52
Um, what I’ll actually look at that
the month that you You think are going to be terrible are your best months. So, like, I would think out here, you know, we have the pond and like just outdoor things to do. You would think the summer it was would be great but this month or this year, my best month was February. I think I actually brought in I brought in about $7,000 in February
jaeseok an 7:26
from the four unit. Yes. Yeah, interesting. What do they usually come visit your place for? February
Jackie 7:40
um, you know, I don’t I don’t even remember what it was for. We are really close to the interstate. So I feel that we’re a good stop as far as Oh, it’s fast. I can get off the interstate. If I’m you know, in Florida and heading up northeast. I can just stop here. Or we have a lot of content where, you know, 35-40 minutes from Nashville, which is a great hotspot right now. I think a lot of things like that just come into a good play with it.
jaeseok an 8:14
Right. Make sense? Then what has been on occupancy rate during, like the high season for you, which is February and like around that time?
Jackie 8:27
I think our occupancy rate was about 65% 65.
jaeseok an 8:32
How about like during summer last year?
Jackie 8:36
I believe it was a low 50s.
jaeseok an 8:40
Low 50s. Alright, so there isn’t much too much of the gap between the high season and the low season for you. Right? Yeah. All right. And how do you do pricing
Jackie 8:56
as far as like my cleaning fee and everything like that.
jaeseok an 9:04
The nightly fees like how do you decide how much that’s going to be cost on that night?
Jackie 9:11
Um, so I do not do the smart pricing because I do not trust it. Right. So I just kind of, I will, maybe once a month go through Airbnb and type in, you know my location and look at what everyone else is doing. And I just want to be just a tad lower. I mean, if you want to do $79 or $70, do 69 because that looks better than 70. You know, and then don’t totally jack up your cleaning fee to where when they go to checkout, they’re like, Oh my gosh, what the heck happened here, you know? Yeah. So
jaeseok an 9:55
that’s it. I see. That’s interesting. And what has been Your revenue dream. You’ve mentioned about February, but during like the typical months, like November, October, or April,
Jackie 10:10
um, I would say, let’s see.
So
last, let’s say last May, we brought in
4400.
June was 5300.
July was 5200.
jaeseok an 10:39
All right, so that’s the total revenue. Yeah.
Jackie 10:43
So I’m I my goal that I am satisfied with for the amount of work and money that I put in, is, I want to at least clear 4500 and I’m okay now if we get above that, that would be amazing. But I set that goal for myself.
jaeseok an 11:04
Right and does around how many nights that you need to be booked for the month?
Jackie 11:12
Um
I would need to be booked
about 65
jaeseok an 11:23
right
Jackie 11:24
between that’s what for so I mean that’s, that’s pretty low Really?
jaeseok an 11:31
Yeah, cuz Yeah, I can’t, I saw that you also have like a monthly discount or like weekly discount. So if you get that kind of bookings then you have like one month fully blocked. So that’s 100% occupancy rate for that one house. Right. Okay. Yeah, the next question is, what are the top challenges about running Airbnb for you?
Jackie 12:00
I would say the challenges for me are, I work full time as a dental hygienist so I really can’t oversee cleaning and things like that I clean on the weekends when I’m off to cut costs. But say I’m very finicky when it comes to cleaning. So I really, you know, even just a hit one hair left on the sink or anything like that, that just drives me crazy. So finding good people, reliable people to help you clean and then also pricing because if the pricing yourself too low attracts very, very bad guests, and I’ve had a few bad guests because I think I attracted them myself with my low pricing. And then I think that’s really The majority of it and probably will just wear on your furniture that you’ve bought, because you need you need nice things if you want to attract the right guests, but then in the same breath, the nice things that you’ve purchased are getting degraded over time.
jaeseok an 13:19
Right? Make sense? Are you planning to make your own personal website for the Airbnb?
Jackie 13:28
I have, um, I have made
my own Instagram pages so and I’ve linked them through when you check in. You know how you can add the photos. If there’s any special check in Yeah, I’ve taken photos for each listing but then at the very last photo is please follow us on our
on our Airbnb
Instagram page.
jaeseok an 13:58
Okay. Right, and you’ve mentioned about getting the right cleaning is one of your challenge because you need to work full time. Right? And how do you how did you find the cleaners and how do you like keep them to work with you?
Jackie 14:22
Thankfully my cleaners have been people that I know I just I honestly don’t know how people would I know there’s apps you know out there that you can like turn over Airbnb that you can find people to do the job for you. But again, I just don’t really trust people that I don’t know to do it.
jaeseok an 14:45
I see so you know, some people and they are the one who helps with your Airbnb. Are they your co host as well?
