Delia:

Yeah, that’s fine. So 43% in just one month, did you manage to get that increase for one property? Oh, that’s actually really amazing! And what about properties that you manage from the start, from scratch? Do the clients are usually are satisfied with the revenue they’re getting with your management?

Matthew Metros:

Yeah, absolutely. On average, they gross in, their grossing, I would say, 3,000-4,500 on average. And a lot of our clients, you know, they come from the long-term rental world and, you know, where they were renting out their units for, you know, 1,100 and then when they’re bringing in on a month, 4K their mind blown, this is a totally new reality for them. I would say they’re definitely grateful that we’re there and we’re guiding them through this new landscape.

Delia:

Yeah, that’s actually amazing, that’s a really big number. I can imagine how surprised they must be when they, you know, see the change and how grateful they are for your service, right.

Matthew Metros:

Yeah absolutely. And we’re also, you know, we’re boutique, we’re small, we’re casual, we’re trying to keep the portfolio, we don’t want to grow it too large where Matt can’t jump on a call or Dave can’t jump on a call. So I think the big thing that kind of separates us, you know, outside of, you know, Matt is a software engineering, Dave is really good with the physical operations. It really comes down to, I can get on the phone with anybody, if you have a problem, you can always contact me and because we keep the portfolio very tight and we’re very selective with who we work with and the customer service is that that I actually think is what separates us from others.

Delia:

Now that you told me a little bit about that, can you tell me about selection process you do for the people you’re going to manage for? If you can disclose that, of course, like just something general? That’d be great to hear.

Matthew Metros:

Yeah, just very high level. I have a background in consulting and, you know, when I first had started doing that, I would have some clients that just weren’t great to work with and I always said, like, going forward, I never realized how important it is on the emotional side to really connect with your client and I would say that’s the number one thing that I’m looking for. You know, issues arise, how are you going to handle it? Are you going to be, you know, texting me frantically, sending me emails that are all over the place and hard to read? That’s someone I want to avoid at all costs. I want to work with someone that’s “Hey, I want to scale, I want to grow, I have three units”. This is my vivid vision, you’re very clear, you’re very transparent, you’re nice, you’re respectful of my time, you understand the value of time, you’re not tripping over, you know, pennies. That’s somebody that I’m trying to work with.

Delia:

Yeah, sounds about right! And do you both punch to you keep this going, like for the long-term? Always keeping the portfolio really tight, according to just people you know you’re going to be working with?

Matthew Metros:

Yeah, I will always, that’s something I want to keep, you know, because that impacts the culture of the company as well.

Delia:

That’s right.

Matthew Metros:

It’s not just me. You bring someone in and they start interacting with our team that affects their day to day. And honestly, what I’ve learned is that your team is everything. If I can vet out somebody and know that they’re not gonna be a good fit for our culture because they’re gonna be abusing our team’s time and I’m gonna protect my team so that they don’t have to experience. Those are the people that make or break the business. They’re on the front lines, they deserve every ounce of me being able to protect them. I’m not just in it for the money. There’s other parts of this that are far more important.

Delia:

I fully understand and that’s actually really great that, you know, you do that, you take care of your team, as you said, they’re very crucial for everything, right? So can you tell me about what services can a client expect from you? Like, everything you can list down, everything you can, you know, explain. So you can maybe catch someone here?

Matthew Metros:

Yeah. So we do 24/7 guest communications. We’re going to do all the marketing of your property. Understand what kind of tenants are you looking to attract, you know, short-term, are you looking for mid-term? Are you looking for traveling nurses and business professionals? Is your goal just to break over your mortgage and make sure that you’re probably? Able to keep expanding your portfolio? There’s so many factors, we want to get to know you and your goals and we’ll set up your property for success in that way. Then when it comes to maintenance and repairs, we have a team, we’re going to be able to have eyes on the property, have inspections done and if you have unique attributes to your property, just let us know, we can figure out how to, you know, service your property in that way. And then, you know, obviously, the turnovers, after every turnover our team goes in, you know, takes photos, submits a checklist and that’s another way that we get eyes on your property. Then also recently, what I’ve been noticing is, a lot of our clients are very interested in setting up direct booking websites and I’m a software engineer, so I’ve been able to set up some websites for clients to get them off the OTAs like Airbnb and VRBO and allow them to grow their brands. You know, we’ll leverage their accounts and allow them to almost like white label us behind the scenes.

Delia:

That’s amazing. Can your clients expect to be involved in some of these processes you do?

Matthew Metros:

Yeah, absolutely, absolutely. Some people are more hands on their checking, the pricing. They’re saying, “Hey, you know, we want you to use our accounts and build our brand”. So we have some clients that are like, “Hey, I don’t want to hear anything, just send me an invoice. Here’s the way that, you know, my accountant wants to see the data. Just send me an invoice at the end of the month and let’s call it”. I mean, it really depends on your level of involvement. At the end of the day, you get to speak to me and during those intro calls and I can tell you the product to what you want to see.

Delia:

That’s amazing. Can you tell me a little bit of some of the challenges that you have encounter as a property management service and also as an Airbnb host, if there’s any?

Matthew Metros:

I would say some of the challenges are just keeping track of the constant algorithm changes on these platforms. Airbnb has a huge part of the market share of short-term rentals in general and when they’re updating their algorithms, you really need to know what they’re optimizing for. So I would say, what I call it a challenge that, like, I can’t overcome? Of course not. Like, that’s why you hire me, like, so that I do the research and I figured out all right, you know, going forward, you know, of the month of June 2022, there was a recent algorithm change. Here are the things that we need to optimize for and our properties going forward, here are the new attributes that we need to add, here the new keywords we need to be talking about. So you know, but that’s truly the one part that can cause a high grossing property to the next month receive no bookings if you’re not, you know, constantly up to date with that information.

Delia:

Yeah, I completely understand and I agree with that, I’ve seen it and I know that it’s like one of the most important things when it comes to listing in Airbnb. So lastly, if you want to advertise about your company, you can do it now you have like, free time for that.

Matthew Metros:

What I would say to the community is, you can find a short-term rental property management company that does all the things that I mentioned, right? Like, there’s not that many other things that you can offer and, you know, there’s so many companies that do this. The one thing that you can’t actually get or that differentiates these companies is good customer service and finding someone that’s like very genuinely interested in making sure that their clients are receiving 110%. That’s what I would say, is going to be the biggest difference that Manage My STR is going to provide. I will literally be getting on the phone with you, Dave will literally get on the phone with you, our team is 24/7. I know that we have had people switch from Bay Casa and evolve. And when they come work with us, they’re just like, I reached out to Bay Casa and it took them five days to get back to me and numerous follows, whereas working with you guys, I hear back from you the next hour. And I know even for myself, when I’m using a service and somebody just gets back to me, just lets me know that I was hurt. I mean, that changes the relationship, that changes the outcomes of my goals because I was hurt and you know, that problem, that thing got taken care of immediately and I can promise you that over anything, that’s what you’re gonna get from Manage My STR.

Delia:

Can you leave us any contact info, so any listener can contact you if they want to?

Matthew Metros:

Yes. So, you know, you can reach out to me at Matthew.metros at managemystr.com, M-A-T-T-H-E-W dot M-E-T-R-O-S, at managemystr.com You can also go to our website, managemystr.com and then our other email would be operations at manage my str.com. You know, you reach out to us on any of those platforms, you know, we’ll get in touch with you literally within, you know, the same hour in most cases.

Delia:

Great! So I also put them on the description so people can reach out to you like easily. And yeah, that’d be it for today. Thank you a lot for your time and for being my guest today!

Matthew Metros:

Absolutely.

Delia:

Yeah, I agree. That’s pretty good! And how much is your current average daily rate?

Jim Weldon:

Yes, and we signed up with Priceline, which for any new member, I really recommend that because if you’re not familiar with Priceline, it basically takes your unit and tells you what you should be charging on a nightly basis, on a monthly basis, on a weekly basis and it looks at the area averages. So we’ve kind of trusted that and we’ve had you know, when Penn State plays Auburn in September, we’re gonna get about $900 a night, but typically, it’s mostly in the $300 range is what our typical weekend is, you know, Auburn graduations that increases, you know, weekend’s like July 4 and Labor Day, Memorial Day it goes up. So the price signs have been really good for us. So our our stays are on average about three nights on average and our monthly, our nightly is about 325 on average. And Priceline does a really nice job of, you know, as you get closer and closer to the date, it lowers the price for you. So it makes it kind of like what a hotel does, you know, if there’s openings, it lowers the price automatically. So we really happy with what we’re, you know, what we’re getting from Priceline.

Delia:

Okay, that’s great! And at some point, do you plan on pricing it yourself? Or do you think you’re going to be good with Priceline?

Jim Weldon:

So far, Priceline has done is fantastic and I don’t see, you know, we’re not smart enough to go through everyone’s pricing and then compare it to our condo and what we should be charging versus them. And, you know, there’s computer programs that can do that far better than my wife and I could, so we trust the computer program.

Delia:

Make sense. And what about your market? Do you know if there’s any, like, big season there?

Jim Weldon:

Yeah. So what’s kind of nice about our market is it’s located between two metropolitan areas. It’s about located between Atlanta, it’s two hours southeast of Atlanta and two hours southwest of Birmingham. So most of our people that are staying there are coming for the weekend or long weekends to take advantage of the lake. It’s a beautiful lake and people bring their own boats, we have a boat slip where they can rent a boat there. Our busy time is really, you know, going to be Memorial Day to Labor Day. And that’s we’ve been pretty much booked every night from May, June and July. And then it’ll be the other busy times like I said, during home football games for Auburn, during, you know, graduation, weekends for Auburn, parents weekends for Auburn, you know. We’re hoping to have anywhere from, you know, 40 weekends of the year rented out. So it’d be kind of, you know, that’d be ideal.

Delia:

Yeah, that’d be great! So the seasonality in your area depends more on the events?

Jim Weldon:

Yeah, no, it really is summer. It’s a summer destination and then it extends on beyond like I said, from Memorial Day to Labor Day is when the season is. But it extends beyond that, because we’re so close to university, that we’ll get football games, you know, people say that for football games or graduations or Parents weekend. So that extends our, primetime is summer, but we feel like because of our proximity to the university, we’ll get a lot more than just summer.

Delia:

And so far, like what have been your niche? The kind of demographic that come to your rental?

Jim Weldon:

Yeah, so pretty much it’s been really, the primary people that rent it out are young families with kids that want to, you know, use their boat, rent a boat and take advantage of the lake. So it’s pretty much been, what we anticipated being was families and that’s what it is. And it only sleeps six, so you’re not going to get two families, you might get a couple couples in there, but it’s really designed for one family that wants to cook their meals, be on a lake and take advantage of all that lake has to offer.

Delia:

And when it comes to Lake access, do they have like full access to the lake? They have just to rent the boats? And all the other stuff they can do it?

Jim Weldon:

Yeah, they have full access. We have a boast slip right outside our front door and we have a pool right outside our front door, a community pool with a golf course right there. There’s a clubhouse for the restaurant. So they have access to all of that. There’s a marina they can walk to, so it’s in a great location and it’s close to, you know, restaurants and tours as well.

Delia:

Do you include all of those like amenities in your nightly rate?

Jim Weldon:

Yeah, that’s, Priceline knows what we have to offer I guess. We plug it into the system and that helps us charge what we should charge. We don’t charge extra for anything.

Delia:

Okay, that’s great. And what about the cleaning fee for example? Do you do the cleaning? Do you hire someone for the cleaning?

Jim Weldon:

We were so fortunate to find someone that cleans the house for us and she does a great job. We just let her know our schedule and she comes in and gets it ready. Every review we’ve had so far has commented on how clean our place is and how beautiful it is and how they love it so, you know, my recommendation to anybody that’s going to do this is, if you don’t have a good cleaning person, then you’re in trouble and if you have a good cleaning person, take care of her or him.

Delia:

Yeah, that’s right. That’s like the main tips out there and like the most important thing for all short-term rentals is a clean staff.

Jim Weldon:

And a good maintenance guy because things are going to happen and you need a good maintenance guy that can get in there and fix it and then move on. So we found both, those two people were down there after we closed and we were very fortunate for that.

Delia:

And one thing I wanted to ask you about is if there has been any particular challenges that you found with Airbnb? Either can be like with the Airbnb platform, being a host, with the people you rent with.

Jim Weldon:

We’ve been really fortunate so far, knock on wood. I mean, we’ve had no issues whatsoever. Our guests we’ve had, you know, we had one group of guests that were bunch of young guys who are in their early 20s I believe, were there for a rodeo and they had a great time apparently, so we got some complaints about noise. They left a little bit of evidence of how much fun they had, but it wasn’t a big deal, you know, we cleaned it up, we apologize to neighbors and if that’s the worst thing that happens, then well, that’s awesome. But we’ve been so fortunate with everything. We’ve had no issues with Airbnb, we’ve had no issues with our guests or our neighbors. So it’s really, again, we’re new to this. We’re only had about 10 listings so far that people will stay there. So, so far, so good. No problems yet.

