Category: Podcast

Podcast interview with Airbnb hosts.

Interview with an Airbnb Host Consultant and Property manager – S2 EP19

Post author By Robyn Peña
Post date June 8, 2022

Welcome back to another episode of Into The Airbnb, where we talk with Airbnb hosts about their short-term rental experience.

Today’s guest is Sheila Rasak, an ex Airbnb host who decided to leave Airbnb in order to continue her career as a property manager and an Airbnb Host Consultant. Today, she’ll share with us about her experience and journey and some really useful tips on how to make the most out of your listing despite the current situation of your market.

This episode is sponsored by Airbtics, the only one analytics dashboard for short-term rental investors and managers, where you can find precise Airbnb data such as occupancy rate, revenue, average daily rate and so on. So, without further ado, let’s get into it!

Into The Airbnb S2 EP 19: Learn the secrets for a successful listing with an Airbnb Host Consultant and Property manager – CA

You can also listen to this Into The Airbnb Podcast Episode on Otter.

Delia:

So can you tell us when you were an Airbnb host, how did you get started on Airbnb or with short-term rentals?

Sheila Rasak:

Well, it’s interesting. The backstory on how I got started was in 2015, I moved from the state of California to Texas to be closer to my adult daughter. I had never heard of Airbnb before and I was trying to figure out, you know, whether I wanted to get back into real estate, on the residential sales side or management or, you know, whatever, I was looking for various opportunities. A friend of mine happened to mention Airbnb and I was actually in 2015, completely clueless. I just said, “what is that?” and she described the business to me. She said, “you know, with the layout of your condo, it sounds like you would be the, you know, it would be a perfect situation where you could bring somebody in, you know, various guests through Airbnb, you’ve got a guest suite with its own private bath” and, you know, she explained a little bit of the process. So basically, I hung up from that conversation and immediately started googling and learning everything I could about the business. I want to say, not even a week went by and I was up and running and hosting my first guest.

Delia:

Oh! And did you stay with that one particular listing throughout all your years being a host?

Sheila Rasak:

I did, I did. I had toyed around with the idea of possibly managing others. But I didn’t know whether or not I truly wanted to stay in the state of Texas. And once COVID hit, I thought, well, you know what, “I can pretty much do this anywhere, why not go back to my home state in California that I love and I’m very familiar with the geography and whatnot”. At that point in time, when COVID hit, I had worked with so many house and so I knew the ins and outs of the business even better. So I thought, “you know what, I think I’m gonna go back home”. So I absolutely made a decision, I believe it was September 3rd or 4th, I made the decision to leave Texas and by September 11th, I was on the road with a lot of my belongings placed in storage and I thought, I’m going to figure out where I want to live next on the coast of California. And so, you know, I moved in that was, oh gosh, that was September of 2020 and I’ve actually been on the road ever since. The goal for me, quite honestly, is to relocate now to the Central Coast. I love the area up there, there’s beaches, there’s vineyards, it’s so guest friendly. And I thought this would be the perfect opportunity to open up my own agency and start managing for others. So by the end of the year, I’m hoping to open up at least 10 doors and continue on with my career.

Delia:

Well, that’s a great story! And can you tell me like when COVID hit all the way in Texas where you were managing, did that make you like change your mind?

Sheila Rasak:

You know, I met the challenge with, you know, obviously a little bit of that worry of what how am I going to manage this because at a particular time, I was hosting in a home share situation and I was hosting medical students. So not only was I inviting, you know, guests in during COVID, in a situation where we really didn’t know a lot about the virus, but on top of that, I was putting myself at extreme risk with the guests that I tended to attract, which were the medical students or travelling nurses. I decided at one point, once I decided or started thinking that I wanted to leave Texas, I thought, “you know what, maybe now is the time to go ahead and reinvent myself” and it’s interesting in that because I was doing consultations for other Airbnb hosts. I pretty much applied the principles that I engaged with other hosts where I would stay. This is about reinventing yourself, we’re in a time in our lives where we are completely, you know, floored by this virus, we have to change, you know, protocols, and whatnot. And I would always ask them, you know, how do you see yourself surviving this? What are you going to do to change, to adapt to the current climate? And so I asked myself those questions and realise, okay, in order to pack everything up and whatnot and have that goal of being out of Texas by September, I knew I had to start making some changes and decisions, where I wouldn’t be able to host at that particular time. So I probably hosted my last medical intern, probably, I want to say it was June of 2020 and then that’s when I decided, “okay, I’m going to now do some hard thinking and decide how I want to go moving forward and surviving the pandemic”. That’s when little by little, you know, I just started seeing various opportunities for myself to continue being a Airbnb host, but in a different state.

Delia:

Yeah, that sounds great. It’s okay to ask yourself those kinds of questions, it’s okay to reinvent yourself, I totally agree. And do you find, I mean, you already had like experience in real estate, according to what you told me, right? Do you find the work you have right now, which is managing for property management company, easier or lighter or better than managing your own listing?

Sheila Rasak:

You know, I find it incredibly exciting to be able to offer help to rental owners and to do it right from the start, you know, instead of trial by error and learning and whatnot because throughout your time as a host, you learn this certain do’s and don’ts, what works, what doesn’t work. And I was able to bring that to the table when I started managing. I took a temporary job as I told you, for two weeks on the coast, where I managed 32 different units and pretty much, you know, realise that what I was bringing was decades of expertise in real estate. I’m a former realtor, I am a former commercial property manager and it’s all about that balance of keeping both guests and host happy when you are a property manager. I was able to do that commercially, where I was managing tenants like Barnes & Noble and Ben & Jerry’s ice cream and whatnot. So I applied those same skills to my work as a property manager for residential properties and more specifically, Airbnb short-term rentals, VRBO.

Delia:

I see. Can you tell us more about your host consultation business? Because you told me you were doing this even before you decided to leave Airbnb?

Sheila Rasak:

Yes, yes. Absolutely and more specifically, before I decided I was going to leave Texas. I was doing consultations individually and I still am with Airbnb VRBO hosts. So typically speaking, someone will book a consultation with me and they’ll want to address certain things within the body of their listing or their practices that they need fine tuning on. So they’ll come to me and they’ll schedule a consultation. I do this individually and specifically with what I perceive and what they’re perceiving as their problem areas. What I do is I do about 30 minutes prep before I engage with my client, so I get an overall good look at how they’re presenting themselves on the Airbnb platform or VRBO. Then, when we meet for a zoom consultation, we get a little deeper and we start talking about the types of guests that they host and what they perceive their problem areas are. Then also, I give them feedback on what I see not only as a marketer, but also as a consumer, when I look at their individual listing and we just take it from there. Every consultation is different, but yet with the same goals of “okay, this particular host and listing, for some reason isn’t getting the reservations that they want”, so my I dig in a little deeper and realise, “oh, here’s a problem spot, there’s a problem spot, this is why their listing might be stagnant” things like that. Then we talk about what changes they need to make on their end to boost that listing. So that listing that once had a really booked calendar, starts getting those reservations again.

Delia:

And do you think Airbnb consultation’s business is something that anyone could aspire to? Or is it more for people who already have like, a really good base, like experience on short-term rentals, Airbnb, real estate, like you?

Sheila Rasak:

You really do have to have the years of experience to you know, obviously, anyone can do this. We’re all teachable and this is a learning process that, you know, we never stop. We’re always improving. We’re always learning the right now, I mean, case in point. We survived that initial shutdown, we lost 1000s upon 1000s of dollars, we had to reinvent ourselves. I had one client who, you know, he had a seven bedroom, four bathroom property and it was it was a themed property. It was amazing. It was a very unique experience for guests, but boom, COVID hit and everything dried up. Then once we recognise that his particular city, which is Detroit, Michigan, was opening up to social distancing with groups of no more than 10. We thought, “okay, can we do some hosting of daytime events for his Airbnb?” and that way, he could still have some income coming in, even though he was not hosting overnights at that particular time. And it ended up working out really well for this particular client because we brainstormed, we recognise certain opportunities during that specific time period that allowed him to bring and generate more income that he lost in the initial shutdown.

Delia:

I understand and would you recommend for people who are having a really hard time with their listings to hire a consultant?

Sheila Rasak:

Say that again?

Delia:

Would you recommend for people who are having currently a really hard time with their listing to hire a consultant?