Jackie 14:55
Yes, they are. Yep. So they can answer people while I’m at work.
jaeseok an 15:00
Alright. Yep. Are you planning to get more houses built in that farmland?
Jackie 15:09
Yes, I we’re actually working on our fifth one right now.
jaeseok an 15:13
Okay. How is that going?
Jackie 15:16
Um, well, it’s, it’s going okay. It’s, you know, kind of thinks because we’re in this pandemic. So, you know, I’ve been furloughed, so and I’m on unemployment and my unemployment has not kicked in still. So I’ve had zero income come in. Thank God for Airbnb. It’s been honestly such a blessing. So I’m kind of trying to conserve so we’re gonna, that’s we have something we’re doing, you know, where we do ROI, everything so we just have to kind of wait until we have some more cash flow coming in to do the things we need to hire out.
jaeseok an 15:58
I see him Like paintings or he’s told me
Jackie 16:04
Yeah, we do we do all that ourselves. So thankfully also my husband is in construction so we can do most of it. Really. It’s just buying the supplies. So like buying the cabinets to instal, we can do everything ourselves and we just, we just need money.
Today’s guest is Matt. He runs 10 listings in Toronto and he is a co-host of some of those units. He achieves an above 85% occupancy rate in an average month. It breakevens during the low-season and making up to six to six thousand dollars per his one-bedroom condominium unit. He is also an owner of airbnbuncovered.com with a youtube channel giving useful information for Airbnb hosts.
Matt's Airbnb
Podcast summary!
How to choose where to run an Airbnb? (1:13)
Matt's is doing a combination of rental arbitrage and co-hosting (4:02)
How to find co-hosting opportunities (6:16)
Current status of Matt's Airbnb listings during the pandemic (7:45)
What is the seasonality of Airbnb in Toronto - Summer is the busy season, but there's still business travellers in winter. (8:24)
Average Daily Rate (pricing) difference between low season and high season. The price in high season is at least double. (9:53)
Occupancy Rate is above 85% (10:02)
Revenue for 2 bedroom apartments are $2,800 - $6,500 (15:11)
What are the hardest things about co-hosting? (15:33)
So yeah, when you like acquire new Airbnb properties, how do you make the kind of decisions like what’s your process
Matt Caissie 1:13
so I first start with area like the location. And in Toronto I have a specific zone that I want to keep inside. And it’s the same zone that I tell my co hosts to, to focus on as well. And what makes that zone good is the proximity to the two things. So the first is proximity to tourist attractions and large concert venues and the CN Tower in Toronto, which is a huge tourist draw. Right? So luckily those things are all close together. And then the second thing that I look for is to make sure that there is the location is close to A business district because there are really two types of travellers on Airbnb hosts who are travelling for vacation and those who are travelling for business.
And so the vacation travellers drive the price up in the summer and the business travellers are the ones that keep things going in the winter. Right. The other thing, that’s the other good factor is to be close to a convention centre, okay to try to attract business travellers. So luckily here in Toronto, those the proximity to those kind of two or three main things, the proximity to office buildings to a convention centre, and two main tourist attractions are luckily they’re all really close together. So I stick to running properties in those areas and in that area.
jaeseok an 2:53
Right, I see. Are those areas popular for short term? No, I mean, Long Term rentals as well.
Matt Caissie 3:02
They’re less popular for long term rentals because
a most of the condo buildings in those in that area are a lot of short term rentals, which can detract from long term stays. Yeah.
Unfortunately, that specific area,
which has which is close to the financial district and to the tourist stuff, doesn’t have a lot of,
I don’t know, kind of call it day to day. things,
jaeseok an 3:31
right.
Matt Caissie 3:33
So it’s less attractive. I mean, there are tonnes of condo buildings down there. So people are definitely living in those areas. Right.
jaeseok an 3:43
Yes, he sounds like a pretty good place to do those rental arbitrage, renting out in the long term and renting it out on Airbnb.
Matt Caissie 3:53
Yeah, yeah, for sure.
jaeseok an 3:55
How about yourself, are you renting out those properties? Are you are you renting those properties Do you by me?
Matt Caissie 4:02
Mine are combination of arbitrage and co hosting.
jaeseok an 4:06
Okay? Right? What do you mean by co hosting? So you. So there’s different types of the co host and what kind of CO hosts like how much of the worst thing you do.