Delia:

Oh, that’s great then! And in how did you prepare to be an Airbnb host? Because you bought the house like on early March and then on early April, like 10 of April you were already live. So how was like your preparation? How did you educate yourself for Airbnb?

Jim Weldon:

Sure. Great, great question. We’ve read a couple books on how to host art, how to be a manager ourselves. We weren’t going to give away the profit to a property manager. To learn how to do that, we went down there after we closed. We brought the maintenance guy into to fix the things that we need to fix before you have it rented out, which wasn’t much. We did some decorating. So you know, that was furnished and they kept some things behind, we wanted to add some things like we put a TV outside in the balcony and put some different outdoor furniture out there. We kind of set up what we wanted to set it up. We went out and got all the supplies you need, like your coffee makers, your plates, your pots, your pans. So we had to go out and do all that. Once we did that, we hired a professional photographer to come in and take pictures. And then we, you know, went live on platform and we got a booking almost within four or five days. So you know, it was fantastic. So I will tell you, it’s kind of like, you know, my wife and I say it’s kind of like a rush when someone gets a booking, it’s an adrenaline rush. It’s like, “Hey, that’s pretty cool. We got a booking!”.

Delia:

And how did you prepare like yourself? How do you educate yourself like for Airbnb?

Jim Weldon:

So we did a lot of reading. My wife was the one that navigated the platform to host, to put up our site, you know, she’s the one that did all that. I reached out to people in the area that I’ve met over time, my realtor and I network through my realtor and other people that I met while I was down there to find the people that we need to be successful, you know, to find a photographer, to find a maintenance guy, to find a cleaning person. So you have to do a little networking, you have to, you know, get lucky and find the right people. So it kind of worked out well because my wife took care of the behind the scenes stuff in terms of getting us set in the platform and I took care of all the stuff that required, you know, being down there and getting everything set up.

Delia:

How long did you take with it? It was like the time when you like bought the house and we’re ready to go live with it? Or did you started to get prepared before that?

Jim Weldon:

No, we started getting prepared when we bought it. We did a crash course, but we got set up. Once we bought it, we had to come down there and get the furniture and you know, do things like that. It took us about a month to get everything set up and to get a photographer in there to take pictures. Then to get on the platform lives, it takes, you know, several days from the time you go in there, to get approved. So the whole process took us about 30 days from closing to getting going live on Airbnb.

Delia:

Wow, that’s amazing! That’s really quick.

Jim Weldon:

I guess. The condo was in great shape, so we didn’t have a whole lot to do. We were very fortunate.

Delia:

Great. One thing that I’d like to ask you about currently, you’re just renting on Airbnb, right? You don’t do VRBO, booking, any other site?

Jim Weldon:

We do VRBO as well.

Delia:

How is it doing there?

Jim Weldon:

We’ve had great luck on both of them. It’s pretty much been equal. Our guests on both have been fantastic and both platforms have been great. We’ve had no issues with anything yet. So I guess a knock on wood, you know, we’ve had all 5-star reviews, we’ve got all 5-star guests and we’ve had zero problems with either platform. So we’re very fortunate. I’m sure things will happen and if they do, you just deal with it. But right now we’ve been very fortunate.

Delia:

That’s really great for you. And do you see any particular difference between Airbnb and VRBO service? Which one would you like rather?

Jim Weldon:

I don’t really have a preference. They both, we haven’t noticed any difference in terms of the type of clientele. We haven’t notice any difference in how we get treated. So you know, we don’t have a preference. They both been great. We’ve had no issue with any of them, so let’s hope that continues!

Delia:

Yeah, let’s hope that! So that’s amazing. And the last thing that I would like to ask you about is if there are any tips that you’d like to give out for other Airbnb hosts.

Jim Weldon:

Well, that’s a great question, like I said, the tips I would give like, we’re new, so we’re still learning but I would say: get a good cleaner, get a good maintenance guy. Some of the advice that we got from people that we reached out to, you know, encase your mattresses and your pillowcases with a bedbug encasement because that’s important. We stayed there too, for, you know, we went down there after we bought it to stay there, to see what we needed as guests, you know, be your own guest, you know, find out what you need, what would make it better experience for your guests. And I would just say the thing that we’ve done is we’ve treated our guests like they were our friends, you know, we don’t spy on them, we don’t charge extra for little amenities, you know, if they reach out to us, we reach back and as a result, you know, we don’t have any issues with them. Again, I’m sure there’ll be issues down the road. But, you know, some of these sites, I just see everyone, you know, ripping on their guests, and nickel and diming them and we treat our guests at our house, like we want to be treated if we were, you know, if it was us. That’s kind of our mentality is to treat them like their friends of ours, not as if their customers and that’s kind of been successful for us. So those are the you know, again, be your own guest, find out what you need in your own house. And like we have, we bought, one of the other suggestions was we got three sets of towels for every, so if we have six peoples, we have 18 sets of towels. So  we leave six out of the time. We have three sets of bed sheets, everything is stored away in our owner’s closet, but things are going to happen, things are gonna get ruined and you wanna make sure you have surplus for the next guest.

Delia:

Yeah, that’s right. That’s amazing that you do that. So that would be it for today. Thank you a lot for your time for telling, you know, about your experience and for telling us the tips you have for us! That’s been amazing.

Jim Weldon:

Well, thank you so much for having me, I really appreciate it. It was fun.

Delia:

Yeah, that’s right. Now that you mentioned about VRBO, do you use other channels like VRBO, booking, private website?

Michelle Roehl:

Yeah, currently, I’m on both Airbnb and VRBO. I also am on Houfy. I’m looking at adding a website right now and waiting just a little bit of time to kind of see how things are gonna pan out in the next couple months, you know, with the search engines, with everything going on, I feel like I mentioned, you know, kind of making smart business decisions at the moment. This might not be the best time to put a large chunk of money into somebody building a website for us, but it’s definitely on the backburner and I’m excited to get that going once I’m a little more confident in what the economy’s gonna do.

Delia:

Yeah, that’s right! I’ve heard that most hosts are trying to open their private website, you know, for bookings because of this whole Airbnb thing and we’ll see how it goes because we don’t know if it’s going to be beneficial for the short-term rental market or not.

Michelle Roehl:

Yeah, exactly. And the biggest challenge with having your own website, I’ve had my own website for another business for a lot of years is, you know, the SEO is always difficult, especially if you have a lot of competition. So you know, there’s a lot of time and money that you can really sink into doing a website and again, I know that it’s absolutely necessary, it will be something that I do, you know, for us, Airbnb and VRBO and Houfy so far have been really great to us. But again, it’s definitely in the works and I think that as a small business owner, we’re small, we have one property right now, eventually we’d like to have more, but we really want to just get this right and make those best decisions and then decide later on and move forward. But you know, it really want to kind of build a presence and get some social media going as well. So until that time I’m then, you know, for right now, this is what works for us, so.

Delia:

Yeah, that makes a lot of sense! And how is VRBO going for you?

Michelle Roehl:

VRBO is a really good platform, it really depends on the time of year for us so far. Initially, we had a lot of bookings through Airbnb and then it kind of switched and for some reason, it was almost all VRBO. So I would say that probably about 60% booked through Airbnb and about 40% through VRBO. Houfy so far isn’t as well known, but as that gets out there, there are no hosting fees, so it’s kind of similar to having your own website without having your own website. So it’s a nice option for guests to be able to book. Right now, I don’t push anybody to go to that particular site, unless they’ve already stayed with us at least once and that way we, you know, we’ve had a good experience with them.

Delia:

Oh, that’s great! And what’s the general experience with both of them like, VRBO and Houfy? What’s the quality of the guests that you get there? The fees? How much do you change your price on those?

Michelle Roehl:

So we’ve tried to keep things simple. So I understand that there are a lot of pricing mechanisms out there, there’s a lot of different things that you can use to do that. I basically set up two seasons and I use OwnerRez to connect both or all three of those platforms and I’m integrated on all three. So I really haven’t changed the pricing on any of them, my pricing is the same flat for all three, the difference with, you know, how fees, you’re not paying those fees for the hosting site, so they’re not having to pay though. So if a guest wants to go through Houfy, they do save some money } on the tail end of that. As far as, you know, Airbnb or VRBO, I haven’t had any issues with either one of them per se. As far as guests, I think we have similar quality of guests, if I really had to kind of nitpick, I think that Airbnb, we tend to get more couples or more small groups like this last weekend, we had 5 or 6 alumni come that graduated 15 or 16 years ago from the university here in our town and they were great, they’re fantastic. They took great care of our house, they left it really clean. And I would say that on VRBO, we tend to have maybe a few more families, but not always, you know, that’s not always, it’s not really an exact science, I guess, because we kind of have a little bit of both on each platform, but I think that that’s probably a fair assessment though, as to the type of guests that we get. But I can’t think of one that we’ve had a problem with. I mean, we’ve had absolutely amazing guests.

Delia:

That’s amazing and also it’s amazing that every, you know, site works well for you because there are some hosts that don’t like VRBO because, you know, the quality of the guests and stuff like that, right?

Michelle Roehl:

I have heard that. I’ve heard that about some other platforms as well that I’ve looked into, you know, I can’t specifically and I don’t want to call anybody out or any particular site out, but, you know, I’ve heard, they’re less than quality guests on other platforms and so I proceed with caution. You know, I’ve been looking into some other platforms right now, I just haven’t seen the benefit of some of the smaller hosting sites, it’s very difficult to deny, you know, some hosts don’t like Airbnb and I get it and that’s fine. I’ve seen some some really interesting, you know, information coming from people complaints, etc. But it’s really hard to deny when most short-term rentals, it’s kind of like Kleenex, you know, when everybody talks about facial tissue, they say give me a Kleenex, it doesn’t matter if that’s the brand or not, you know, so Airbnb has kind of taken on that general short-term rental name. So it’s very difficult to deny Airbnb and VRBO in the amount of advertising that they put in for their hosts to get the sites out there. So, you know, for now, at the moment, we’re doing quite well, I think you have to be smart about anything you do, any decision you make and understand that these are just hosting sites, you know, ultimately, this is my home that we’re sharing. Ultimately, I have to, you know, set my own roles and do what I think is right for our business and not expect too much to be honest from some of the hosting sites, you know. I do have amazing insurance and if there’s something I could say to any host or anybody getting ready to host is getting good, excellent quality insurance company and make sure that you get a really good plan that covers just about anything. It’s difficult to find in some areas in particular, but we’ve been very blessed with Travelers’ insurance, they have a great short-term rental policy that we were able to purchase and put some additions on, we have an umbrella policy for liability, etc. So we make sure that we’re covered, you know, Airbnb and VRBO their reimbursement for damages etc. I mean, they’re great for small things if that’s what it comes down to, but that really shouldn’t be what we rely on as a business. I don’t think this is, that’s just my personal opinion, so.

Delia:

Yeah makes a lot of sense! You shouldn’t rely on any platform, you know, every platform can have nightmare guests, it’s not just for VRBO all this stuff. So I think is very true what you said. So one thing that I would like to ask you about is what’s your average daily rate that you have?

Michelle Roehl:

So during the on-season or the, you know, the busy season, I guess, if you want to call it that, if I really have one, we’re right around $300 a night and during the off-season, I believe I’m somewhere down around 250.

Delia:

So you don’t lower it too much? It’s just 50.

Michelle Roehl:

No, I haven’t lowered it too much. I haven’t noticed that there’s, as I mentioned before, there really isn’t a true honor off-season per se in this area because we having a university here. We do bring in people for, you know, there’s a big hockey program here, basketball, etc. So during those winter months, we still have a fair amount of families, etc, that come into town to attend events at the university. So we’ve done quite well with where we’re at and I like to keep things simple. I was a photographer for 25 years and every other photographer around me would have 15 different price lists, depending on what the customer was. I’ve always felt that that’s confusing, I don’t think that that makes a lot of sense to the customer and I’ve always tried to keep things simple for myself and for them. So I kind of take the same theory, I know that I could probably use PriceLabs or a number of any of the other things out there that go in and make sure that they, you know, update pricing almost daily, depending on what hotel rates etc. are, I don’t feel that’s necessary for us. We’re not in this just for the money, we truly, truly love hosting. I mean, I can’t tell you, the joy that we get when we meet our guests. We greet them to check-in and we just have a quick conversation, we show them around if they want to, show them where, you know, it’s important to me that they know where safety items are, fire extinguishers, first aid kits, etc. Yeah and that they know how to operate and they’re comfortable with the hot tub and even the garage door, the custom garage door, so opening it up and down. We just want to make sure people are comfortable and have the best time they can and aren’t searching around the house for something if they really need it, so.

Delia:

Yeah and you’re right next door, so that must be really helpful for them.