Sheila Rasak:

Oh, I absolutely, 100%! Because a consultant, no matter you know, if you hire me or you hire someone else, we dig deeper, we absolutely give that listing the attention that it needs and recognise certain things that your average Joe might not recognise. They’re new to the business, they thought it would be easier than what it was or they thought that all they had to do was A, B and C, but they forgot certain key aspects. An expert can go in there and say, “wait a minute, you know you’re offering this, but in your listing it says that” and so we kind of shed light on listings and help someone who’s new in the business recognise certain key points that we’ve found that are successful.

Delia:

Would you advice Airbnb hosts who are not 100% sure of staying in the industry to make themselves the same questions you ask yourself and go for the other options they have?

Sheila Rasak:

You know, quite honestly, you’re either hosting and you’re giving it your full commitment or you’re not. In the case that I just cited where we had that initial shutdown and we wanted to generate income, that was a way of being flexible and still staying in business and earning back some of those dollars that he had initially, you know, received and then lost as soon as we did the shutdowns. So you know, in terms of, you know, at this particular moment in time, once again, we’re at kind of a weird crossroads, I’m noticing a lot of hosts, whether they’re in my Facebook group or other Facebook groups, they’re talking about a reservation slump. My suggestion at that point in time is, first of all, it’s a perfect time to up your game, so to speak, where if you’ve got this just vanilla, very vanilla, very standard Airbnb listing, let’s say in a popular tourist spot, like Florida, okay, you’ve got this vanilla listing, it’s not anything spectacular. it’s a place to sleep this and that. That particular host would do well to sit and reflect on where they want to take that business. Do they want to just hopefully capture a reservation here and there? Or do they want it a viable Airbnb with constant turnovers? If the answer is they want a viable Airbnb with constant turnovers, then that particular host needs to take a good hard look at their hosting style. If it’s too plain, if it’s too vanilla, they’re not going to get those reservations, because right now, I think we’re in a time where, once again, we’re reinventing ourselves, we’re trying to improve our business models. So that when we are, you know, finding ourselves in a reservation slump, we come out of that even better because we’ve reflected on how we’ve been doing our business and why it’s faltering. You know, there’s a lot of ways to readapt and reinvent, whether it’s the initial shut down and we had to quickly determine, “hey, we can host a time of events, how do we reach that market? How do we reach that audience?” and we were able to do that for that particular client through social media. In this case, where you’re noticing you’ve got a reservation slump, you’re in a sea of very popular Airbnbs that have been established and have reached peak guests, that’s when you have to really do your research and understand that right now, I believe it’s about hosting with excellence. It’s about hosting with, you know, you’ve got a property, it’s a clean slate, get in there and find out why your guests are travelling to your particular destination. There’s a lot of factors involved in this business, a lot of nuances. Every Airbnb is not the same and so what can you do to improve your business model? I think is the key question at this particular time.

Delia:

So as an Airbnb host consultant, would you say that any market can be a good market with the right business model?

Sheila Rasak:

Pretty much, pretty much any market. Yes, absolutely. Because I’ve worked with hosts that, you know, are hosting a tree house experience all the way through to, you know, like I mentioned, a lot of themed Airbnbs. So, no matter where you are, sometimes you can make that particular listing, let’s say it’s not a popular tourist destination, you can make that particular piece of property into such an experience that you’re guests are gravitating and immediately just they’ve heard about it, they’ve read about it, they see it on social media and they say, hey, we’re going to like, a good case in point would be, there’s a really cool UFO experience in Joshua Tree. I don’t quite remember the name of that particular Airbnb, but it is a destination Airbnb, they’re not necessarily going there to enjoy Joshua Tree, they’re going there because of the actual property itself is based in a UFO and the pictures that are coming out of this particular property, show guests having an amazing time, guests are actually dressing up like aliens and, you know, people have gotten married there and whatnot. So yeah, to answer your question, that was the long version. Any Airbnb can do well depending upon, you know, all kinds of factors. It’s not just the geography that’s involved.

Delia:

So it will be more like selling a whole experience, instead of just a listing where you can just rest or like, yeah, just a resting place, it will be more like selling an experience with it.

Sheila Rasak:

Exactly. Exactly. And I can tell you, more and more people are getting on board with that, where they recognise that, you know, people want the experience as well as a place to just sleep. It’s not all business travel, some of it is the experience of going to a very unique property that has been designed with an experience in mind versus just a home to rent.

Delia:

Yeah, that’s very interesting to know. So that would be it for today and I hope we hear from you back when you’re ready with your own management company!

Sheila Rasak:

Sounds good!

Delia:

Yeah. Thank you for your time. Thank you for your tips.

Sheila Rasak:

Thank you!

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Podcast

Interview with an Airbnb Host from San Antonio Texas – S2 EP1

Post author By Robyn Peña
Post date June 8, 2022

Welcome back to another episode of Into The Airbnb, where we talk with Airbnb hosts about their short-term rental experience. Today’s guest is Jessica Garza from San Antonio, Texas, who is an Airbnb host since 2017. Currently managing four listings in San Antonio doing both Rental Arbitrage and co-hosting, achieving 100% occupancy rate in the highest season.

Into The Airbnb S2 EP 1:
100% occupancy rate – Rental Arbitrage and Long Term Rentals in San Antonio, Texas

You can also listen to this Into The Airbnb Podcast Episode on Otter.

Delia:

Okay, so our first question for today is, why did you decide to get started on Airbnb?

Jessica Garza:

Um, so I got started back in 2017 and I was going through a rough patch with my health, I lost my job. And I cashed out my 401k to be able to get by while I was looking for another job. But my friend told me about her going on vacation and staying in an Airbnb and she was telling me about her experience. At that time, I didn’t know about Airbnb. So I asked her what is that and she explained it to me and told me, you know, how it goes, how the system works. So just out of curiosity, I downloaded the app, I checked it out for myself, I used it myself as well for like a weekend getaway, just to kind of experience what it really was. And I told to myself, like, I could do this for supplemental income, and to help me get by until I find another job. So that’s what I did, I actually started out just renting out my master bedroom in my personal home, so I did like a shared space. I learned a lot from that it was you know, getting to know, the ropes, getting to know what people like and don’t like. And, you know, I realised that renting out just the master was bringing in pretty good money, but also then I thought, well, if I could get my rent paid for the full month, that would be more beneficial to me. So I started renting it out on weekends, only Friday through Sunday and I would leave for the weekend. I was making enough to pay my rent, my utilities and I still got to live there, you know, Sunday through Friday morning, which was great for me because I also had two daughters that lived with me. So on the weekends, we would stay with my mom or my sister and to them it was fun. It was like we got to get away for the weekend and it did get me by, it got me by and then I enjoyed it. I started meeting a lot of new people and I became friends with some of the people that stayed at my place that relocated here in San Antonio. So I continue to do it from there.

Delia:

Wow, that’s a great and inspirational story! What did you learn from your experience of renting your own space?

Jessica Garza:

Mostly people’s scores and I guess I would say definitely, people’s expectations have changed now. When I first started the expectations weren’t very high I guess. I don’t know maybe the audience has changed, the Airbnb is so much bigger now. But with time I’ve learned how to not only set expectations but meet them and I really learned to put myself in people’s shoes because as a traveller myself, I started to learn like oh, you know, this would be nice to do or this is not so great to do and by experience you learn those things, not only from hosting, but also from travelling yourself.

Delia:

That’s right, that’s right. And how did you get your first listing? like the first whole listing you manage on your own.

Jessica Garza:

Um, it was through rental arbitrage and it was actually with my current home, the home that I started renting out my master bedroom in, I moved from just the master to the entire place only on the weekends. Once I saw how busy and profitable it was, I found myself another place to live and I just rented out the whole thing full time. From there, I just continued to accumulate properties and when COVID hit, I did close a few, I closed three, and I kept one. I thought I was gonna hit financial ruin, but in reality, I only had one month, which was the first month of the initial lockdown, where the place was empty and I came out of pocket. But after that, it got really busy again and it was from people relocating here. People that needed to quarantine, and they needed their own space away from their family that they lived with. It got busy real quick after that. So I started to just build up again, the properties that I had let go before.

Delia:

I understand, since you told me previously that you manage four listings, and some of them are Rental Arbitrage. Do you think in your area, San Antonio, is it easy to get lenders to agree to do rental arbitrage? Or do you have some kind of secret for that? How do you convince them?