Matt Caissie 4:20
So when I take a new co hosting client on, I take a fixed percentage of the total revenue. And I effectively remove the main host out of the day to day operations completely. And so I am only involving a host when we’re talking about strategic decisions about pricing over the long term, but not say I want to change the price for the next few weeks by increasing it by $10. That’s not going to go to a co host. So basically, I come in and I manage the entire operation. From looking after the cleaning to the restocking, to managing everything to do with guests and key exchange and check in and check out, my hosts really hands off. And that’s great for them because they don’t want. They want the additional revenues from Airbnb, but they don’t want to be woken up at three o’clock in the morning or have to wait up late for a guest. And so that’s the service that I provide to them is I will be I will manage everything for you. And you’ll be only involved on a strategic level with se, which is about setting our, you know, our pricing and our strategy for the year what types of desks we want. And then otherwise, we might be in touch if there’s a we wouldn’t be in touch if there was a maintenance issue. That wasn’t easily rectified.
jaeseok an 5:55
I see him, he says and how much of the percentage usually take from the revenue or profit.
Matt Caissie 6:04
So it’s usually 20%, which is the standard right here in Toronto, right from the total revenue. Yes.
jaeseok an 6:16
That’s pretty good. And how do you find those who do find someone who already want to find co host? Or do you find just normal, long term rental hosts and convincing them to lease it on Airbnb?
Matt Caissie 6:31
So I’ve been lucky. All of my co hosts have found me in one way or another. Okay, way back when I first started being a co host, four years ago or five years ago, Airbnb actually had created a marketplace where hosts who were already super hosts and met some other criteria were eligible to make themselves available to to co host for other people. And then they marketed the CO hosting marketplace to hosts. And so my first two co hosts found me that way. So they wanted to co host they went into the marketplace, they saw what I was up to, and the description that I had given. And so that’s the first two came. And then the last three came through word of mouth.
jaeseok an 7:23
Right. So you have eight listings right now.
Matt Caissie 7:30
10 times.
jaeseok an 7:33
And how are they doing right now? I mean, how are you heavy? You? Are you still accepting the guests? Or have you blocked some of the like, next few weeks? How’s it going?
Matt Caissie 7:45
So we’re still open. We are complying with the local laws and the law, the bylaws within our buildings. And so in many cases, that means that our reservations have to be 30 days or longer. Right
jaeseok an 8:02
Right, so the guests you’re accepting are staying longer than 30 days. Yes, exactly. Right. Okay. You’ve mentioned about the high season is in the summer with tourists plus business travellers and low season seems like the winter.
Matt Caissie 8:24
Yeah, we follow a very typical seasonality curve. Yeah, so it’s exactly that. So the high point is July and August and that’s double the revenues from January and February.
jaeseok an 8:41
Right.
Matt Caissie 8:42
And basically from March until June, you can curb the revenues up almost on a straight line to meet the the top and in July and then we rebound slightly in September because Toronto has And an International Film Festival in September, and that’s for 10 days. And those 10 days are the absolute best nightly rates of the entire year. Right. But then after that tourist season is over, the festival is over and we take a pretty, pretty, pretty sharp decline until we get to December and then in December we get a bit of a rebound from guests who are travelling for holiday parties or people from around the area who are coming in for Christmas shopping trips. So we got a bit of a rebound in December but then it goes back to goes to its lowest in January.
jaeseok an 9:44
I see how much I feel like average daily rate difference between January and June in July.
Matt Caissie 9:53
At least double if not more. At least I will.
jaeseok an 9:56
Yeah. How about the occupancy rate in January 1. He’s June in July.
Matt Caissie 10:02
It falls. So for the average Toronto hosted falls quite a bit. For me, I try to still maintain at least 90% in January and February, right this past January and February was a bit tougher, because actually not well, travel was down. Or I shouldn’t say travel bookings were down in January in February. And I think, from the research that I’ve done that was largely due to the market here being pretty flooded. Right? So there’s a lot of growth and short term rentals in Toronto and we especially during the slow season, I think we are starting to see what happens when supply outstrips demand.
jaeseok an 10:45
Right. But
Matt Caissie 10:48
yeah, generally, I mean, I do my best keep that 90% in January, February, so January February 2019, I would have been higher closer to now. Sex are 98%. But this year, there was definitely a fall.
jaeseok an 11:05
What do you think is the reason of like this year? January? I mean, I understand about maybe March, but how come you had a decline from the January is here
Matt Caissie 11:18
is what I was saying is that the number of listings in Toronto has grown exponentially, right? And so there are a lot of hosts who are or Airbnb. So having a lot of listings in an area can be helpful because it tells potential guests that this like it helps to create the market. So that potential guest comes on to the site and they see there’s lots of options and they’ll probably make a booking, versus if they come on and they see there’s not very many options and we lose that guest. But at the same time as more people invest in Airbnb, you know through purchases or Through rental arbitrage, there are more people that need to survive. And I would hazard to say the newer entrants to the market are, they’re a bit behind. And so they’re chasing what they hear and what they hear about, you know, strong rates and increased revenue over long term rentals. Right? That’s not necessarily happening. And when it doesn’t happen, hosts get desperate, and then we start to see a real decline in rates.
jaeseok an 12:32
Yeah. Makes sense. Makes sense. So you’re saying that there has been increase in Airbnb supply, while demand hasn’t actually caught up to that supply?