Michelle Roehl:

It’s going on a year and a half and I would say that I think we’ve only had maybe one person that’s even needed us to come over and it was really because, you know, there was a small storm and a limb came down in the backyard and we just went over and removed it from the backyard, so it wasn’t in their way. Otherwise, we try to make sure that we’re pretty thorough that the guests are set up and ready to go with all the extras that they need.

Delia:

Okay, that’s great. Can you tell me a little bit about your revenue, you know, during the busiest months and slower months? So it only goes down by $50, you know, your rates, but still, I’d like to know about revenue in those months.

Michelle Roehl:

Revenue, we had just about half a year last year and we brought in around $26K for just over half of the year, not knowing kind of what we were doing. The first few months, price was a little bit lower, our hot tub we had to order and it wasn’t installed until August, so I didn’t increase prices until then. So I was closer to $150 to $200 a night before we added the hot tub and just to kind of generate some business initially for that first month or two. Then we increased prices a bit to be a little bit more in line with what you’d pay for a couple of hotel rooms and to cover those costs of course. We knew where we needed to be, but we certainly needed to generate that business and get some reviews too, so we could get some people in the door. We were very blessed with being able to, you know, pretty much book almost immediately and get people in the door. You know, I’ve made some connections to networking on Facebook and some groups for parents and people that attend the university, so that really helped kind of give us a jumpstart and I definitely recommend that for anybody that’s looking to get a short-term rental going, to make sure that they get networking before they get open.

Delia:

That’s right! And do you have like an estimate numbers of how much you made the first year?

Michelle Roehl:

Yeah, it was about that 26K and then, you know, that was only for about what, seven and a half, eight months and again, that might not seem like a lot to a lot of people, but considering what we purchased the house for, what the economy is like where we’re at in our area, not being a tourist area, actually is pretty good. I was very excited about those numbers considering that most of that money is. The first few months at least was considerably lower, you know, nightly rate than where we’re at now and having the hot tub of course made a huge difference, but we’re on track. I think we’ve already made that much this year so far and it’s you know, just now the beginning of June. We’re certainly on track to do considerably more this year. We’re very happy with what we know that we have in it and our expenses etc. So we’re putting a lot back into it, we’ve done some remodeling, a minor remodeling in the basement to make a space available for guests to use the washer and dryer, we put in a brand new Electrolux washer and dryer. So there’s a quality down there both for our use and turning because I literally wash everything, every turn, every single blanket sheet, etc, gets washed between comforters, everything. So we wanted to have something that was nice and efficient, both for ourselves and for the guests.

Delia:

Oh, so it’s going really well for, you know, last year and this year, it’s going pretty well.

Michelle Roehl:

Yeah, yeah, for us and for our market absolutely. Every market is different, so, you know, there are times where I see people post on Facebook in these host groups about, you know, they made $300K last year, that’s fantastic. But then you ask them where they are, they’re in a really high, you know, economic area, the prices of everything are, you know, maybe 10 times what we have, it’s pretty amazing, you know, people are able to do that. This is an area, we never planned on that, we never figured that was going to be the case and I think that there’s probably a lot of, you know, short-term rental owners that that’s the case, they’re in places, you know, such as that small town, etc. You know, when you see those numbers, you may see other people post those numbers, you know, don’t let that intimidate you because it can be very easy to look at that and say “Wow” and then compare what you’re doing. You know, for us in our market, we’re actually kind of killing it and I’m super excited, you know about that. So we kind of lead the area with our pricing, so.

Delia:

Oh, that’s really amazing, so congratulations for that!

Michelle Roehl:

Thank you!

Delia:

And one last thing that I would like to ask you about is if there are any tips that you’d like to give out for Airbnb hosts?

Michelle Roehl:

One of the best tips that I received, you know, when before I even started is I joined a lot of these Facebook groups for hosts, some of the stuff that’s in there is really great, you kind of have to weed through it, you know, there’s some maybe not so great information. But there’s some really good information in there and I was able to hook up with a superhost for Airbnb and I think she is a premier host on VRBO as well and we were able to hook up and she was able to walk me through some of the setups, there’s some little nuances in the websites when you first set it up. She shared with me some information on how she runs it and it absolutely made sense for me. So I recommend as far as a tip, connect with someone, connect with another host, superhost that has been at it for at least a year or two, that you can really get some some good information and it is in a similar type of market, right? So I would never, it’s not going to help me to connect with somebody who has, you know, 10 huge condominiums, you know, in Myrtle Beach or Miami Beach, whatever, you know, I really want to connect with somebody who has a similar type of market and so for me, it worked out really well. We personally, I mean, there’s so many different ways you can do a short-term rental, we meet our guests, I have a conversation with them, I do not do instant book and you know, we actually meet and we have a conversation. Some people don’t like that and that’s fine, but we make it known that, you know, we have a quick conversation and then we leave them alone while they’re in the rental unless they need something. But for me that the biggest tip is really just to connect, find somebody that you can, it looks like you can respect and that they have a similar type of market and just connect with that person and let them kind of help guide you through some of those basics and you know, ask questions and bounce ideas off of.

Delia:

Yeah, that’s a great tip. Thank you a lot. So that’d be it for today. Thank you a lot for your time and thank you very much as well!

Michelle Roehl:

Thank you. I appreciate it. Thanks for having me on!

Delia:

Okay! And what kind of amenities do you offer in your listing that probably like attracts the guests? Or are really comfortable for the guests you have?

Donnie Daniels:

We’ve got a queen size bed. It’s basically it’s like a tiny home. It’s got a queen size bed with dresser underneath it. We’ve got a full size bathroom, the shower. We’ve got a two burner stovetop, in the kitchenette with a microwave. I know as funny as it sounds, we have running water, electricity. We are on a septic system. Out here you’ll get a lot of people who prefer off grid, which means they’ve got compost toilet, Solar System, catchment water. So I almost have like the hometown fill out in the middle of nowhere, so I’ve got a sitting area outside with a fire pit and there’s a charcoal grill outside, there’s a cabana to sit in to get some shade. I’ve made a half a mile long walking trail that goes around the property that people can go hunting for rocks and fossils and stuff like that and that’s about it.

Delia:

So the guests you usually have, you told me they come because of the National Park. Do they usually spend more time going around the National Park? Or do they stay more at your listing?

Donnie Daniels:

They definitely go out during the day. We do get night sky because we’re the darkest sky in Texas or darkest sky in the United States. So you can see the Milky Way with your naked eye, so we get a lot of nighttime photographers. The National Park has 450 bird species that migrate through the National Park, so we get a lot of bird watchers that come in and see what birds they can see and do a lot of photography. Then we also have Terlingua, which is a mining ghost town from back in the 20s to 40s, that’s a big tourist site. They’ll come to starlight and stuff like that, there is somehting like a theater so they can participate in the mining company. There’s a lot of different drawers out here.

Delia:

Yes! So about the ghost town, I googled it a little bit because some of your listings’ location drop down there, so is that attraction really near your place?

Donnie Daniels:

It’s 17 miles away.

Delia:

And people usually go visit that town as well, right?

Donnie Daniels:

Yes and then they’ll go over to Lajitas, we’ve got Lajitas Golf Resort which is probably 25 miles away. They have zip lining and they have golfing and horseback riding. There’s other horseback riding in Terlingua, in Study Butte, which is a smaller town. There’s many outfitters around to do whatever you could think you want to do there.

Delia:

Oh, so it’s a very like touristic area, right?

Donnie Daniels:

Yeah, the population is just over 1K locals and like I said the National Park maybe had, last year they set the record at 578K came in.

Delia:

578,000 visitors for the National Park?

Donnie Daniels:

Yes.

Delia:

That’s really nice! So you have, most of your bookings are just for the guests who come to the National Park, right? That’s your biggest demographic?

Donnie Daniels:

That’s the biggest draw.

Delia:

Do you get another demographic of people who come for like, for different activities?

Donnie Daniels:

We have a lot of different festivals in this area. Number one is and you know what chili is, right?

Delia:

Yes, that’s right.

Donnie Daniels:

Well, chili was created here. They have the International Chili Cook-offs every November, so for a week or two weeks, a week they come in prep for the setup and then the week of the tournament, so the cook-off. That’s one of the things and then there’s a bunk, you get a lot of car shows, you get a lot of motorcycle groups. It’s a big draw. Highway 170 is the number one scenic drive in Texas. It starts 25 miles away from me and you can take it about another 30 miles and then turn around and come back. There’s been many movies filmed out there. Probably before your time, the movie Fandango back in the 80s, it was filmed out there. Lots of music videos have been done out here. They got, a movie they just did was Deep in the Heart of Texas. It’s got some areas from here on it and then there’s another one, Frank and Penelope that just hit the films in the last month, so they’re in the theater.

Delia:

I see! So it’s a very known area then. Can I ask you for your pricing what like, method do you use? Do you do market research? Do you keep a standard pricing?

Donnie Daniels:

I try and keep it standard, then like you always got to try and stay competitive. So you can get some bookings.

Delia:

That’s right. When you are planning on your pricing, do you do market research? Or what strategy or method do you use?

Donnie Daniels:

I researched other Airbnb sites that were similar to mine and basically went up and stay right around them.

Delia:

Okay, that makes a lot of sense. And can you tell me what is it the most that you like about hosting?

Donnie Daniels:

One good thing about out here is they are tourists, so they’re on vacation. They want to get away from the big cities. So they’re out here to have a good time and they’re very polite. I rarely have I ran into any rude visitors that were guests with me.

Delia:

Oh, so you have really good guests then, you haven’t encountered any bad guest yet?

Donnie Daniels:

Well, maybe two or three if that and they were usually out here just to do work. As long as they’re out here on vacation, they usually get along pretty good.

Delia:

I see now! And are you barely like close to your listings all the time? Do you live close to your listings?

Donnie Daniels:

I’m setting up a house right now at the very back of the property, so I’m 40 acres behind everybody. So I do greet them when I can, I always talk to them a little bit somehow whether it’s text messaging or through Airbnb messaging. Out here you can have a hard time finding Wi-Fi. My Wi-Fi in my Airbnb is a fiber Wi-Fi, so it’s super fast. So that’s not an issue, but until they get logged into it, you have to depend on those service. and it’s hard to make a phone call it sometimes, but texting works great and messaging works great.

Delia:

And now that we’re talking about communication with the guests, can you tell me if there was any particular big challenges that you have encountered as an Airbnb host? It can be with the Airbnb platform, with your guests, with pricing, whatever you find the most challenging.

Donnie Daniels:

What do I find challenging with my guests? I can honestly say I’ve probably had maybe 5 to 10 asked me for a discount, but other than that, they book it as is. They don’t try and negotiate, so I can’t use that as a problem. I think my hardest part would be reviews because I mean, I’m at 95% 5-star reviews, right? But then you’ve got those few reviews, like in the last year, I think I’m sitting at 11 reviews below 5 stars and like I said, I know you can’t please everybody, that’s my favorite line. But I mean, if everybody else will look at the other 250 for the last year that are above or at 5 stars. People would look at the whole thing, when 90% of them say that you’re in a great location and then all of a sudden, two of them say that you’re in a bad location. Now like, why is that? I wish I could reach out to him and say “Explain to me more” and then we can continue the conversation, but I don’t want to be like argumentative, so.

Delia:

So how do you deal with those bad reviews? You have very few of them, obviously. It can affect you, right? Your superhost status?

Donnie Daniels:

Exactly.

Delia:

Yeah, that’s right. And can you tell me how do you deal with that?

Donnie Daniels:

I strive harder to get more 5 stars and I communicate, I make sure they understand where I’m at and where I’m located. So hopefully, they’re not surprised when they get here and say, I mean, I realized that most people in big cities probably only drive 5 or 6 miles to get where they gotta go. So when you get out here and you realize you got to go 10 miles or 9 miles to get to the park and then that’s another 30 miles inside the park just because it’s the largest National Park in Texas. So it can take you an hour to drive across and then that’s, they think that you’re too far away. So now I get you to the park.

Delia:

And most of your bad reviews are about that, like the location, they think is like too far?

Donnie Daniels:

Yeah, location and then of course price because we are, everything out here is expensive. Expensive to get everything here, we are three hours from the nearest Walmart, that’s how far we are and that’s three hours to the nearest stoplight. That’s how remote we are. So it is costly to get things here. So we got to get it back in our costs.

Delia:

So that would be like one of the main challenges of having like a really remote location listing, right? That everything is really hard to get to. I see now. Lastly, I would like you to tell me if there’s any tips that you’d like to share for other Airbnb hosts?

Donnie Daniels:

My biggest thing is when I set this is, I set it up exactly the way I would want if I stayed there, okay? So I did that and then I did suggestions. I asked for suggestions and if they were good suggestions, I implemented them and when we built our own extra large unit, we implemented quite a few of the suggestions into it like more cabinet space, more counters space stuff like that. Listen to your guests and improve what you’re gonna do.