Jessica Garza:

There’s a lot of pushback now, back in, when I started, there wasn’t so much pushback. But now, with Airbnb getting bigger and there’s just so much more competition in it as well, the city themselves have gotten a lot more stricter about where you can Airbnb. HOA’s sometimes don’t allow it, it definitely has gotten a lot more difficult the past two years to convince the landlord to let you do this. Then once you convince the landlord, you’re having to deal with the city or the HOA or the actual management property. So in reality, all you got to do is hope for the best, when you present the fact that, what the positives are and those positives are usually the fact that the property is constantly being maintained, is constantly being cleaned, is being supervised; rent is never late because I do usually show funds that I have savings, which I accumulated throughout the years to be able to show that we can financially back the lease. So some landlords feel like “oh, you know, all of these things are really good and I think I’d rather go with this than a traditional renter”. Then there’s other landlords that are just absolutely not, they won’t even hear of it and so for sure, it just depends on the landlord themselves.

Delia:

So let me ask you about the area you’re hosting in. You told me all your four listings are currently located in San Antonio, Texas, right?

Jessica Garza:

Yes.

Delia:

What is seasonality like in the area you’re hosting?

Jessica Garza:

I would say the busiest is once the weather warms up and it’s usually around this time. It’s March through August. So March, like spring break, which we’re in right now is kind of what kicks it off for the year and we are consistently booked solid all the way through August until school starts. The slower months are after that, once kids go back to school and people are back to their normal routines, then that’s usually when I do see a little bit of a slowdown and that goes from August through February. But in all reality, it doesn’t slow down an awful lot is just not as busy. There’s not as many inquiries, but what I have noticed is, in my properties in particular, is during these times of the slow season is when I get the longer term guests. So like +30 days, I have a few properties that are close to the medical centre and so we do get a lot of contract workers for the hospitals, like nurses, doctors and stuff like that.

Delia:

Okay, so in these high season versus low season times, how is your average occupancy rate like?

Jessica Garza:

Like I said, even though it slows down a little bit, I really don’t have my properties vacant. Most of the time, they’re booked. So I would say in the highest season, for sure, it’s 100%. We might have like one or two days here and there in between. And sometimes we even book it like we block it, I mean, from it being booked, so that we can do a deep cleaning, if after a long-term stay 30 days and plus, I block a day or two after for cleaning, just because the turn around within four hours is not going to do it after someone’s been there for 30 days.

Delia:

And what about low seasons? How is your occupancy rate like in this time?

Jessica Garza:

The low season, like I said, we usually book it with long-term stays. So sometimes I’ll see like a week or a week and a half in between, I believe about a week and a half is the longest I’ve had any of the properties vacant and not booked in the low season.

Delia:

Woah. Okay, I understand. So, in general, like throughout the year, what will be your pricing strategy?

Jessica Garza:

Pricing strategy? Well, I know there’s a lot of programs out there that figure out pricing for you. I think there’s pricing dynamics, PriceLabs, I’ve heard of so many. But in reality, I like to just look at the competition and see what’s around me. See what they’re renting for, see if they’re booked and if they are and they’re getting something that is higher than what I’m getting, then I’ll match that price. If for any reason, it affects my bookings or, like, let’s say in the slow season, when I have that week and a half or two weeks, that’s empty, I will lower it during that time, but I manually lower prices when it gets close to time in my calendar, that’s not booked. I do not do instant pricing through Airbnb, just because I will see it go really high and then it goes really low and it’s not consistent and it kind of throws off my numbers as well because I do take into consideration overhead, which is, you know, we got to pay rent utilities, upkeep, replacing things that are damaged. Then on top of that, you still want a little bit of profit. And with San Antonio, growing as much as it has grown in the past two years, rents have gone up a lot. So that’s another thing that is making the rental arbitrage a little harder is the fact that it doesn’t leave as much margin for you to make profit. So you got to be real careful with the property that you accept to take on and see ahead of time. If the pricing checks out, you know.

Delia:

Yeah, I understand. So if this is not too personal, like watching your competition and how much do they make, do you think your pricing strategy has brought you a good amount of profit comparing to them?

Jessica Garza:

Um, I think so. I’ve never been in a negative, I have been able to build enough of a like a safety net as well. Like I said, I show proof of funds to the landlord as well, to show that I can financially backup an entire year lease. So, the reason I do that is probably because I’m used to doing that. I’m also a real estate agent, so when we price listings, when we price homes for sale, that’s what we do, we do a CMA, which is you’re evaluating the market at the time that you’re putting the house up for sale. So you’re looking within your neighbourhood homes around you what did they sell for and you compare it according to square footage. So I pretty much do the same thing with the rentals and I think when people are looking to book a place online, they’re doing the same thing. They’re looking to see probably what’s the cheapest for the nicest. So they’re looking for a nice place to stay. Definitely going to have some nice pictures to track them in. But also overall price what’s going to sell; price is what’s going to get you the bookings and if you’re more expensive than anything else on the app, you probably won’t get as many bookings.

Delia:

That’s right. That’s really good to know. And I’d like to know based on your experience running Airbnb, what has been, in the past years, your top challenges you have encountered while being a host?

Jessica Garza:

Challenges with guest as a host?

Delia:

With guests, while doing rental arbitrage, whatever you find the hardest to go through.

Jessica Garza:

Um, I actually find real estate a lot more difficult and stressful than Airbnb. So when I’m dealing with Airbnb problems, to me it’s like, it’s a big problem, but it’s no big deal. I would have to say it would be difficult guests, people that break the rules. Recently I had a person stay for three months and they removed all the smoke detectors in the apartment to be able to smoke inside. They didn’t bother putting them back on and also they damaged a few things in the property. They also opened up all the windows and left the AC running, like at a very low temperature. So the electricity bill was through the roof, like I had never paid such a high electricity bill for that specific property. So I would have to say it would be inconsiderate guests that, you know, it almost seems like on purpose they break all the rules because it’s clearly laid out in in the check in instructions, in the listing itself, I try and reiterate the information as many times as possible, so that later on, they say “I didn’t know”. That’s what I try and avoid, I want to make sure they have all the information upfront. For the most part, I’ve had really good guests. I’ve been lucky. But, you know, you get your troublesome guests every once in a while.

Delia:

That’s good. Good to hear your experience because, you know, many future Airbnb hosts are very discouraged to get started on Airbnb because of these stories of nightmare guests. They think that’s going to happen to them on a regular basis or that is going to ruin their business. So it’ll be great if you can give us some tips. You can share with us some tips for other Airbnb hosts or future Airbnb hosts who’d like to get started.

Jessica Garza:

Yeah, I can understand that. My biggest fear has always been and still is squatters. I have not have a squatter situation, but yeah, it’s very possible and to me that my biggest fear. But definitely, I think the biggest tip is that you learn from every guest, that you change things and improve as you go. So like with the guests that I just told you about, after that I decided to put in a electricity cap on any stay over 30 days. I give them an amount that if their electricity usage goes over that amount, they’re responsible for the difference. So that’s probably the best advice I could give to anyone is that you’re constantly learning from your own experiences and so you’re constantly having to adjust your business. I would also say, do not get overly involved emotionally. It’s a business and it should be treated as a business. I’ve seen a lot of talk on social media groups, where people treat the properties I guess, like their own personal home and for your own personal home, it might be different. If you’re doing room share, that’s very different because you, your personal self is there, you’re sharing space with someone you don’t know. But if you’re not sharing the space, it’s a business and you really have to separate yourself from that and just treat it as a business and not get overly involved with every move that guest is making. I like to give guests their privacy and their space. If they’re breaking roles, then I just charge them accordingly and that’s that.

Delia:

Those are great tips. So last thing I would like to ask you for is, we talked previously about rental arbitrage and some tips about it. Now I would like you to give us some tips regarding longer stays. For some hosts, it might be easier for them to do longer stays for a variety of reasons and maybe they’re scared of it or maybe they think it’s not going to work in their place. But in case they get it going, are there some tips you’d like to share for them?