Matt Caissie 12:45
Yeah, yeah. And I don’t know.
I don’t know if demand would catch it in January, February, March. right because even November for certain degree because During those times, it’s not a very great time to visit the city. It’s cold here. A lot of tourists things are shut down for the season, because we really do have an actual tourist summer tourist season. Toronto is very much like a coastal town are a cottage country. In terms of tourism. The only thing that happens in the winter here for tourists draw are hockey games and basketball games. So some sporting events, but those sporting events are, you know, a couple times a week, so you can’t build an entire tourist business on those two things alone.
jaeseok an 13:45
Right. So you’ve mentioned that you’ve had some decline in this year, like compared to last year, which was 90 to 95%. So like how much of the occupancy rate Did you have this year?
Matt Caissie 13:58
This year is lower It’s below 90 for sure.
If you want to take March or February, January, February in the first half of March, it was probably 85 to 90%. And then after mid March, we’re talking COVID stuff. So then things are very different.
jaeseok an 14:19
Yeah, make sense? Yeah. So how much easier to renting the average like two bedroom house apartment in that area in Toronto, if you’re going on the long term lease,
Matt Caissie 14:35
so I don’t deal much in two bedroom units. Right. My main thing is one bedrooms. One, a one bedroom condo for rent, pre COVID would have been
somewhere between 2100 to 2800 a month.
jaeseok an 14:57
That’s the that’s the Like the rental price to renting the one bedroom apartment for the long term, right?
Matt Caissie 15:07
Yes. Okay.
jaeseok an 15:11
How much has been your revenue in high season and low season? Wait?
Matt Caissie 15:19
Yeah the high season can go as high as 6000 to 6500. But that’s the absolute best it can be. And low season can be as low as 2800.
jaeseok an 15:33
ACC you’re breaking even during the low season and making the most out of it during the high season. And probably like, other seasons in between shows correct. Right. And that was the hardest thing about co hosting.
Matt Caissie 15:58
The hardest thing about co hosts is trying to find a co host who is going to have the same values and approach to running an Airbnb as I do. So I don’t run an Airbnb, can you fully maximise revenue at all I like to maximise revenue at the expense of everything else. So I’m only going to work with CO hosts to understand that there are going to be times that the unit may be left empty. And that’s because I’m not going to be like I have a very strict set of requirements for who I host and I’m not going to back down from those requirements because perhaps we’re not hitting our month. Running can there be a visa once with basically me and a couple cleaners is very, it can be very time consuming when things aren’t going right. And so I know Need the guests that we’re hosting to be good guests who aren’t going to cause me problems who aren’t going to do any damage? We’re going to leave on time, that sort of thing. So I’ve developed a, like I said, some some guidelines, some criteria that I use to vet guests. And then I only host guest guests that fit within
that criteria.
And I actually did have a YouTube channel. And I did a three part series on the types of guests that I think that all hosts, all hosts should host. I really think that those hosts out there who are are taking unnecessary risk and taking on any guests that basically provides their credit cards and shows up like, I think that is going to be the detriment to our industry. As a community of hosts. We need to be responsive We need to be respectful and and to do that we need to follow certain guidelines right should be hosting And on the flip side no host wants to come into a place that has been trashed from a party or find out that there were 10 people in the unit instead of two people in the unit and so I was really do need to properly vet their guests
jaeseok an 18:26
right and Do you mind sharing your venting process? Or is it something that you can if there’s something that you can share?
Matt Caissie 18:34
I don’t know if we have time to share it I really think the best thing is to head over to Airbnb uncovered.com slash blog and and then check out the videos in the blog post there
jaeseok an 18:48
says Airbnb uncovered calm
uncovered uncovered.com slash blog.
Alright, yeah. Found What was the business about?
Matt Caissie 19:02
The blog? It’s been about a year.
jaeseok an 19:04
Right?
Matt Caissie 19:06
Mainly, so I’ve been working on it for it’s an idea that I wanted to do for like, three years or more now. And I started it last about a year ago. And then I’ve really gotten serious with it over the last four months. And so the website came a year ago and then the YouTube stuff. It’s all been basically since I started filming in December and started uploading in January, so it’s still very fresh. Yeah.