Delia:

Yeah, that’s right. That’s a very like accurate and onpoint tip. Thank you for that. So that would be it for today. Thank you a lot for your time, for sharing us your story and also the tips. It’s been really amazing to hear about your story as an Airbnb host!

Donnie Daniels:

Alright!

Delia:

Wow, that’s amazing, actually! And can you tell us a little bit about, is it easy to get the brands to work with you in this? How do you pitch them? Do you think they actually are pretty accessible when you explain to them how does this work?

Sage Nathan:

Yeah, you know, for brands that we’ve talked to thus far and onboarded has always come from a host telling us “Hey, we work with Westown” “Hey, our mattresses are from Casper” and that’s when the conversations kicked off. And basically the way that we have these conversations with the brands is we tell them that Hey guys, digital advertising is expensive. You guys are spending a tremendous amount of money on, you know, the digital side and we’re not saying that digital is wrong. I mean, digital is definitely an important component of a brand’s, you know, marketing proposition. But the reality is the best way to experience a product is to use it. The best experiences don’t happen on screens and they don’t happen on shelves, they happen when you’re actually able to use a product for what it was designed to be used for. And the reality is that’s exactly what these properties are creating these moments every single day, someone is sleeping on a mattress for three to four nights, someone is using the soap and shampoo on their hair when they are in the shower. And so we say “You know, these are the moments where you guys want to be present” and the reality is they’re already in these spaces, right? Casper mattresses are all over the place, public goods has their soap and shampoo and all of these properties. But it hasn’t been properly illuminated yet. And what I mean by that is people aren’t necessarily being made aware, “Hey, you love that mattress? It’s a Casper mattress and here’s why it was so comfortable” or “You loved the way that the Public Good shampoo fell on your hair? Here’s why” and so we’re really connecting the two to make sure that when someone wakes up from the best night’s sleep or they love the coffee, that it’s not just “Okay, great” and then life goes on, that we’re capitalizing on that moment and making the connection between guests in the property and the products that they’re using. So it’s been a fun time, you know, getting all of these brands on boarded and we’ve found them to be extremely receptive and excited honestly, about what we’re doing and this new retail channel is what we’re calling Native Retail.

Delia:

Native retail. So that’s a really interesting concept, right? I think it’s a really old concept to be honest because people that go to at a house and you look at the shoe rug, you look at the curtains, you look at something and you ask, “Hey, where did you buy this?”, right? “How much did it cost?” It’s really, really an old concept and you were the first one to capitalize on it. So it’s really great.

Sage Nathan:

It’s everywhere, right? It’s not just, we’re just starting in hospitality, but if you think about it, you know, it’s everywhere. It’s in your own home, it’s in if you’re going on, you know, a fishing charters, like what rod? What reels do you have? It’s everywhere, this native retail concept in gyms, if you like the treadmill or if you like, you know, the dumbbells, whatever it may be, we’re just starting in hospitality. So, you know, the opportunity for this native retail concept is just about everywhere, you can imagine. But it’s been really fun. And to your point, exactly, it’s not that we’re reinventing the wheel here, we’re just taking these moments and bringing them to life and starting in hospitality. So it’s been really fun.

Delia:

Yeah, that’s amazing! And now that you talked about brands previously, what about, for example, new startup brands? Do you think someone can reach you out, for example, if they have beauty products, if they have art or decor and try to work with you?

Sage Nathan:

Definitely! Yeah, we’re open to exploring new partnerships always, you know, as long as it’s a good fit. As long as we can secure a good discount, you know, that’s really important to us, hosts come to us, they trust that they’re gonna get a lot of value out of the brands and discounts that we offer. And so typically, it’s one of the first, you know, we want to understand the brand, what’s the value offering? What type of category a niche maybe are they filling in terms of assortment? You know, are they providing eco-friendly toilet paper? Are they providing really affordable mattresses and then we work out the logistics and making sure that it’s easy to route and have them fulfill orders. But yeah, we’re always open to learning about new brands I mean, the big brands like West Elm article, Crate and Barrel, most people are familiar with them, but it’s really fun for us when we get to work with some of these smaller, maybe not as well-known brands because this is the perfect avenue to help get them, you know, distribution in the real world and in these moments and times of use for people are going to be using their products.

Delia:

Okay, that sounds amazing! And how about like, can the hosts make money with Minoan?

Sage Nathan:

Yeah, they can save money and make money. So they’ll save money up front, of course, with all of the purchases that they can make through Minoan to, you know, for items for their property. And if they decide to make their property shoppable, anytime a guest comes in, buys something, there is a 50/50 profit share on any things that sold. So they save money up front and then they have the opportunity to make, you know, recurring revenue anytime a guest buys something from their property. And these products at this point are already a sunk cost, right? They’ve already bought the mattress, they’ve already bought the sofa, now let’s just let’s bring your property to life. And I’m sure a lot of these hosts from what we’ve heard, they’re always getting questions, “Where did you get the mattress? Where did you get the sofa”. But the reality is, these hosts don’t have time to be, you know, to manage a full retail operation, they’re already managing a lot, being a full-time host and so for us, it’s really easy to just take that work off of their plate and allow them to still capitalize on those moments and earn some additional, you know, incremental revenue. It’s just gravy on top of, you know, the money that they’re getting in bookings, but, you know, that’s how they can make money is by making their property shoppable and having those commission’s flowing anytime guests order something from their property.

Delia:

So if I’m thinking right, if you sell for example, five times your mattress, that mattress will be paying for itself, right?

Sage Nathan:

Exactly. Yeah, that’s the whole idea of it. If you can, you know, and again, we’re a relatively young company, but we’re a technology company and so we’re building all of these platforms to be able to capture information exactly like what you were referring to on, hey, if you spend an additional, you know, $200 on this mattress, here’s the commission that you will earn, if you to your point sell five of these, it’s already paid for itself and now it’s just a net profitable asset that you’re earning incremental revenue time and time again. There’s a lot of interesting data and things that we’re working to collect and thinking around such as, you know, if you buy, we don’t work with Dyson just yet, but if you were to put a Dyson hairdryer in your property, could you charge $10 more a night? If so, not only, you know, someone necessarily just didn’t have to buy it, if they do, of course, that’s additional money on top, but if you can charge $10 more a night, that will pay for itself in three weeks or whatever it is. And so there’s a lot of interesting analytics that go behind purchasing decisions and all of this is to be able to come back and share this with the hosts to empower them, to make the decisions that are going to be most beneficial to them and also create the best guest experience. So yeah, what you’re saying is exactly right, it’s an opportunity, basically, to pay off the upfront costs that they’re having to put into furnishing the property.

Delia:

That sounds amazing! And like you said before, you are working on a tool to allow them to calculate how much can they put the average daily rate at with the amenities and items they sell there, right?

Sage Nathan:

Not yet. We’re working on figuring out how to best display data like that and offer suggestions, so that’s probably a ways out, but it’s certainly something that thinking about. We want to make sure that we get the product or the platform right first. So later this summer, we’re going to be releasing Minoan 2.0, which we’re really excited about. A lot of changes and enhancements that we’ve made based on the incredible feedback that we’ve heard from hosts in our network. So we’re making the changes, were listening to what they want to see, what would be helpful for them and our team is, you know, over 70% engineers and so it allows us to move really quickly to make these changes and updates that are going to be really helpful to the hosts.

Delia:

Okay, that sounds really exciting! So can you tell me a little bit of how can a host apply and get accepted into Minoan?

Sage Nathan:

Definitely. So we have a really quick, probably takes 2-3 minutes application process on our website, so a host would go to www.minoanexperience.com, which is our website and there will be a “Join Us” button on the top right. We just asked for a few pieces of information. So how many properties do they have? How many guests do they see a month? It’s a really quick, again, probably 2-3 minute application process. Once they submit that it gets passed to our partnerships team to do a really quick review. I mean, we’re typically reviewing these applications as soon as they come in and then we will approve their account and then they will get an automated email from our system with information on how to get their account set up and they can start shopping. So as soon as they put their information, it’s a very quick timeline to get their account are approved. And right now we are only working with hosts in the US and so if a host is, you know, we’ve had some hosts come in from Spain and Mexico, which is incredible, all places I would love for us to be and I’m sure eventually one day we will. But right now, again, only available to host in the US but quick application process, no cost to sign up, no cost to working with us and as soon as we review it, they get approved and get their account information via email.

Delia:

And is this open to any kind of host? Or are you looking for a specific niche group of like hosts or a specific type of rentals to work with you?

Sage Nathan:

Yep, so we’re open to, you know, any host who believes in creating beautiful spaces and really cares, you know, it’s not just about heads and beds, they want to create an experience for their property and for their guests, so a lot of that we’re able to see through the application process. But no, we don’t really have, you know, we just want to work with hosts who, again, like realize the potential of their properties and take this, it’s an investment, right? To be a host and to have a short-term rental, it’s a big financial investment. So we want to help them, you know, make it a bit easier to do all of those, a lot of the operational things that come along with being a host. But, you know, we have a lot of pockets in New York and Florida and California in the mountain areas, but we don’t have a specific geography that we’re looking for. We’re excited to work and learn from hosts all over with all sorts of different backgrounds.

Delia:

Great, this sounds amazing! Can you tell us a little bit about the reviews and the feedback that you have got from either the hosts or what they got from the guest? What kind of value do you bring to their property, right?

Sage Nathan:

Of course, yeah, I’ll start with the host who use us for purchasing items for their property, just having visibility into everything in one place, so they can order from as many Minoan brands as they want, but they don’t have to, again, look at their inbox, look at these Google Spreadsheets, everything is available to them within Minoan and they’ve loved that. They’ve loved not having to worry about where is their item, what if I do if it comes damaged? Because they know they can rely on us. So having the visibility end to end about their order with tracking, with estimated delivery dates, has been incredibly helpful. Of course, the discounts, that’s incredibly useful as well like a host, I’ve been shocked at how many hosts I’ve talked to have paid full retail, for sofas, for linens, for whatever. The moments that these hosts are creating in their spaces, they should never, ever be paying for retail. So being able to save 1000s of dollars when furnishing their home. Of course, any money that you can save, but if you’re able to even upgrade the items that you were maybe going to buy, let’s say maybe you’re going to buy an Ikea table, with the discounts were able to, we’ve negotiated, now they can get a Westown table for not too much more than they were planning on getting before. So it helps them elevate their spaces. In turn, they can charge a higher ADR, have, you know, different clientele of guests coming in. And then for guests, it’s been awesome for them because they can now connect with the products that they’ve used during their stay. It’s no longer “Oh, I love that coffeemaker, what is it'” and then life happens and you know, the moment passes, we’ve created a really easy way for them to discover new products and to easily buy the ones they love most. So it helps enhance the guest experience for the host, the host is able to save money, the host is able to make money and it’s just this really nice ecosystem between the host, the guests and Minoan that works in all different ways. So we’ve had a ton of great feedback on the discounts, on the ease of use, on the ability to have the same ordering process no matter which brand you’re going to, you just use the extension and it makes it super easy. So you know, we’ve tripled our host network in the past month or so, which has been fantastic. And we love the feedback that we get from hosts, you know, a lot of the feedback that we’ve had, even if constructive, we welcome it because it helps make our product better and a lot of those changes are coming later, you know, this summer in Minoan 2.0.

Delia:

That’s great. So basically, if a host works with you, they can expect to save their time, save a lot of money, also maybe making profit out of their items to get and also get much more happy experience for the guests, right?

Sage Nathan:

Yeah. It’s just a value add. It’s a unique experience, right? It’s not something that every property offers and it’s one of those things that can differentiate you from the person or from the property next door or down the road. So it’s just a value add and again, there’s no cost, so you can try it out, see how it works for you and you can go from there. So there’s no commitment required or anything like that.

Delia:

Okay, that’s amazing! So the last question that I would like to make is, why do you think Minoan needs to exist?

Sage Nathan:

Minoan needs to exist because hosts are incredibly time strapped and it is expensive and time consuming to own and manage a property. So Minoan needs to exist to help simplify that. So hosts can spend more time, you know, dealing with guests, getting connecting with housekeeping, getting new properties, let us handle all of the messy stuff and you can focus on, you know, the components that are most important to running your business, not spending time on the phone with customer service, not having a look where item is and when it’s going to be delivered. So that’s why Minoan needs to exist. And again, we’re young and we’re growing, but if we can help host save time and save money on ordering, we’ve heard it’s one of the biggest pain points when getting a rental is furnishing the property. It’s overwhelming, you have like a blank slate to look at. So us being able to save on the time and the money and time is money especially for these hosts who likely have a 9 to 5 five job outside of being a host. So you know, if we’re able to win on those two pieces, we’ve had a lot of incredible feedback from hosts on, you know, just making their lives a lot easier.

Delia:

Brilliant. Okay, so that’s all the time we have for today. Thank you a lot for being with us today. It has been amazing hearing about this new opportunity for hosts, right? And I cannot wait to see your success and also being in every short-term rental out there. That will be amazing!