Jessica Garza:

Yeah, actually, longer stays are my favourite. Yeah, so longer stays are my favourite. There’s just the less turn around, the less cleaning. I have heard of hosts that offer cleaning, while there’s people within a long-term stay. It seems like they do it mostly to be able to check on the property, which sounds like a good idea. But like I said, I like to give people their privacy. So I will offer them the option to have someone go in within two weeks to clean. But if they don’t take me up on it, I don’t push it. So like I said, with long-term stays are special rules, I got the electricity cap in place now. Also, I’ll have them sign a short-term lease for anything over 20 days, I take the deposit from them as well because I have had people leave and refuse to pay damages or the electricity cap. I’ve actually had Airbnb declinate as well. So it’s easier to just keep it from a deposit and show proof of why you kept it and move on. I would say that most people looking for long-term stay place, they want a place that’s fully furnished with everything they’re going to need, especially in the kitchen, cooking. A lot of people that are staying there for a long time, that’s not just vacation, they need to live in it, I mean, they’re going to cook, so you need to have everything that they’re going to need for that. Also, dressers in the bedrooms. I’ve noticed a lot of Airbnb don’t have dressers and for like a weekend getaway or something like that, that works. But when you have a long-term stay, they need a place to put other clothes and have a routine in place.

Delia:

That’s right.

Jessica Garza:

I think that’s all I would say about that is, you know, making sure that you have separate rules for the long-term stays because a lot of that won’t apply to people that are just there for the weekend or three days. But definitely because there’s less turnaround and there’s less, usually, there’s less traffic in and out of your property. With the long-term stays, it’s usually working professionals, so you don’t have an entire family coming in and out of your place a lot. So that’s probably like another pro for a long-term stay.

Delia:

Right, those are really good tips. Actually, there’s one more little question I would like to make. I’ve seen many hosts struggle with, when they have troubles with guests, for example, they don’t know if it’s easier to solve it with the guest or also call Airbnb, tell Airbnb about their problem in case it is something really serious. Would you say is easier to deal with the guests? Or is better to involve Airbnb?

Jessica Garza:

It depends on the guest. Some guests, they seem like sensible understanding people and so you can message them directly. I would definitely keep all messaging on through the app because they’ll try and text you and make you promises and tell you “oh, yes, I’m willing to pay this fee or that fee” and then when you try and charge them through the resolution centre, they just don’t pay and then there’s no record of them promising to pay when it comes to you involving Airbnb and their resolution centre representatives. So definitely, I would say depends on the guests, most of the time, I reach out to the guests first and I see if they’re reasonable, if they’re even going to respond. Some of them won’t even respond to you. But if they seem reasonable and they respond and it’s on the app with the messaging so that if you need to involve Airbnb, it’s all there, then I keep it at just that. But if we’re not getting anywhere on the agreement of what the issues are or that they’re gonna pay the fee, then I involve Airbnb right away for sure. I use Airbnb’s customer service a lot.

Delia:

Okay, that’s great advice. So that’d be for today. Thank you for sharing your story with us!

Jessica Garza:

Oh, you’re welcome!

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Interview with an Airbnb Host from Medford, Oregon – S2 EP18

Post author By Robyn Peña
Post date June 7, 2022

Welcome back to another episode of Into The Airbnb, where we talk with Airbnb hosts about their short-term rental experience.

Today’s guest is Laura Ancheta based in Medford, Oregon, who manages 30 listings, including one in Alaska. In this episode, she will tell us about her particular story of how she got started as host, her journey on Airbnb and some useful tips and insights of her areas.

Into The Airbnb S2 EP 18: 98% booked at Medford, Oregon – Started renting her own house and now manages 13 listings

You can also listen to this Into The Airbnb Podcast Episode on Otter.

Delia:

So, can you tell us how did you get started on Airbnb?

Laura Ancheta:

Yeah. Funny enough, I was on an airplane flight and I I’ve had regular renters for about 10 years. And I was on a flight going somewhere and a lady was just showing me VRBO and Airbnb and telling me about the business. I gotten a lawsuit with a tenant in California and it was just really ridiculous and unfair. I mean, I won in the end. But it was so difficult that I decided to list one of my properties on Airbnb, I listed my own home actually on that flight home. I’m like, “sure, let’s do this!”. I listed my own home and within a day, I had like six bookings on my own home. So I had to go home and tell my husband “oh, by the way, I rented our house out” and that was the beginning. I ended up selling all of my, I had about five regular rentals, and I decided to sell all the rentals and move all of my property up to Oregon and start buying houses up here.

Delia:

Oh my! And how did you husband react to that sudden change?

Laura Ancheta:

He was good. He is used to me doing things like that. We had one child and we ended up moving into our RV for a little while. We had three houses at the time and we were jumping between houses and the RV. We ended up having 13 puppies. So the 13 puppies, two cats and my son and my husband and I just moved around a lot the first year. We sacrificed a lot the first year so that we could get what we wanted, you know, get to where we wanted.

Delia:

Oh my! And how was like the first month experiencing the short-term rentals?

Laura Ancheta:

It was actually really hard. What I know now in hindsight is when you first start, you don’t necessarily get the best renters because you don’t have that history of reviews. So we found that as we grew and as we grew in our reviews, we were able to get better renters. But that first month was pretty tough actually. We live in a town that has a lot of weed, marijuana sales, so there’s a lot of guys that come up here for the business and we were dealing with our house getting kind of beat up a lot. So it was tough, but I loved it.

Delia:

And did you think of giving up while going through those hard times?

Laura Ancheta:

Um, I didn’t because I’m not much of a giver upper. But I definitely had to ask a lot of questions and start to figure out how I could make it. So it wouldn’t stay that way because I definitely couldn’t have kept going, you know, with dealing with the parties and the people that we were getting. And again, as I said it started to taper off almost immediately once we started getting good reviews, we raised our prices a little bit and as soon as we did that we started getting better renters. So we didn’t give up.

Delia:

And was that like your only strategy to get good renters? Or did you also started to run background checks on them, or did you get some… how do you say, these hubs from other hosts in the area?

Laura Ancheta:

What we did is we got cameras and honestly I know a lot of people, I’m on some Facebook pages and people say “that’s invasion of privacy, that’s ridiculous, don’t get cameras” and I think that’s crazy if you don’t have cameras. I think a lot of people that say that don’t actually own houses because when you put your heart and soul and your money into a house, in a home, you don’t want it to get destroyed and hotels, you know, hotels have cameras, everywhere has cameras, grocery stores have cameras, there’s cameras all over the place. Once we were able to really, I would say the biggest change we made with how our listing, we kept adjusting our listing and we were really direct about that we have cameras, if you don’t like cameras, this isn’t a place for you to rent and you will not be allowed. If you booked for six people, that’s how many people can be there. We don’t allow extra guests at our houses. So we were pretty strict about who we rent to and we make it really clear what our expectations are and make sure it’s a good fit with them by telling them: hey, this, this and this and if they feel like I sound a little controlling, then they need to go somewhere else.

Delia:

Oh, yeah, I agree with you. There should be cameras from Airbnbs, as long as they’re not like inside a bedroom or something.

Laura Ancheta:

Oh, not inside the house at all. Yeah, we just have them on every door. We have them on every entrance to our property and the trick is making it clear to the guests so that they know because you deal with bad reviews, if people aren’t aware, they get more upset. So I’ve realised that communication is just absolutely one of the most important things for keeping, we have over 1500 star reviews and part of why we have those is communication, like really making sure the guests knows what they’re walking into before they come.

Delia:

Yes, that’s right, I agree with you. And after your change, like having cameras in your property, did you get some guests that maybe were a little bit mad about it?

Laura Ancheta:

Yes, I mean, we still get guests that are mad about it. But it, you know, we don’t watch them all the time, I have like 25 cameras, I don’t have time to sit and stalk people. But when we have people that come in that immediately turn them off or upset about them, we give them the opportunity to leave if they’re not happy with them. But for the most part, you know, they agreed to it, it’s written about three different times in the listing and we just let them know that this is how we protect our properties. And honestly, if they walk in and they look like normal families on vacation, we don’t bother them. And we let them know that we just say, “hey, these are here for the people that want to come in” and we tell them a couple of, you know, horror stories of what we’ve experienced and they seem to be a little more understanding. I they’re not, then they honestly aren’t the kind of guests that we want. If they’re so afraid of a camera outside that they are freaking out, then we don’t even want them in our house.

Delia:

How do you deal with that if they appear at the checking and they don’t like anything about the cameras? Do you just tell them to check out immediately?

Laura Ancheta:

You know, we’ve given them the opportunity at times to check it out immediately or we just tell them this is what they signed up for. We explained that we’re not going to, you know, we don’t watch them all the time, we don’t have time to do that. We kind of just say it is what it is. If they’re super nice and we see on the camera that they really, if it’s like, you know, grandma and grandpa and their grandkids or if they just look like a family that has suitcases on vacation, we’re more apt to be willing, like we’ll turn off one of the camera, but keep the parking lot camera on or, you know, I’m not saying I’ve never turned the camera off, but we meet them and make sure that we’re comfortable with who’s in our home before we do that.

Delia:

Yeah, sounds great as well that you respect their privacy, right? So I’d like to make you some questions about the area you’re hosting in most likely the areas. So you told me you’re hosting in Medford, Oregon and in Alaska?

Laura Ancheta:

Yeah. I just have one in Alaska and my sister is running it. So I have a house there, but my sister takes care of it.

Delia:

So in those areas, how is the seasonality like?

Laura Ancheta:

We have hugely busy summers, we have a lot of lakes and rivers and hiking, summer weddings. So summer, we’re pretty much booked nonstop. We’re booked at about 98% in the summertime. Then in the winter, we stay about 60% booked I would say and we lower prices a little bit in the winter, raise them in the summer. But we have four seasons here and so we don’t even get like solid snow, so for the most part, people come year round.

Delia:

And what about the one in Alaska? Do you know how is it like in there?

Laura Ancheta:

Yeah, that one’s totally different because it’s super freezing in the winter and so a lot of people don’t really visit in the winter. So we predominantly do all of our business in May through September. But we can recharge a tonne in Alaska because two groups of guys come out to fish and so when you get 10 guys fishing, paying $700/$800 a night is no big deal because it’s only 80 bucks a person. And all they want to do is fish, they just stay out in the river all day long. So the house doesn’t get weed. I have no parties. I never have problems in Alaska.

Delia:

Oh, so that’s the only demographic of people you get up there?

Laura Ancheta:

I would say about 80% is all fish people come in to fish.

Delia:

Oh I see. That’s interesting. I’ve never heard about anyone having listings in Alaska before.

Laura Ancheta:

Yeah, definitely a fisherman’s community.

Delia:

So in Oregon, how is your occupancy rate like in the high season versus the low season?

Laura Ancheta:

It’s about 98% in the high season and about 60% in the low season.

Delia:

Good. Those are good numbers, actually! What is your pricing strategy throughout the year?

Laura Ancheta:

I have a base price set for the year that’s kind of high and then I do discounts or I drop it in the winter. But I go through and I raise it every weekend that there’s a holiday or every weekend that I know there’s a big events in Medford. So I just customise it based on holidays and events and lower it in the winter.

Delia:

Are there any particular events happening there that you specially paid attention to?

Laura Ancheta:

Yeah, yeah, there’s this thing called Boatnik and it’s kind of like a big hippie fest at the lake. The whole entire town gets booked solid that weekend. Then there is a thing called the Britt festival in the summer, where there’s concerts at this really nice garden area. So in the Brit festival, things get booked up. Graduation weekend is massively huge. Graduation weekend get slipped up by January and it’s in June, so I can raise my prices, almost one of the highest I can raise is in graduation again.

Delia:

Oh, I was just asking about the events because some other hosts might be interested in hosting your same town I would like to know about those. Right? So do you use any pricing dynamic pricing solution? Or do you just price by yourself?

Laura Ancheta:

I do it myself. I have heard on many occasions that the set like constantly and being in your listings, like moving pictures around and changing your prices, just being dynamic in the listing is helpful. So I just do it myself.

Delia:

For all of your listings?

Laura Ancheta:

Yeah, for all of them. I just lay in bed at night and look at them! And I do it on Airbnb and VRBO, so I do it on two platforms.

Delia:

Oh, that must be tiring! Some people that have like two listings already use pricing solutions to help them.

Laura Ancheta:

Yeah, I just have a lot of energy.

Delia:

Yeah and if you know your market properly, it’s also very easy to price. Great to hear about it. I forgot to ask you! When did you start it on Airbnb?

Laura Ancheta:

2016

Delia:

2016 great. So in all these years being an Airbnb host, what have been your top challenges?

Laura Ancheta:

The biggest challenges are the people that come to destroy, I mean you know, like keeping people from having, I have really in a higher end and nice, large beautiful homes. Some of them are on like an acre, I have one that’s on a five acre property. So people get there and they immediately change all their plans and they think “oh, let’s have all of our family reunion here. Let’s have our wedding here instead of at the park”, so the biggest part is communicating and making sure people understand they can’t do that without getting a bad review because reviews, I mean I don’t know anybody that doesn’t dislike Airbnbs review system because they can come and destroy your house and break things and break all your rules and I don’t let them get away with that, I’d have to stop them. Then they still get to put a review on your account. So, in essence, I don’t end up reviewing them because I don’t want them to review me back. So it’s a really twisted system that doesn’t work because hosts don’t really let it, I mean, if you know what you’re doing, you don’t leave a review for a bad person because then they’ll give you one back. So it doesn’t give us a true understanding of when there’s bad guests.

Delia:

Oh, so you’re the kind of host who’s not afraid to give them a bad review?

Laura Ancheta:

No, I don’t. I don’t give them a bad review because the way the system works, if you give them a bad review, then it’s going to send them an email saying, “hey, this person left you a review”, it sends them a reminder to leave you a review. And if it was a bad experience and I had to kick them out or I had to kick their friends out or I had to go over and talk to them, I don’t want to review for them because they’re gonna leave me a bad one because they’ll know that I left them a bad one. So it’s just a big game. I mean, in my eyes, it’s just a really bad system. They should, you know, they should be not allowing people that have broken policies and you have proof of that, they shouldn’t be allowing those people to review, in my opinion.

Delia:

Right, I understand completely. And what do you think of those hosts who just get to do the bad review in the guests? Like no matter what?

Laura Ancheta:

I mean, I think it’s great that they do it. You know, I know people get mad when I say that I don’t, but unfortunately, it tanks your reviews, it makes your reviews bad.

Delia:

Okay, so are there any tips that you’d like to share for other Airbnb hosts?

Laura Ancheta:

I think it’s a great business, I love it and I wouldn’t change it for the world. My biggest thing I would say, for new people because if they’re reading on Facebook or they’re looking for advice, to be careful who you get advice from, like, don’t get advice from people who haven’t done it or don’t own a house and find people that have several houses or that are successful and get advice from the right people because there’s a lot of bad advice out there. The other thing is, it’s your house and you don’t have to be afraid to have rules and policies in your own house because the destruction, if you don’t do that, it can be really expensive.

Delia:

Good. Thank you for the tips! I would like to ask you about your experience managing several listings, how did it change from like your very first start managing just one listing to nowm managing 13 of them?

Laura Ancheta:

What was the question? Like what’s the difference?

Delia:

Yes, how has your experience changed?

Laura Ancheta:

Um, I would say just, you know, just the time when you have a lot more, you’re scheduling a lot more housekeepers, you’re scheduling a lot more handyman work, you know, you have to be prepared for damage, little things that you have to go fix. Not damage from guests, but just because you own a home. So I would just say time, I mean, I had another business and I sold my business on January 1st of this year. So now I have a lot more time to dedicate to it, but it’s just your to do list is never never ending. But it’s okay, you just have to knock one thing out at a time.

Delia:

How do you deal with getting a good cleaning crew?

Laura Ancheta:

I would say that’s one of the hardest things. My husband does a lot of the handyman. He works full time with me, we both work full time in the business. But housekeeping is very difficult and you just have to treat them like gold, which they are and you have to pay them what they’re worth I think and be prepared to fire and hire a lot. I’ve hired and fired so many times, I can’t even tell you because there’s no room for error, unfortunately, with guests they don’t. If you forget to leave soap and shampoo or toilet paper, you don’t clean the frigerator out or you don’t empty the dishes out of the dishwasher, the guests will leave you a bad review and reviews are everything in your area. So not a lot of room for error, unfortunately.

Delia:

And what would be like your strategy to get like trustable people for those type of services?

Laura Ancheta:

You know, I don’t really have a strategy other than asking around and I mean, sometimes I even just have to post on Facebook and I will bring three or four people in a week or two and have them, I just thrown to the wolves and see how they clean because there’s just no way of knowing. You know, the big thing too is that they start off well and then within a few weeks, they start slack, you know, not putting that same effort in. So we’re just again, we have cameras and if they’re all of a sudden leaving in an hour when that should take three hours to clean, we just have to call them on it, unfortunately. So a lot of confrontation in Airbnb, you have to be comfortable with confrontation or you’re not gonna have fun.