Sage Nathan:

Thank you! We’re excited too. Thanks for having me and appreciate the time. It’s always fun, you know, sharing a bit about our story. So thank you again for having me on!

Delia:

That sounds really nice. I’m not sure if you do not accept kids there? Or do you just say, “Okay, it’s not a family friendly place” and they just don’t request it for families?

Mike Cameron:

Yeah, so we’re clear in our listing that, you know, it’s a maximum of two people right off the top filters that a lot. However, we still commonly get asked, “Can we bring in our kids anyways? They would love to experience this”, you know, people will say, you know, they’ll sleep on the floor and they’ll sleep on the couch, we will bring a little air mattress like and sadly, you know, I have to let them know that, you know, as much as we would love to accommodate that, we feel like any more than two people in our units takes away from the experience we want people to walk away with. And so we protect and we honor, and we keep that kind of sacred, you know, there’s a certain experience that we want people to have when they come to us and we work hard to make sure that they have that. Also knowing that, you know, there’s another unit close by, we want to honor and respect the fact that people are coming because they want to escape, they want to get away, they want quiet and we need to protect that. And even though the units might be able to accommodate an extra person, an extra kid, that’s not the route that we’ve gone and we certainly will help them and recommend some other places that we know locally. But we’re not the place if you’re looking for a family getaway.

Delia:

Oh, so it’s more for the sake of the experience than just safety or any other, you know, factor?

Mike Cameron:

Yeah, exactly. So, safety, it’s a set of stairs, there’s railings. It’s just as safe as anybody, you know, going anywhere. But it’s the experience that we want people to have. It’s the environment that we’ve worked hard to create, that we want to protect.

Delia:

And do you plan to maybe invest on some more properties that can accommodate families maybe?

Mike Cameron:

So we’ve thought about it and we’ve gone kind of back and forth. So when we designed our systems and services for this build, so things like our septic system and the electrical service, we designed it could accommodate more than we currently have and so we’ve been thinking, “Okay, what comes next? Is there a next for us? It makes sense to build on the same property because we’ve already got a lot of that infrastructure in place and so that saves us a lot of money”. But at the same time, we again, keep going back to that idea of “Okay, if we were to build a third unit, what impact is that going to have on other guests?”. We don’t want to get to the spot where people are constantly coming and going and you’re running into people and you hear, you know, the noise from this couple over here having a campfire, you know. We want to still find a way to protect that and so we believe that there’s a way to do both. So we’re looking into a couple of thoughts and ideas as to how that might work out and what that would look like because yeah, we feel we can still protect that environment well, allowing even more people to benefit from it.

Delia:

So both rentals you have are like, fairly far away from each other, so both of them can have privacy?

Mike Cameron:

Yeah, they’re about 250 feet apart from each other separated by forest, so you know that there’s another unit there, but privacy is not an issue. Again, you know, that they’re there, but you don’t really see people a lot, you know, maybe if you’re coming and going at the same time, you’ll see each other in the parking area. But otherwise, you know, there’s private campfire areas for both units that are even further apart. So people have that privacy that they come for.

Delia:

Okay it’s amazing that you can keep that, you know, privacy thing! Another thing that I would like to ask you about if you don’t mind sharing the numbers, how much revenue have you made from October last year to this point?

Mike Cameron:

It’s been good. Airbnb has been good to us, I can’t complain. So we’ve done around 47K this year and then in the October, November, December, I think we did around 20K. So I think we’re around 65K or so for the year. And the year is not, you know, we’ve still got a number of months before we hit a full year, so we’re expecting, you know, to be around that 80K mark for our first year.

Delia:

Wow, it’s a lot! And do you think this is going to cover your investment fully in the next year, maybe?

Mike Cameron:

So probably not in the next year. So again, our total investment was around 250K. You know, if we can make around $80K a year and then you’ve got expenses, on top of that, we’re still looking at, you know, totally paying off a significant investment within just a few years, you know, within 3-4 years, it’s not unreasonable to think that the majority of that investment will be paid off, which when you’re talking about, you know, amounts like a quarter of a million dollars, it’s not bad to be able to pay that in 4 years. So we’re pretty happy with it.

Delia:

Yeah, I can imagine! Four years is a really, really short time comparing to, you know, other people’s investment that might be even a little bit smaller than this and they don’t get to cover it. But yeah, you have been very lucky with it. I mean, it’s your area, like busy with Airbnb, that’s why you get many bookings?

Mike Cameron:

No, so we’re in the middle of nowhere, like, you don’t get much more in the middle of nowhere, we’re, you know, 4 hours north of Toronto, where our nearest town is only 1000 people. We’re an hour away from the nearest place that, you know, has anything of significance. So people come solely for this experience, which is kind of neat, you know, it’s not that we’re in just a desirable area, it’s that we’re a desirable place. So that’s kind of neat as we made that realization and so we’ve done more and more. And, you know, part of our plan moving forward is to make this more of a destination for people so that they’re not coming to this area to do things, but they’re coming to see us. And so as we can add more amenities and more activities, we cut a big snowshoe trail this past winter and we purchased snowshoes that guests could use and so little things like that, it was like “okay, now they’ve got another reason they can come, they don’t need to leave the property. They can just enjoy everything right here”. So yeah, that’s kind of one of our goals moving forward is just to make this the destination.

Delia:

I see and how far do usually the guests travel to get to your place? They usually probably like from everywhere or just like neighbors cities and stuff like that?

Mike Cameron:

Yeah. So I would say that probably, you know, a good 80% of our guests come from Toronto or the Greater Toronto area. So they’re coming from the city and we’re only four hours, three hours from some parts. So it’s reasonable, you know, they’ll come up, they can get here in a few hours, enjoy their weekend or those weekdays. It’s not terribly far and then I would say our other 25% are local people, you know, people from within an hour of us that have heard about us and again, the most common one is couples that have kids at home and they just need a couple nights away with no kids, no distractions, they just need time for themselves as couples. So we get regular couples that come from local towns around us and that’s always neat to talk to them and hear their stories. We can completely relate to because, you know, we’ve got young kids and I think so often it’s like, “I want to go over and stay at the tree house. I want that break”. So I can empathize and relate with them.

Delia:

Yeah, that’s right, that’s right! And you told me that you try to make your listing like a year round listing, you can join it in winter, you can join in summer, do you see any particular seasonality for your listing? Is it like more popular around the winter or more popular on summer?

Mike Cameron:

Yeah. So again, with this being our first year, it’s a little bit difficult to judge, but we’re getting a pretty good sense and we quickly realized that winter, we thought would be a quiet season, but it turned out to be, I can’t imagine that we’ll have a busier season than winter. And for our winter months, especially January, February and March, we’re up over 90% occupancy. So it was, you know, nonstop, those months. We saw a bit of a low in November, you know, the fall colors, they had come, they had gone, things were cold, but there wasn’t a lot of snow, so not a whole lot of things to do. And currently here in June, we’re experiencing our slowest month right now, which I absolutely can’t blame people for because June in the north is bug season and it’s just horrific. So I don’t blame people for that, but as we look to our calendar and as soon as July hits, it looks like, you know, we’re hitting the ground running again and you know, there’s gonna be a couple months here and there where things are a little bit slower, but yeah, we haven’t noticed big lows or seasons, where things slow down just short little chunks of time.

Delia:

Okay, that’s pretty good then! And what pricing strategy, do you keep the fee the same all year round? Or do you alternate sometimes?

Mike Cameron:

Yeah. So with fees and our pricing, that’s one that we’ve struggled with a little bit and we’ve wrestled with. So to answer the question quickly, we basically keep the same price across the board. We have it a little bit higher for weekends and when holidays come, the price of course goes up a little bit for those days too. Pricing in general though, I recognize that many hosts have different approaches to how they decide to price and some people, you know, you want to maximize your earnings, it’s about making as much as possible, this is a business. And then other people, you know, they’re in it solely for that hospitality experience, money kind of come secondary, if they can make a little bit of money on the side, that’s just a bonus. And so I view it kind of as a spectrum and we fall somewhere in the middle there. Yes, this is a business, this is my main source of income right now, but we also want to, I guess, ethically decide our pricing. And while we know that our unit could fetch, you know, significantly more than what we priced them at, we also wanted to make them accessible for normal people. So that was kind of our ethical dilemma that we had to work through and so we said, you know, “if we’re covering our expenses, if I’m making, you know, what we need to be happy as a family, then I don’t want to just jack the prices up as much as we possibly can just because we could get that much money”. So again, knowing that, you know, at 90% occupancy, we probably could raise the price another $100-$150 a night and we would still be getting bookings. But we don’t want to cater only to the wealthy people, you know, we want to be able to cater to everybody who wants this experience. We’re happy with the price point that we’ve landed on, you know, we believe that guests are happy, it makes it an accessible experience for them. And we’re happy at the end of the day too, you know, we’re making good money out of it. So, yeah, that’s been a journey for us is, you know, what is the right pricing strategy?

Delia:

Yeah, that’s right and I believe it’s really nice that you keep it accessible for everyone. Can you talk a little bit about that price point you have for your listing?

Mike Cameron:

Yeah, so in general, I would say we’re probably around $200 a night and that’s with Airbnbs fees. So we get a little bit less than that. And then you know, some of the slower months, we might drop it down a little bit. So typically, our take home pay, what we get, usually varies from, you know, between $150 and $180 a night and we’ve got two units going that are almost always full. So really our take home is feeling like, you know, $300 to $400 per night is what we’re bringing in. So we’re happy with that and I thought like for myself, you know, like “what would I be comfortable be paying?” and, you know, I’m myself am a little bit on the cheaper end of the spectrum and so when I would book a hotel, it’s always like, “I can’t believe that these are over $100!”. But I think for most people when they go on Airbnb and they see around $200 per night, you know, a good amount of money, I think to pay per night. But it’s still an amount that people are willing to pay. I’ve seen comparable places, when you go on Airbnb and you search by tree houses or something, you know, it’s not uncommon to see the average price being $400, $500, $600 per night, and people are still booking them. And so I get that you can charge more. But for us around $200 a night, we’re happy with that, the guests are happy with that. There’s no need to, you know, try to squeeze every dollar out of somebody. In our mind that’s possible.

Delia:

Yeah, that’s right! I also agree with it and it is very, you know, kind of huge think about your guests as well, there is a high possibility that you might lost a little bit of your guests if you raise your price, like really, really high, right? That’s right. So two last things I would like you to talk me about is, any particular challenges, not necessarily with the tree house, you have as an Airbnb host? And also some tips that you could give out for Airbnb hosts?

Mike Cameron:

So I fortunately have not had too many challenges with the platform. I’ve had to work with Airbnb and their support team, on a couple of occasions that I’ve fortunately had some good experiences with them with prompt replies. And I think part of that just kind of lends itself to the guests that we’ve had, you know, we had our first air cover claim somewhat recently, as a guest accidentally caused some damage and, you know, we put that claim through and we were able to work with Airbnb and the guest and it was quickly resolved. So we were really happy with the outcome. So yeah, at this point, you know, we’re, we’re pretty happy with Airbnb and the support that we’ve received from them. If I were making suggestions to hosts, I think, you know, from my experience, I would say do something unique, do something fun. I get that houses, residential homes are kind of the bread and butter, but I think especially as we see more and more towns and municipalities putting restrictions on Airbnbs and some rules and legislation around what that looks like in those communities, I think it makes more and more sense to kind of do something a little bit more unique. I know in towns, there’s housing shortages and that’s what you know, kind of drives a lot of the concern. I’m not hearing anybody talk about, you know, the domes or the cabins or the tree houses. So it’s like, I like it from that perspective, doing something unique because I feel like I’m not contributing to some of the challenges that municipalities are facing. Also though, I think that’s the bread and butter of Airbnb. So for hosts, it’s residential homes, but I think for guests, guests like unique experiences, something that they’re going to remember and if they can go away, I think that 9/10, they would pick something unique over something cookie cutter. At least that’s the experience that I’ve had with guests. So yeah, I make the recommendation anytime I talk to somebody, do something unique, do something different. Don’t try to be just like every other Airbnb out there because then you have to compete with every other Airbnb out there. Whereas I’m not competing, I’m the only one around here that has a tree house. It makes it easy.

Delia:

Yeah, that’s right. That’s a really amazing tips and I agree with it. Airbnb is more of a experience than anything. So thank you so much for your time!

Mike Cameron:

No problem. Thank you.

Delia:

How does the people come out of your mentorship program? How does they mindset change during that period?

Melissa:

I love that you mentioned the word mindset because we truly believe that success first starts in your mind. We could give you all the tools that you need, we could give you the scripts, the templates, and how to do this and this and that, right? But if you don’t have the mindset of success, you’re going to take everything we learn, finish our program and continue doing the same thing you’ve been doing in your life, right? So as far as mindset, we really try to connect people back to their “why?”. And even in our selection process, we do have a selection process and who we accept into our program, we want to make sure that they have a strong “why?”, why do they want to do this? Why do they want to do Airbnb? Why do they want to join our course? And once they have a strong why, then we really try to have them encounter breakthroughs in having their mindset shift into complete possibilities and not impossible, right? So really having an open mindset into possibilities and that’s the life that they want, really is possible for them.