Delia:

Right, yeah, I understand completely. So that’ll be it for today. Thank you for your time and thank you for your tips.

Laura Ancheta:

Yeah, no problem. Thank you!

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Interview with an Airbnb Host from Alto, Georgia – S2 EP17

Post author By Robyn Peña
Post date June 7, 2022

Welcome back to another episode of Into The Airbnb, where we talk with Airbnb hosts about their short-term rental experience.

Our guest for today is Kristin LeQuier, based in Alto, Georgia. She manages two listings, the independent lodge in her home’s basement and a camper in her backyard. In this episode, Kristin will share with us about her journey and Airbnb, useful insights about her market and her personal experience renting part of her house where she lives with her children.

Into The Airbnb S2 EP 17: Family friendly lodge and RV camper on Airbnb 85-90% OR during high season in Alto, Georgia

You can also listen to this Into The Airbnb Podcast Episode on Otter.

Delia:

So can you tell us how did you get started on Airbnb?

Kritin LeQuier:

Sure, absolutely. About five years ago, I became a single mom, so I needed to find a way to support my children. I had been a stay at home mom for about 20 years and still had children at home. So for me going out and getting a traditional job was not very convenient. And I had some friends that ran an Airbnb and told me all about it and how successful it was. I thought, “wow, if they can do that, I can do it” and so I just worked towards getting a portion of my house ready to list on Airbnb.

Delia:

At first, how was your experience renting that portion of your house?

Kritin LeQuier:

It was far better than I expected. Almost immediately, I had bookings and they were pretty consistent.

Delia:

How did you decided to move that part of your house that you have to the basement because you told me your currently listing your basement as a listing?

Yes. Our basement was already, I don’t want to say perfect for an Airbnb, but it had its own bedroom. It’s a finished basement with three sets of French doors that open to the outside, there’s a terrace level, it had a full bedroom, a full bathroom, a kitchenette, fireplace. So really all I had to do was add in a few more kitchen amenities, so that it could be completely separate from our house, close off the door leading to our house and just get it in shape for oh, I also added some bunk beds down there too, so it’s more family friendly. But that was about it because the space was already fairly well set up and functional to use as an Airbnb.

Delia:

That’s a great way to start! And about the camper because you told me you’re also using a camper that is out in your yard, how did you acquire that? And how did it came to you that you could do that?

Kritin LeQuier:

Well, during the quarantine time, it seemed that a lot of people were travelling to and drawn to unique destinations. So it seems like travelling to stay and campers just seemed to became very popular. I think maybe people were veering away from the crowds and from traditional hotels. Oh tree houses, that was another one! So when I thought about what might work here at my home, the camper scenario, again just seemed to be the best fit after doing my research. I already had the ability to hook up the electric and the water and the sewer for it on my property. So I purchased the camper, I actually purchased it off, I think might have been listed on Facebook marketplace and I purchased it off of there and brought it home and set it up to use as an Airbnb.

Delia:

Both of your listing seems to attract the same demographic of people, for example, maybe more families, more couples?

Kritin LeQuier:

Actually, they don’t, they attract different demographics. So the Airbnb that is in my actual home, that is in my basement, tends to attract more families because it is set up to accommodate up to six guests. So I get a lot of families that have two, three, sometimes even four children with them. That’s not to say that I don’t get four adults or, you know, a couple of couples staying in there. But in general, it attracts more large families. Also, I have children and so there is a playground and a trampoline on my property. There’s walking trails, hiking trails, a creek and so all of that I think appeals to families. The camper, on the other hand is quite small, I only have it set up to accommodate two guests. So I tend, obviously, I get a lot of couples, I have also gotten a lot of travelling nurses that have chose to come stay there, probably because it’s a fairly inexpensive choice and something again, a little bit different than staying in a traditional hotel.

Delia:

And which one do you find is attracting the best type of guests? Do you encounter any nightmare guest or hard to manage guest in any of your listings?

Kritin LeQuier:

I have attracted a couple of, I guess you’d call them a nightmare guest, but I really have been quite blessed and not had a horrible, horrible experience, I would say probably the worst or most challenging experiences that I’ve had were guests that chose to smoke inside. I mean, there really isn’t anything lot you can do about it until they leave, you walk in, it smells like smoke and, you know, usually they have denied that they smoked there, even if you find the remnants of them smoking. So basically, I just tried to be prepared for every situation. I have an ozone machine, which I’ll run in the units to quickly get out any smoke smell. I have a HEPA filter machine that I can run to get out any allergens that might be in the units. I have three or more complete sets of all of my linens at all times in case I walk in and the towels or the linens have been ruined. So just be prepared, you know is how I’ve dealt with it.

Delia:

Yeah, that’s good. So you told me that you didn’t have really any trouble guests at all, right?

Kritin LeQuier:

Well, I mean, I would say the ones that went in and were smoking, that’s a problem because it creates a lot of extra work to get the smoke smell out of a unit in four hours.

Delia:

Yeah. You’ve been really blessed to be honest, if you didn’t get any trouble guest. Oh, and that leads me to also asking, how is the competition? How is the market in the area you’re currently hosting right now? It was Altos, Georgia, right?

Kritin LeQuier:

It is in Alto, Georgia and I would say if you looked in Alto, there probably is not too much competition. However, we are just one small town in Northeast Georgia and the town of Helen, Georgia is a little German town and in itself is a destination town. So there is a lot of competition in Helen and in the Northeast Georgia mountain area. That said, because I’m not directly in Helen, I can charge less and hopefully, you know, attract and be more affordable to a wider variety of guests.

Delia:

Right! So you’re close enough to Helen for your guests to come to your listings and also go to Helen, if that’s the city they want to visit, right?

Kritin LeQuier:

Yes, ma’am. So the majority of my guests that are here to visit the area, generally come to visit Helen to go hiking, they like to come up to visit apple orchards in the fall. We just in March had the Georgia Mountain Wine Festival. So there are a lot of wineries in our area and you can tour around and visit those with kind of a passport during the month of March. So I’m within 30 minutes of most of the popular things to do around here and definitely within an hour of anything. So it’s sort of a central location for people to stay.

Delia:

Oh, that’s really good and really convenient! So in the area of hosting, like there in Alto and also around Helen town, how is the average occupancy rate like or the seasonality? Sorry, how is the seasonality like that?

Kritin LeQuier:

Well, the high season is definitely in the summer. Definitely the month of July is the highest season. Although looking back through my listings, this January was also a very high occupancy rate and I guess you’d say high season? And I can’t really tell you, I don’t know because after that, nationwide, it seemed to drop off for everyone. I think the high gas prices had an effect on Airbnb listings nationwide, over the last month or two, but during my high season, I would say that my occupancy rate is between 85 and 90% booked between both my listings. In the low season, probably around 60 to 65% booked.

Delia:

Those are really good numbers to be honest.

Kritin LeQuier:

Thank you!

Delia:

Okay. So do you by any chance in like, for example, the low seasons, decide to extend the length of your stays, for example, accept someone who would like to stay a whole month?

Kritin LeQuier:

Oh, yes! I mean, I generally accept longer stays anytime of the year. The way that I have chosen to make my low season profitable is by lowering my rate, my nightly rate or keeping my rate at what it is and then offering a discount. On Airbnb, if you offer a 10 to 20% discount, then there are perks that go along with that, depending on the amount of your discount. So for instance, if you offered a 20% discount or more, that has the most perks, they will promote your particular business the most. It’ll be the highest up on their page, it gets sent out in email listings, they put little notations and markers on your introduction page to catch people’s attention. So between those two options I tend to stay pretty well booked.

Delia:

And aside of choosing to do some discounts throughout the year, what is your pricing strategy?

Kritin LeQuier:

When I started out, I did research, I looked at comparable listings in my area and I chose to start out at the lower end of my area to attract guests. Then once I achieved super host status and had consistent guests, I chose to raise my rates, so I just incrementally raised them $5 or $10. I do notice that my weekends are almost always booked and so I can keep my weekend rates $10 or $15 more per night than my weekday rates all the time. But then, like I said, if I noticed, bookings are dropping off, we’re slow, I’ll just lower my rates again. But I do tend to stay on the lower end of the listings for my area.

Delia:

Okay, sounds good and have you tried by any chance using some dynamic pricing solution or even Airbnb smart pricing?

Kritin LeQuier:

I do use Airbnb smart pricing. However, I set my lowest and my highest rate because their low rates can be unprofitable and their high rates would definitely priced me out of this market here. It would just be above everything else. So it has limits that you can set on the low end and on the high end and I do set those limits. Then again, if I see that it’s a holiday or a weekend and I feel as if they’re smart pricing is not reflective of the date that time of year, then I just override it.

Delia:

I see and how has been your experience so far with the smart pricing? Do you think it’s a good tool? Because I’ve heard from many other hosts, that they don’t like smart pricing at all, even setting the lowest price and highest price, they would simply choose not to use it.

Kritin LeQuier:

Yeah, I’ve heard the same thing, but I haven’t had that problem at all. So for instance, if I know that, you know, on the low end, I want my pricing to be $85 and on the weekends I want it to be, you know, $105. Then that’s just what I set it on on smart pricing and Airbnb does it for me. I don’t have to go through and set each it every day. I don’t worry about it.

Delia:

That’s good. It’s good to hear that you have a good experience with it.

Kritin LeQuier:

Yeah, it’s worked for me.

Delia:

Now, I would like to make you some kind of personal questions if you don’t mind sharing about how has been, like personally, how you felt your experience renting your own space as someone who has children currently living there?

Kritin LeQuier:

Yes. So at first I was very, very concerned because being a single mom with children in the home, you wonder, you know, who is going to bein your house and how is that going to work out, but again, we have been really blessed with fantastic guests. We do live in a very rural area and so I think the guests that come here know that that’s what to expect. Everyone has been very kind, many of the ones that actually stay in my home have children and just to clarify when I say that I am renting out my the basement in my home, that is their entire space. We do not have contact with those guests unless they’re outside. If they’re outside, you know, on the lawn playing, hanging out, whatever, then we might see them out there or if they contact me and need something than I am, you know, I’m right above them, I’m happy to go down and bring more towels or show them how something works or whatever it is that they might need assistance with. But otherwise, it’s been great. There have been no unkind guests or any issues that I have felt, with my children being unsafe or anything. Yeah, we’ve been very blessed.

Delia:

That’s great to hear! And how have you addressed this situation with your children? You know, you always have to, since they live in the same house with you, you might have to tell them “okay, I’m renting the house”, you know, setting some rules, explain them something?

Kritin LeQuier:

Yes. Yes, so it’s a love/hate relationship. So we do have rules and I don’t have any very, very, very small children in the home. So they all understand currently, my youngest is nine, and our main rule is they are never ever ever to enter either of the Airbnbs under any circumstances. So if a guest asked them to come in, if they have children, they’re playing with the children, the children say, “come on, come on in play with us”, my younger children know they are not allowed in there under any circumstance at all. So that’s one rule. Then our other rule is, for the one that’s in the basement, when we have guests down there, do not, you know, stomp, bounce a ball, rollerblade any of the above over the living room because that is not something that our Airbnb guests want to hear. They don’t always appreciate that, but I remind them that this is how we have chosen to pay our bills and earn an income and it affords me the ability to be there for them and be flexible for us to do all sorts of things. I do have older children as well. My older children have even had the opportunity to help me clean the units and learn how to take care of them and when they do that, I pay them for it just like I would pay anybody else. It also helps them to have ownership in our home and our business.

Delia:

Yeah, I agree. That’s, that’s really brilliant. That’s great! So thank you for sharing that with us. I’d like to ask you lastly, what have been your top challenges while running Airbnb?

Kritin LeQuier:

Top challenges? Well, I think that my top challenge is probably happening right now and that is learning the taxes. So learning the ins and outs of how to do my business taxes for the government. So I think for me, that’s the most difficult.

Delia:

I see! Actually I have one last question that would be, are there any tips that you’d like to share for other Airbnb hosts? Maybe hosts that are also listing their house that are around your area?

Kritin LeQuier:

Let’s see. I would say two of my biggest tips would be clean your space immaculately, so that you would be willing to eat off of any surface. Even you know underneath the bed where there might be dust bunnies, just clean every little nook and cranny because a lot of guests really appreciate an immaculate clean space and also always try to accommodate or say yes, so for instance, even if it is a rule that you absolutely do not allow like someone sent you a message and says, “hey, can we bring our really great dog with us?” and now, you know, you might have a no pet policy. So your answer, instead of just a no, might be something as you know, “I’m so sorry, but due to allergies (or whatever your reasoning is for not having pets, other pets on our property, safety reasons, whatever it is) we don’t allow dogs, however, here’s a list of boarding facilities that are within five minutes of our home”, you know, that might be a suitable alternative. So I always try to accommodate my guests requests, even if it’s not, in the exact way that they might be asking.

Delia:

Yeah, those are really great advices. So that would be it for today. Thank you for your time and thank you for your tips!

Kritin LeQuier:

Thank you!

Delia:

Thank you for sharing a lot about your own personal experience with us.

Kritin LeQuier:

My pleasure!

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Podcast

Interview with an Airbnb Host from Portland, Oregon – S2 EP15

Post author By Robyn Peña
Post date June 7, 2022

Welcome back to another episode of Into The Airbnb, where we talk with Airbnb hosts about their short-term rental experience.

Today’s guest is Kim Fitzpatrick from Portland, Oregon, who manages five listings located in Portland, Destin, Florida, Blue Ridge, Georgia, in Sevierville, Tennessee. Today, Kim will share with us about her journey and experience as an Airbnb host and also about her experience doing remote hosting.

This episode is sponsored by Airbtics, the only one analytics dashboard for short-term rental investors, managers, where you can find precise Airbnb data such as occupancy rate, revenue, average daily rate and so on. So, without further ado, let’s get into it!

Into The Airbnb S2 EP 15: 35% CoC return in each property (remotely managed) – Useful insights from an experienced host

You can also listen to this Into The Airbnb Podcast Episode on Otter.

Delia:

Can you tell us how did you get started on Airbnb?

Kim Fitzpatrick:

I got started on Airbnb as a house hacker, so I rented out space in my personal house while I lived there.

Delia:

Good and how much time did you spend on that before you started with whole listings?

Kim Fitzpatrick:

I probably did that for about a couple of months before I looked for a new rental property. I would say it was close to nine months before I purchased the next rental property which was in Portland, Oregon. It was a condo really near to where I lived. So yeah, I knew after a couple months of doing it as house hacking that I wanted to venture out into doing it bigger and better and outside of my residence.

Delia:

Great. And how was your experience with house hacking? Is it a good way to start?

Kim Fitzpatrick:

I’ve really loved starting that way because I feel like you get to know your guests, you actually meet them and you can talk to them and get more feedback than you may otherwise get. You get a feel for what they want, how they come and go and just sort of how they live in your space. And that’s different when it’s one person renting a room versus a whole family coming in and living as a family and going everywhere throughout the house. But it was good to talk to guests and some of them were more experienced on the platform than I was and so they would give me great feedback on how to improve or they would tell me I was doing a great job or what they liked, comparing mine to other states they’ve had. So it was really good information.

Delia:

Good and how did you decided to get your own whole listing?

Kim Fitzpatrick:

I was surprised by how much money I could actually make and how successful it was house hacking. I like baby steps my way into this. I rented a condo, no, I didn’t rent, I purchased a condo in my neighbourhood, which I don’t suggest doing, but that’s how I did it because I was a single mom, my kids were young and I was working full time. So I felt like I was going to do the cleaning, which is a joke with a full time job and two kids, I did about two cleanings before I panicked and called a cleaner and I found a really great one. But I knew I just couldn’t take on all of the work and I had to hire that out. So it was a good experience, good learning experience for me.

Delia:

Great! You told me previously that you have more listings in different cities, how was the process? How did you get started acquiring more properties in other cities?