Zev:

Yeah, now that Melissa mentioned possibilities, our more recent student is, so he would say things like, “Oh, but what if the landlord doesn’t allow this? Or what if the call goes wrong? Or what if, you know, we’re so close to getting the landlord to allow us, we’re talking to them, but what if he wants us to do something that’s not so great for our business?” and we’re thinking, “Look, don’t think about what kind of make it impossible. Think about all the things that are going to make this possible”, you know, that’s just a little tweak of your mindset to making keep going, keep trying and having more confidence in yourself too.

Delia:

And essentially, what path do you take to get your students in this mentorship programs? Like, what are the steps you take to change their mindset? And what do you teach to them?

Melissa:

It goes, just in general, with our direct coaching, we have pretty much set up weekly things to do in our mentorship program for the 90 days and so if we’re seeing that a student is pretty much falling behind, and really not taking action and we check in with our students on a weekly basis and we’re seeing that they’re really not doing what they’re saying they’re going to do, then this is when we do a call with them, that it’s all a mindset call with them and we really go with them. We’re not there to be their friends and tell them what they want to hear, we tell them what they need to hear to really elevate their lives, right? Because a lot of times, our circle of people only tell you what you want to hear, right? So we are the mentors that are going to tell you what’s on your blind side that you’re probably not seeing, that’s blocking your mind from seeing the possibility that’s available to you. So we really just go into BRAC coaching.

Delia:

Yeah, and now that you mentioned this, that is like, really valuable from your side because we always see these mentors, like Airbnb coaches that are like really, they just want to sell their mentorship, you know, they really don’t want to, they really don’t do this personal approach that you say you do with your students, which is like very important, but it’s really valuable what you do with them and thinking can really make some change in their mindset, in their lives.

Melissa:

Right. Yeah, we just did and it’s more than Airbnb, it’s more than that just then wanting to make additional $5,000. But it’s what impact can we really create in their lives that when they leave, you know, our mentorship program, their life is just completely transformed and they are transformed. That’s what it’s really all about for us.

Delia:

And I think that’s fantastic, is like my very first time in all these times hearing about mentors hearing, like the kind of pipe you take for them, so it’s really great, real valuable. And can you tell me a little bit, so what does rental arbitrage mean to you? I know many of our listeners know about rental arbitrage, essentially, like what does mean to you? What does it represent for you?

Melissa:

I just thought freedom.

Zev:

Yeah, well, to me, it represents something that is tangible and something that seems, like an easy, I mean, on the one hand, it’s an easy low barrier for entry, so a lot of people can start this. So that can be good or bad, right? For any marketplace, something such a low barrier for entry, it has the possibility of becoming either saturated or as the possibility of becoming, taking advantage of the people doing it, getting in that are not so professional and not taking care of it, but that’s like any other marketplace for any business. But the difference here is if you truly care about your business, you truly care about this hospitality and you can really make a lot of good money cashflow from something like this and it’s a win-win. So you know, most landlords out there are traditional landlords where they just take a long-term tenant, and they just want to collect the check, which is great. We act as a long-term tenant, but where we act differently than a long-term tenant is that we really care for their property, we turn their property into our business. So it becomes, so for me what I love about arbitrage is, it’s a win for the landlord, when you have really good tenants like us doing that business and it’s also a win for people that are not sure what to do with their life to make good money, you know, and it’s something that I definitely recommend everyone trying out because you can make cash flow really quickly and the return is really high and then you can use that money towards something that you really want to, which for us is real estate.

Melissa:

We’ve created relationships with our landlords that now they’re at the point whenever they have any vacancies, we’re the first ones they reach out to and they’ve also become our mentors. A lot of our landlords, they’ve multi million dollar portfolio of real estate and that’s the goal, right? Ownership a real estate is the goal. And so we have created such good rapport with them because of how we function as a business and how we take care of their properties. So they’ve always told us like, “Hey, we’re just a phone call away, if you ever have any questions on buying a deal or financing a deal”, and so they become mentors.

Delia:

That’s really good! And what can you say about, there must be out there, like some people who have tried the rental arbitrage model and it didn’t work for them and it also like traumatized the landlord, how can you approach a landlord that has not had a good experience with someone who previously did rental arbitrage on their building?

Zev:

Yeah, well, I would say, that also still goes back to sales, which is what I mentioned, right? So obviously, you always want to build rapport when it comes to sales, so you can try to get them comfortable with you in a short amount of time. And then you want to try to open them up as much as you can and ask them “Well, what was your experience with the previous person that ran that business, that ran their business similar?” and, you know, maybe they’ll say it was parties or whatnot, you know, whatever the thing is, you want to try to overcome it and it usually comes down to separating ourselves from them just because they have the same business doesn’t make us the same, right? Nike and Adidas are completely two separate businesses, right? They, I mean, they can compete and sell the same products, but they do it differently, right? Or Puma, and Nike, they’re different. Reebok and Nike, I mean, you can already see the difference in the shoes in your head, Reebok and Nike, just from what I mentioned them. So we’re not the same, just because there’s a bad apple in the bunch doesn’t mean that we should be treated the same, right? When I worked in a real estate office,I don’t know what’s a really common real estate firm name, like Keller Williams is a common real estate firm. Everyone that works in the real estate office runs their own business, so if I have a bad experience with an agent at Keller Williams, that does not mean that the agent two doors down from him in the same office is going to be just as bad, you know, they might be running things completely differently and they deal with their clients completely differently than the one that I had an experience with. So yeah, you know, unfortunately, because I mentioned the arbitrage in business is a low barrier for entry, you do get a lot of people that are not professional or don’t have any experience or are not trained and they leave a bad taste in the landlord’s mouth. So it’s kind of impossible to have overcome those landlords objections, but it will be a little bit tougher.

Delia:

Yeah, I understand. I completely understand. So can you give us a little bit of intro to your mentorship program, so the listeners can have an overview and visit your media if they like it?

Melissa:

Yeah, so our mentorship program is called Host Life, it’s a 90 day mentorship program. So in those 90 days, you have again, a course with videos that focus on role playing, focus on the pitch, focus on overcoming objection, just a really big emphasis on sales. And then we have an next section of the course, which really focuses on communication and hospitality because again, like the examples he was giving you, every business is different. Airbnb is the hospitality game. If you’re not giving a 5-star hospitality to your guests, you’re not going to be in this for the long run, right? You get to really create a business where you’re going to have returning guests and build a brand. And so we really focused on pretty much teaching our students how to develop that hospitality way of talking to their guests. And then we have a big focus on design as well because in our experience, when we first started this business, we didn’t know so much about the structuring or design of our business, so we created, our first Airbnb pretty much looked like a hospital. And now we have a big focus on design and we seen that whenever we started an Airbnb in an area, we are the highest comp, we are the highest priced Airbnb, with the highest occupancy and highest rating as well. We’ve been super hosts 17 times. So not once since we started this business, have we not achieved super hosts. For those of you guys listening, if you don’t know what super host is, is pretty much the way Airbnb rates you which is quarterly and you’re supposed to pretty much meet a certain criteria for them and a big one is on the reviews. And so we’ve been super hosts 17 times since since we’ve started, so we are very competent that we know what we’re doing and we really teach our experience to our students in regard to how they could also create a business that’s going to be in the long run and they will be super hosts as well. So yes, in 90 days, they get the course and then we have weekly classes. In those weekly classes we covered different topics, and then we open it up for Q&A, so they were able to support them on one on one basis. And then they also have access to our private Facebook community, which we build a little community where we support each other. And anytime they have any personal questions in regards to their journey, then that’s when we support them as well, on a one on one basis as well.

Delia:

So the whole program sounds amazing! One last thing that I would like you to talk me about is your success rate, what are some success stories that you’ve seen from your students?

Melissa:

Yeah, so our success rate has been 100% since we’ve started this a year ago, so I think it goes to show because I totally like, we have an application process that we have people fill out and then we get on a phone call with them. And we only will accept someone that we know we could really help, okay? We’re not just going to take anyone that wants to enroll into our course. But if we really feel that we could help you and you really already just have that strong desire to be successful, that’s what we’re looking for. If you have that strong desire and you’re really willing to be teachable and coachable, and do everything we’re telling you to do, and follow our formula, you will be successful and we will be your biggest cheerleader and hold your hand throughout the journey.

Delia:

That’s sounds fantastic! So that will be it for today. Thank you a lot for your time, for being here with me.

Melissa & Zev:

Yeah, yeah, thank you. It was a pleasure. Nice meeting you. Bye!

Delia:

So can you tell me a little bit about your market?

Kim Sayre:

Yeah, our very first, our home is a four-bedroom, two-bath, so our market ranges, July is kind of our highest month. It’s like our high season. So the very house that we went is 298 per night and then when we first listed it, we were just kind of like playing the field a little bit, playing off of other listings and kind of things like that. And for a floor bedroom, we went to 189 a night.

Delia:

And can you tell me if the market currently is very, like, busy and competitive with Airbnb? Or are there very few of them?

Kim Sayre:

Yes, even July our highest month, we don’t have a single day open. It’s completely booked up and that’s with our own home. So with our rental house, it being listed only last week, it hit the market last week. We have, I would say maybe 20 bookings already.

Delia:

Wow 20 bookings, that’s a lot! So the stock market is very good then. So it’s still like in the stage where it’s a very good place to invest in?

Kim Sayre:

I would say so yes. Especially where it’s becoming a National Forest, so a lot more people are starting to come.

Delia:

So with your first listing, what could you say was your high season in your low season during, you know, a year of renting?

Kim Sayre:

With our very first home, we started and we listed it in March and we’re only listing our own home until October and we’re going to move back in. I would say our high season definitely is July. We have a lot of things going on in Fayette County too as far as like whitewater rafting, we do live music stuff like that here too. So I feel like there’s a lot of that going on, so that’s definitely our high season. Even with our low season, even if we’re pulling off the market in October, we still have in Fayette County golly season. It’s a part of whitewater rafting too. So I don’t even think that we would have a low season until maybe December-January.

Delia:

Okay, and how much revenue do you estimate during the high season? Like you said July-October?

Kim Sayre:

July alone with one home, just with our own house, we are expected to make 10 grand in just July.

Delia:

10 grand, that’s a lot. So can you tell me a little bit more about how did you make your market research to find out for example, the pricing? And to estimate how much could you make and stuff like that?

Kim Sayre:

We definitely joined like Facebook groups as far as that goes. They’re really helpful as far as like across the nation, good things, bad things, you know, what to expect stuff like that. As far as pricing goes, we honestly just got on Airbnb ourselves as travelers traveling to Fayette County and just like started searching the market around houses that are worth kind of like ours, like the bigger four-bedroom home stuff like that. And just kind of see what the market is around us and we just went from there.

Delia:

I understand and with your current situation, do you have to change the prices manually basically every day? Or do you keep like this steady daily rate and it gets booked still?

Kim Sayre:

Well, whenever we first did our list, our daily rate was very, very low. I will say that Airbnb kind of like low balled us as far as that goes. So we did go through manually and bump up our prices and then when we found out that July was such a booming month, we went in again and changed our price ratings. But yeah, we do that manually as far as like what our bookings are and if like we’re having a slower month we’ll go and adjust.

Delia:

Okay, yeah, that makes a lot of sense! Do you use any pricing strategy? Do you open for example, your calendar for months in advance and how do you plan to rise during the highest months that are oncoming?

Kim Sayre:

We were mainly just going through Airbnb as far as like where to start? what our competitors were doing? wherein it was our first year, we were kind of like new to everything. So mainly, we just went around through Airbnb, just, you know, with houses just like ours and went from there.

Delia:

Okay, yeah, makes a lot of sense. And so far has there been in any particular big challenges that you went through as an Airbnb host?

Kim Sayre:

Not really, we have had a great experience as far as like, I mean, everyone has been great. We’ve never got a horror story yet as far as that goes. No, not really, it’s been really great. But we have, you know, we did have a little bit of an advantage of like listing our own home. So we didn’t have that first big hiccup of investment money, you know what I mean? That we had to come up with for furniture and stuff like that. So I feel like that did help us. But no, we’ve had a great experience. I cleaned them myself. So even then, I mean, walking into our homes, we’ve always had a great experience with all of our guests so far.

Delia:

Okay, that’s great. And do you also plan on expanding your Airbnb business in the future?

Kim Sayre:

Yes, we’re actually looking at another listing. I don’t know how many in Fayette County we will still get, we’ll probably do at least another one to two listings in Fayette County. And then we want to try to expand, I don’t know, maybe in different areas, maybe in different states, just so we could be able to travel too, just have an extra house, you know, to go to.

Delia:

I get it! And are you also planning to deal with remote hosting? I mean, is there an option for you as well?

Kim Sayre:

It could be. I feel like I would want to be more season host before we go to remote just because two is already a lot to deal with. So I want to get those under my belt first before we, you know, go remote.

Delia:

Yeah, makes a lot of sense. And lastly, are there any tips that you would like to give out for future Airbnb hosts or current Airbnb host?

Kim Sayre:

I will say amenities go a long way, the price that you pay for an extra shampoo, conditioner and so, just to have just in case they forget theirs goes a long way. And a washer and dryer, I mean, you can’t really accommodate that for every home, but that has been a lifesaver for us, as far as me personally cleaning them faster flips for sure. Yeah. And it will help it too, me and my husband both, he’s the main host, I’m the co-host, so the faster that you reply to people, the better it is all around.

Delia:

That’s right. Communication is key, absolutely! Now that you talk about amenities, I would like to make you one last question. When you did the market research, did you find out any particular amenities that are popular around your area? Did you consider that when you were getting ready for this last listing?

Kim Sayre:

We did, wherein it was our own home, we already had the full kitchen and stuff, so that went a long way to as far as like people are already paying so much, you know, during the high seasons that they do want a full kitchen to where like, you know, it’d be cheaper on them to have like pots and pans to be able to cook one night or something like that. I will say the full kitchen definitely is an advantage. I mean, just having that extra few things like we do maybe just the toothpaste and toothbrushes just like to have them there just in case someone forget and that’s been a really great thing. We, on our second home, we invested in a hot tub, so we’re gonna see how that goes. We haven’t actually, our very first listing comes this weekend, so I don’t know if that would be, you know, more trouble than it would be helpful as an amenity, but we will see.

Delia:

Okay, yeah thank you for sharing with us about it! I’m also excited to hear about your future stories when, you know, this listing also has like more time in the market. And yeah, thank you for your time and thank you for your tips as well!

Kim Sayre:

Okay, thank you very much for having me!

Delia:

Okay, that sounds great. And have your listing been pet-friendly since the very beginning?

Courtney Morris:

It has, like I said, we’re big animal lovers. So we’ve always had when we lived in the unit full time ourselves, we always had pets there. We took, you know, all the measures possible when we were living there to make the home pet-friendly, so that it was, you know, as much as can be indestructible. So we haven’t had any time where we were not allowing pets.

Delia:

And would you say, between a listing in your area that is not pet-friendly and yours, is there any significant difference when it comes to revenue?

Courtney Morris:

I’m not entirely sure there is a revenue difference. You know, there are other two bedroom, one bathroom homes that are not pet-friendly that are in our exact same area at our exact same price point. But we are booked more than they are. In terms of my annual revenue, I’m probably making more money because I am consistently booked and the guests that could not go stay in their place because they had a dog comes to me. But we’re renting for about the same amount per night.

Delia:

And would you mind sharing about those numbers with us? How much revenue are you getting per stay? And how much would be your estimated per year?

Courtney Morris:

Sure, that’s a good question. Because we do, Airbnb is not our only booking method and we do offer discounts to people who are local and who find us through other means than Airbnb. But we rent on average for $4,600 a month.

Delia:

And what about the yearly revenue so far?

Courtney Morris:

All right, 4.600 times 12 is 55,200, I’d say on average, we probably have, you know, of the time that we have available because again, we do occupied this unit partially with our own family. So I’d say probably, you know, when we’re at our quote unquote max capacity, which is not year round, for us, we’re probably about $40,000 or so.

Delia:

40,000 is still a good number, it’s still like a number even though, do you have to occupy it because of some larger or is just because you want to occupy it?

Courtney Morris:

My husband and I are actually both from out of state originally. So we used to occupy this unit full time ourselves when we moved and we live very close to it now. But when we moved, the idea was, rather than taking a long-term tenant on, we actually wanted to leave this unit available so that when our own parents or siblings came to visit that they had somewhere to stay because I know that we all understand the stress of having like house guests and so we can eliminate that by having them stay at our Airbnb property. So we do leave certain parts of the year available for our own family to use it and that’s really what’s great about it, to be honest with you is we can make a little bit of money when it is available. And we’re making $40,000 a year on it when just because sometimes it happens to be vacant. But the rest of the year our family can come in and not have the added expense of having to pay for a hotel and we don’t have the stress of having to have family stay with us. So it’s worked out really great for us.

Delia:

Okay, that’s great to hear. I know you’re not year round, right? But in terms of seasonality, would you say there are some months that book more than others?

Courtney Morris:

I don’t think so. I think that’s probably just because we’re in Los Angeles. We have the luxury of the 70 and sunny weather almost year round here. So we don’t have any high seasons or low seasons.

Delia:

Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. And lastly I’d like to ask you, is there any number you think about when you think of what extra expenses do you have as a pet-friendly host?

Courtney Morris:

We’re probably spending about $500 a year on replacing items from quote unquote pet damage. Now again, I think when potential hosts get worried that they’re going to incur a lot of pet damage, you know, that might be a lot for some people, like I said, we’ve kind of raised our nightly rate to reflect that. But we do, obviously, things still wear out and they do kind of wear out a little bit faster when you’re talking about pets. So, where possible, we have the ruggable rugs on the ground, but there are other places in the house where that’s not possible. So we probably replace our floor rugs about once a year, we don’t spend a ton of money on those rugs because we know that we’re going to replace them. So we just try to, you know, put a new, like a front door rug out every single year. And then also, like, you know, people who are staying for a month, they will bathe their pets at the house, most often. I mean, some of them, send them to the groomer, I’m sure, but you know, our towels occasionally will come back looking like they’ve washed a dog, we don’t want our next guest to have to use a towel like that, so we have a bunch of extra towels that we have for, you know, getting rid of a towel like that. And then you know, there’s the dog waste bags and things like that. And of course, because we do run the air purifier in between every guest, we also are replacing the HEPA filters in those all the time. So in general, it’s probably costing us about $500 a year. And like I said, we have had some pet damage, you know, I did at one point, I had a dog, you know, destroy a pillow. And I have had another dog, you know, dig a little hole in the carpet and not in like floor carpet, but in a rug, but again, we replace those every single year. Those things to me feel like normal wear and tear. I know if you’re not a pet friendly host, you’re thinking about it, like, “oh, man, I can’t imagine replacing those things”. Those are few and far between, you know, four years of hosting and I’ve had, I can count on one hand the amount of times that I’ve looked at something and been like, “oh, that’s damage from their pet”. The rest the time, it’s just general wear and tear and these things have to be replaced anyways. Nobody wants to use a five year old bath towel. So it’s totally fine.

Delia:

Yeah, the expenses seem reasonable and also the amount is not that much. I would have think of something much higher giving on what the hosts usually say, the damage in their listings, but you have been lucky with the pet damage seems like.

Courtney Morris:

I don’t think that’s true. I actually don’t think it’s a situation of being luck related. I actually think it’s just because we are pet owners ourselves because we built the unit for ourselves at one point to be very pet-friendly, that we’ve prepared the unit. You know, we don’t have things in there that are easily destroyed. They are nice things, we have very nice things, but they were put in there in mind that, you know, a dog could be on these things or a dog might be, you know, how do we pick the items that are going to be best suited for being around pets? So I don’t think it’s luck, I think we’re just prepared. I had mentioned to you earlier, we do have a list of rules that we go through with each of our guests and I think that that sort of helps us weed out people that we can tell pretty easily if they’re, you know, not a responsible pet owner. So we don’t allow pets that are not spayed and neutered at our house, you know, those are the ones that typically have marking issues where they’ll pee on furniture. And it’s actually a law in Los Angeles that if your pet is over the age of six months old, it has to be spayed or neutered, so we do not allow guests to bring animals that are not spayed or neutered. Big animal rescuers over here, so we don’t deal with people who didn’t fix their dog. And we also require that anybody bringing their pets sign off saying that their animal is up to date on vaccines. Los Angeles also requires that pets have their annual rabies vaccine or their three year rabies vaccine depending on which one they got. So, you know, we make people affirm that their pet is up to date on vaccines, we go over the rules about not leaving pet waste in the yard and taking their pets out on leashes and a lot of time and we even provide a pet crate in case people you know want to crate their dog at night or when they leave the house. So it’s pretty easy to tell when if somebody comes to me and they’re like, “oh, man, I don’t vaccinate my dog and I’ve never, you know, I haven’t gotten it neutered yet” like that’s red flag number one like I’m sorry, you can’t stay at the house. But, you know, generally speaking, we can tell if somebody’s responsible. So.

Delia:

Yeah, that’s right and aside of that, you have a very big advantage on your city, expecting dog owners to vaccinate their dogs. I don’t think in other countries or I’m not sure if in other states, but in other countries, like mine for example, you cannot ask for the vaccines just to allow them into a place, right? So it’s a big advantage.

Courtney Morris:

Yeah, there’s definitely, for sure there’s some advantages to being in Los Angeles because I can require that stuff of my guests. You know, once you’re in Los Angeles for 30 days, you’ve got some residency rule rights over here. So I can require that my guests have those things for sure and if you live in an area where you can’t, it obviously gets a little bit trickier to enforce that stuff. And my guess quite frankly, I don’t go over there and like, check dogs to see if they’re vaccinated or neutered or anything like that. I don’t really, you know, I try to give my guests their space, so I’m not, you know, up close and personal with them. But oftentimes, like people will volunteer that information if I’m asking and we do, you know, the one thing that I will say also is we do unfortunately have some breed restrictions. Our homeowners insurance does not allow six different dog breeds. So I do have to ask people, if they’re bringing any dogs of those six breeds. I actually haven’t run across that in the past where I’ve had to say no to a dog. But if I did, there would be some that I unfortunately have to say no to unless it was a service animal.

Delia:

Now that you’ve mentioned about service animals, I’ve heard before that some hosts are, you know, reluctant on allowing pets because some people fake service animals and I’m not sure of how does that work. I thought, if you had a pet, like a service animal, you had to have papers for that. So can you tell us a little bit about that? If you have any knowledge of that.

Courtney Morris:

Sure. I have a little bit of knowledge of it just because I actually do have two emotional support animals myself. And, you know, I would be one of those guests that if I said, “I would like to bring my two emotional support animals” that I would have a slew of hosts telling me that I’m, you know, a liar and a faker and all of that. So I’m sympathetic to those people, for sure. Do people take advantage of that? Absolutely. Have you seen the peacock on a plane, I’m certain that there are people that take advantage of emotional support rules. But I also really try to believe people when they are saying that they need reasonable accommodation. And again, like it’s not an issue for us because we’re pet friendly anyways, so we wouldn’t be asking for that paperwork because it doesn’t matter. But I don’t see the need for a bunch of hosts to kind of come up with reasons why they shouldn’t allow emotional support animals or service animals and claim, you know, apparently, every host is anaphylactic to dogs, nobody has friends with dogs because that’s, you know, the excuse that’s given often about why they can’t host a service animal. Now, for me, so I’ll speak personally, I have a letter from my doctor. Now, this is not an online certification that my dogs have gotten. This is not a letter from a doctor I’ve never met that I found through the internet who was willing to write a letter. This is a letter from my actual primary care family physician that says that I need these two dogs. So I have that letter and I’m required to provide, you know, if I fly on an airplane with my dogs, I’m required to provide that documentation and they’re allowed to ask me two questions, you know, one is what function does this dog provide? You know, as vague as I want to be all I have to say is emotional support because that’s what it is. And then basically, like, what is your documentation for it? which is the letter that I have. You know, usually, it’s a red flag to me if somebody provide some sort of letter that, you know, is some online certification that they found because generally speaking, those things are often offered up in groups by people saying, you know, if you want to just call it an emotional support animal, you can go and get this online certification or this online doctor’s note, those things tend to be a red flag. But you know what, like, that also just might be a person who doesn’t have insurance who couldn’t go to their doctor or that could just be a person who doesn’t, you know, they read online that they might need the certification and that’s what it is, but they genuinely might have a need for that pet. I honestly just think the Airbnb host community can be a little ableist. To be honest with you, I think we need to be a little bit more inclusive and a little bit more accepting. And I really, it bothers me a whole whole lot when I see people call folks who are asking for accommodation, you know, liars and it’s fake, and they’re just trying to sneak a dog in and all of that stuff really does not sit well with me. So.

Delia:

Yeah, I understand completely and thank you for talking about this, I think is going to be very important information for hosts or future hosts to hear about. Lastly, are there any tips that you like to give for hosts who are probably thinking on getting their listing to be pet-friendly or who already are pet-friendly?

Courtney Morris:

You know, I think my tips are just to kind of relax about it a little bit. And just to think through like if this were a dog in your own house and we all know dogs are dogs, pets are pets, like they are not immune to having accidents, especially when they are in a new environment. My own dogs if I take them out of my house, like God knows what will happen and I would be horrified if they did something in somebody else’s house, so that’s kind of the framework that I’m working with when I choose rugs, when I choose furniture, you know, and then the stuff that I provide, you know, like, if I were traveling somewhere, would I want to haul a dog bed? Would I want to haul big heavy ceramic dishes with me? No. I think it’s worth spending a little bit of money to make sure that you’re thinking, that you’re getting the things that you need that are going to protect your property, that are going to make their stay more pleasant. And then you bake that stuff into your nightly rate, you add $5 a night if you need to and in a month, that kind of stuff will pay for itself. I mean, we’re talking about $100 worth of dog bowls, dog poop bags and a bed, you know. So I just tend to think like, people will pay a little bit more money to know that they’re taking their pet somewhere and that they don’t have to haul that stuff with them. So if it’s a cost thing that’s holding you back, just add a little bit to your nightly rate, I do think it will pay off. And then you know, make sure that you’re, you know, going over your house rules with the person, I don’t ever think that, I’d never assumed that my guests are reading my house rules on my listing, listings can be so long and by the time somebody has booked your property, they’ve probably looked at a dozen other listings and your rules are blending with everybody else’s rules. So it’s better just to send them a friendly reminder, like, “hey, you know, I just wanted to remind you like, at the end of your stay, please pick up all of the dog waste from the yard”. If there’s furniture that you don’t allow the pets on, make sure you list what that furniture is. And then make sure that they reply to that stuff and acknowledge it and that will really go a long way because our guests have been incredibly respectful of our rules and I think a lot of that is just because we’re just having a normal conversation with them about like, here’s what the expectations are and we’re not coming down hard on them or living in fear that we’re going to have a rug ruined. So.

Delia:

That sounds great. And I’m sure because you’re friendly approaching, that’s the reason why they respect your listing a lot because I agree that there are some hosts that might be a little bit harsh on the guests when they’re talking about their specific rules. So the friendly approaching is like 10 out of 10 of you.

Courtney Morris:

Well, have you seen the hosts that are like “if you leave the house, your dog has to stay in a crate 24/7”.

Delia:

Yes, I’ve seen that.

Courtney Morris:

Why would you ever go stay at somebody’s house, unless you’re the kind of person that creates your dog 24/7 at home and they’re used to that, your dog is going to lose its mind at sitting in a crate all day long. You would never want to stay in that person’s house like just, it’s just not that hard to be reasonable.

Delia:

Yeah, I agree with that. So that would be it for today. Thank you a lot for your time and your tips. This has been a really interesting experience to hear about.

Courtney Morris:

Yeah, no problem. Thanks for having me!

Delia:

I see, it makes a lot of sense. And I’ll like to ask you about how much did it cost you to buy the caravans?

Emily Groove:

That first caravan I bought because it was old, it cost me 25,000 pounds, which is probably more expensive than you would buy if you bought it privately because I bought it from the park, it’s like the difference between buying a car from a, you know, from a showroom or buying it from somebody privately. And the second one cost 35,000. And the second caravan is newer and it has got double glazing and it’s got central heating, gas central heating, you know, so it’s a lot cozier and warmer in the cooler months.

Delia:

I see and you didn’t have to do any kind of renovations in that, aside from what you told me about electricity and water connections from the park?

Emily Groove:

Yeah, they do all of that for you.

Delia:

Okay, that’s great! So you didn’t spend that much, I guess. Do you think you’re going to be able to get a good return on investment with your rentals?

Emily Groove:

Yeah, I guess eventually, if I take into account the purchase price, the plan is to get a return on investment, is probably not the best return on investment, but what you do get is a solid kind of cash flow income, you know, we’ll see, we’ll see what happens.

Delia:

Okay, hope it goes great though! How much do you say is your cash flow going against your expenses? Do you have many expenses there?

Emily Groove:

So initially, I bought not so, so they give you do vase. But I’ve bought new vase because I want a bigger like king size duvet, I bought lots of bedding and towels. And, you know, other soft furnishings to make it cozy, like cushions and I buy tea and coffee and biscuits for my guests. And you know, cooking oil and salt and pepper and things like that. So I’ve spent lots of money initially on that sort of thing probably or when we installed WiFi as well, so there was that cost to this WiFi in both the caravans. We had to buy the key safe for each of them as well. So yeah, there was quite a lot of what felt like a lot of initial outlay, maybe something like 1,000 pounds or something per caravan maybe a bit more. Let me see if I’ve have got a list of it all somewhere, but I haven’t really added it up yet because there’s lots of it. At some point, I’ll have a look and see, you know, whether I’m when it is there’ll be a time when I feel like I’m going to break even I’m sure that’s going to be some years now.

Delia:

Okay, I see. What do you think are going to be your higher months like your most PC months?

Emily Groove:

Well, May was very busy. The problem I have is that I’ve been taking holiday myself this month and in August. So I don’t have anybody staying in the caravans when I’m not here because I want to be the one to go in and make sure everything’s okay when they’re gone. So ordinarily, I would say June, July, August would be the busiest months. It’s the school holidays here in July and August. You know, because it’s a good price, we get lots of families come, you know, because there’s this swimming pool and there’s children’s play parks and things like that on the site, you know, it’s good for families because it’s a reasonable price as well.

Delia:

And how much do you plan to raise your price during that season? Or do you plan to stay at your rate?

Emily Groove:

Now, that’s when I put it up a little bit. So on the first caravan, it’s, I’m trying to think I might have put it up to 70 pounds. And in the real peak season on the second caravan because it’s a nicer caravan, the rate starts at 55 and it goes up to 100 pounds a night in the peak season.

Delia:

And are your rates comparable to the other rentals in the camp?

Emily Groove:

Yeah, I think so. There are some other rentals, but they’re bigger than mine and more extravagant than mine and so they obviously charge more. There is somebody there has one, he has a caravan that’s similar to mine and he charges a lot less than me, I think he charges 30 pounds a night. Yeah, I think it’s kind of average.

Delia:

Yeah. I also think your price is good, right, average comparing to the other ones, giving that you also offer like a lot of good amenities, I think it’s worth it. Can you tell me a little bit about the challenges that you have so far with, you know, short-term rentals, Airbnb, whatever you think has been more challenging during this time?

Emily Groove:

So it’s not been so bad, I think isn’t challenging is that if there is a problem, I’ve messaged with Airbnb, and then they responded and they’ve been very helpful and I know that’s not everybody’s experience. But you know, I’ve not had a problem with them when I’ve needed something or when my guest has got in touch with me because they’re concerned about something before they’ve even arrived. They’ve got in touch because they’re concerned about something. It’s quite easy to go on to the Airbnb site and find the answer to help them. I suppose when it comes to people’s reviews, that’s a bit of a bone of contention, isn’t it? So my caravans interestingly, I can’t believe I haven’t mentioned this already, I they’re all plant based. So I request that my guests don’t bring meat or milk or eggs or fish into the kitchen and you know, I’m not saying they have to be vegan, but while they’re in my kitchen, they should be vegan, they can eat out, you know, and a lot of people just come and they eat out because there’s a, you know, there’s a restaurant on the park, so they don’t need to use the kitchen. And some people really like that and they really, they really appreciate it and I have like eco friendly things as well. So I have eco friendly cleaning products in the caravan and a lot of people really appreciate that. But I had one guest who, although I’d messaged him to make sure that he was aware well in advance of him arriving about the plant based kitchen situation, he ignored my message and then his review was, “oh, vegan kitchen, that’s a bit weird” and then marked me really low on everything, you know, and there’s nothing really I can do about that. So had he marked me in the same way as everyone else has marked me because I get quite high marks or high, you know, ratings from everybody apart from that one person, my current rating is only 4.7 because of that one person. So that’s a bit annoying and there’s nothing really, you know, I’m not going to be bothered to, you know, complain about that because that’s his view if he really wants to give me that rating and it’s not really affecting my bookings. So, you know, anybody with any kind of sense will look at this review and think “well, you just didn’t read the listing?”.

Delia:

I also saw the little, like, how do you say these, the little thing that indicates that your kitchen was plant-based. But I didn’t ask about it because I just forgot, I think that was like a rule. Can you explain a little bit more about it? That’s very interesting.

Emily Groove:

So because it’s my kitchen and it started because we lived in the caravan for a few months before we rented it the first caravan and because we’re vegan and I thought I don’t really want to be cleaning up, you know, that people’s meat and whatever, that they’ve cooked in the caravan. I also believe that, you know, with the world would be a lot better if people didn’t eat meat and eggs and milk in so many ways, I’m not gonna go into it because I have this conversation a lot. So I would prefer, you know, if the whole world didn’t eat meat or milk or eggs, but I have control over my caravan to a certain extent, obviously, I can’t really control what people do in there, but if I request that they, you know, eat plant based while we’re there, most people comply with that because they tend to ask me questions about it when they’re booking, it’s clear to me that some people don’t follow those rules. But I don’t, you know, I don’t mark them down particularly for that because I’m not a horrible person. Um, you know, if otherwise, they’ve kept the place clean and tidy and you know, tidied up after themselves and everything was fine, then yeah. If they don’t want to follow that rule, I can’t really stop them.

Delia:

I fully understand and I think it’s really something that for me, will be really easy to respect if you don’t want that, I don’t see why other people can’t do it. But I kind of understand that there are some people that are not going to respect it and are going to be a little bit harsh about it, right?

Emily Groove:

Some people get angry about it actually. I did when I realized that I hadn’t made it very clear, I sent messages to everybody that had booked and I said, “I’m really, really sorry, I wasn’t clear about this rule. You may have missed it, you know, I’m very happy if you want to cancel because of it, you’ll get a full refund” and probably half of my bookings cancelled because of it at the time. They all got booked up again, you know, so I didn’t actually lose anything from it. It felt bad at the time, you know, because everyone read my message and they were like, “what? I’m not allowed to bring milk?” and I’m like, “No, I’d rather you didn’t” so lots of people canceled. But then yeah, lots of people were fine with it and so it’s actually fine.

Delia:

And now you included it in your set of rules? Like the first message that you sent to that guest when their first book?

Emily Groove:

I don’t send them a message, but it’s in every paragraph in the listing pretty much and it’s in the house rules as well. So, you know, I want to make a big thing of it, but I don’t want to make a big thing of it. So that’s why I really get annoyed if people if it’s obvious that people have cooked meat in there. That’s only happened once. And you know, I’ve had like 22 bookings and any once I’ve I noticed, you know, that’s that people have put meat in there. I’m not going to, because I haven’t, you know explicitly message them and said, “By the way, don’t eat meat in my caravan”and I can’t really complain, I suppose.

Delia:

I’ve like a year ago, I saw like a post on Facebook, a person was running her own house and she was vegan and she personally requested everyone to not cook meat in her kitchen, you know, because it was the same pans and pots she used and all the comments were really harsh about it. How do you think you can with your kitchen, you know, with your plant based kitchen, bring awareness to people, right?

Emily Groove:

I think there should be a category on Airbnb, actually. So there’s another site, it’s called veggie visits and they call themselves the vegan Airbnb. But I get no bookings from them at all because it’s very, you know, it’s international and it’s very niche and nobody looking for a holiday that’s vegan is going to think, “oh, I want to spend 40 pound a night in a caravan on the king coast”, so I don’t get any bookings through there. But it would be good if there was a way to like, I don’t want to put the word vegan in the name of my holiday home because I don’t want to put people off, you know, you don’t have to be vegan stay here. I don’t want it to be like a really big thing, but it would be good to have a like a checkbox or a category or something in Airbnb, that would mean that if you were specifically looking for a vegan place, then it would come up. But it would come up anyway, if you were looking for some place, you know, on the king coast reasonably priced.

Delia:

Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. I actually agree with that. I’ve seen there’s categories for basically everything, so I don’t see why there shouldn’t be some for vegan, right? It should be. So the last thing I’d like to ask you about if there’s any tips that you would like to share for other Airbnb hosts or future Airbnb hosts?

Emily Groove:

When people review me, they say that my place is very, very clean and I give great attention to detail when I’m cleaning the place and I use a antiviral spray because of COVID afterwards, that smells amazing, it smells like cherries. And so when people open the door, they smell this amazing smell of cherries and people have actually said, you know, “I opened the door and it smelled amazing and just felt really clean”. And the other thing is that I’m very responsive on the messages. So people message me a lot before they arrive. Some people don’t talk to me at all, that’s fine. But if people message me before they arrive with any sort of questions, I go out of my way to find the answer and people really appreciate that.

Delia:

Okay, so the trickiest will be cleanliness and be responsive to your guests, right?

Emily Groove:

Yeah. Normal customer service really!

Delia:

That’s right, but I guess some hosts aren’t really aware or prepared for that, especially for the attention you have to give to your guests, right?

Emily Groove:

Yeah.

Delia:

Especially for that one. So yeah, that’ll be it for today. Thank you a lot for your time. Thank you for telling us about your story, about your journey.

Emily Groove:

It’s my pleasure!