Kim Fitzpatrick:

So after that condo and I really loved hosting and I loved making guests have a just a great experience and really setting up a place and being warm and inviting. I decided I really wanted to learn more and so I went to Google and YouTube and all the places you go when you want to learn something and I found a really great YouTube channel, which was founded by Richard Fertig, it’s called STR University. I signed up and I went to his conference and I learned so much at the conference. I learned how you can invest in better ways with properties that make more money rather than just investing in your backyard, but to really find locations that are going to make more money with less work. I mean, I love to make a space beautiful and make somebody feel welcome and happy, but there is a business side of it as well, that is really important. So I learned a tonne through the conference that I went to and then I continued going to more conferences. But also the people that I started surrounding myself with because I would have a lot of naysayers in my social circle, people that didn’t do it and they were afraid of it or they would say all the things that could go wrong. But when I started to expand my social circle to people that were in this business, running it like a business, I learned so much, I had a great support system. I had mentors and like-minded people and it really helped me to educate myself very quickly. So once I went to the conference, then I started looking all over the United States and that’s when I got my next property in Sevierville, Tennessee, which is near Gatlinburg and Pigeon Forge and is a really great tourist market. Then from there, I acquired one in Destin, Florida, and Blue Ridge, Georgia. And now I’m putting a glamping trailer on my cabin property in Sevierville, Tennessee.

Delia:

Well, that’s a great story. I agree that looking for other people’s experience is inspiring and you can also learn a lot about that.

Kim Fitzpatrick:

Yeah, it really great to have people talk me through situations that they had been in before and things to look out for. It was nice to know that if something happened that felt unusual, I knew that I could reach out to other people and ask the questions and say: “Oh, my gosh, what do I do in this situation? Or Is this legit? Oh, is it okay?” I didn’t understand. It made me a better host in such a short period of time having so many people around to guide me and teach.

Delia:

Yeah, that’s right. And how has been your experience with remote hosting so far?

Kim Fitzpatrick:

You know, it’s interesting. Remote hosting for me is actually, I want to say it’s easier than the condo that was right around the corner from my house because the condo that was right around the corner, I would do a lot of the day to day work. If something happened, I would run over and I would check and I would do the cleaning and I would follow behind the cleaner and I would just fuss with things and judge things around and it took a tonne of my time. And when you have properties that are across the country, you know, you can’t drive over there real quick and fix things, so you set it up properly at the beginning. Before you start you need to have all your systems in place and set up, so that when guests start to come everything is dialled in and is running smoothly. So for me, it’s easier because I have to have more planning and vision ahead of time. But then everything runs according to plan, you don’t put it off and you don’t think “oh, I can just take care of that later”, everything needs to be dealt with in the beginning. So it’s a little bit chaotic and stressful in the beginning, just making sure you have everything ready, but after that it’s much more efficient and easier then to grow on to the next and the next after.

Delia:

I see and what will be the steps you take to get a remote rental ready?

Kim Fitzpatrick:

So the steps that I would suggest you take is you really really want to be educated. For me, it was great to start out with hands on experience through the house hacking and the condo nearby. It was a great education. It wasn’t necessarily my best moneymakers, but the education was worth so much to me in the beginning because I didn’t come from a hospitality background. I was a middle school PE teacher and basketball coach. So other than keeping kids moving and parents happy and communicating that way I didn’t have a hospitality background. So educating yourself is really really valuable and surrounding yourself with mentors and a support system and reaching out and doing the work yourself. Nobody hands it to you, nobody’s gonna feed it to you, so you have to be self-motivated and go find the answers. So I think that’s really, really important. And then you’re going in a need, once you start getting educated, you’ll learn the tools, you’ll learn how to get creative financing and you’ll learn how to really get into the numbers of how the rentals make money. A lot of people will use AirDNA as their source for running the numbers on properties. AirDNA.com is a great source. Also, I have a friend named Kenny Bedwell, who is building a new one that is competing with AirDNA and it’s called STR insights and it will break down properties even further than AirDNA does. So it’s really accurate and it gives you a good prediction of the money that you’re going to make. So you know how much money you should spend to continue to make money, so that you don’t overspend. So yeah, you just find all those tools and you use the tools, you practice the tools and then you’re ready. With help from guides anyone can do this truly.

Delia:

Yeah, I agree. And what about the crew you need for your house? I mean, the cleaning crew, the handyman?

Kim Fitzpatrick:

Yes. So if you decide on an area, let’s say Sevierville, Tennessee was the first remote location that I got. So once I picked a property and I knew the numbers and I knew it was going to be a great investment. Then I start scouting for housekeepers and contractors and people like that. You’d reach out to your network, who has a property in Sevierville? Who has a property in Gatlinburg? Pigeon Forge? Does anybody know housekeepers? What do you think? Then you start asking questions and paying attention and then you have to interview them. I interview remotely and then I boil it down to two or three that I really like and I will meet them in person and walk them through the property. Once I get there to set it up and you get a feel for people. Then it’s always good to have a backup, you want to have one main and one backup in case something happens. You always want to have that safety net, so that you’re not left high and dry, if something were to come up.

Delia:

Yeah, I understand completely. Let’s talk about pricing right now. So you have different listings in really different locations. So how is your pricing strategy like with that?

Kim Fitzpatrick:

Pricing, that’s such a good topic, I’m glad you brought it up. Pricing is really important. I know when people get started, a lot of times they think they can predict the pricing by checking other properties in their area and then going off their gut feeling or if they know a big event is coming to town, they might know to increase their prices for that weekend. But the thing is, if you do it on your own, you spend a tonne of time manually pricing and changing prices or you’re leaving a lot of money on the table. It’s surprising to me how we think we know something and then we get into it we realise there’s all these tools available to us and if we use them, we can make a lot more money with a lot less work. So I use pricing software. Personally right now, I’m using Beyond Pricing. They charge 1% of my booking fee. So if I made $1,000, they would take 10, very simple math there. But it’s so worth it because they will price some days so high and I think what in the world there must be something going on that I don’t know about and it gets booked and I’m shocked sometimes I see the prices and they also will drop the prices as well on lower occupancy times like Tuesdays in the offseason, so you can stay full, you can stay booked according to the percentage that you want to be booked at. But you’re not missing bookings or you’re not getting bookings that are too low. And you set your standards, you set your rates, what you want your average rate to be and what your minimum is so they won’t go below the minimum. There’s others too. I use Beyond Pricing, but there are PriceLabs and Wheelhouse. I don’t know a lot about Wheelhouse, but PriceLabs charges $20 a listing I think and it might be less if you have multiple listings. So it’s really really affordable and I would strongly suggest that everyone that has a listing, use a pricing software.

Delia:

Good and do you use the pricing software option for all of your listings?

Kim Fitzpatrick:

Yes, every single listing is connected to my pricing software because, even though I live in Portland, I don’t know all of the things that bring people to the area. People will tell me they’re coming in for all sorts of things that I had no idea. We have corporations that are housed near where my listing is, Intel and the Nike World Campus are here. And I don’t know when they’re having a big function and bringing people in from out of town, but the pricing software seems to pick up on those things. The same is true for Florida, Georgia and Tennessee. I can’t keep track of everything every weekend and whatnot going on. So the pricing software does it all for me and I can just check on it here and there and adjust it as needed, but it does a really good job of automatically changing things for me.

Delia:

Yeah, I agree. It’s a really good thing technology, it’ll help you a lot. What about the occupancy rate in your differently listings? How is it like in there in the high season versus the low season?

Kim Fitzpatrick:

Oh, occupancy is so interesting, so I’m glad you brought that up. It’s different in different cities. So Portland tends to be rainy and cold all winter, so we don’t get a high occupancy here in the winter and we get a different kind of guest as well. So in the winter, I generally get lower occupancy, so I dropped my rates a little bit and that helps buffer that. But we will get families visiting family members here and people here meeting people they know or business travellers more in the winter. Then in the summer the occupancy is the highest, people are excited. Summer in Oregon is beautiful, it’s not humid like the south, so that’s our peak season. It’s sunny, it’s gorgeous. There’s hiking, so people come here to visit, to see the greenery and the beauty. Then in the mountains of Tennessee, holidays are great, fall is beautiful because all of the foliage changes and it’s absolutely gorgeous. There’s a tonne to do in the summer there as well, so Summer and Fall are the high season in Tennessee and then it drops off after the holidays, so January February are pretty slow. That’s okay because that’s, when things are slow, that’s when you do the maintenance, you do the deep cleans, you make upgrades and changes. And you use your property too, so that when nobody else is there, you get to go enjoy it. So you’re making money in the high season, enjoying it in the offseason. In Georgia in the mountains, summer is great because again there’s hiking and rafting and fun outdoor things to do. There’s always holiday travel out there as well. But it slows down similar to Tennessee in that January February range. Then Destin is right on the water, it’s in the beach, so it’s the Panhandle. So it is cooler in the winter and everything has happened in the summer. So summer is high season there and that runs, I would say about Spring Break honestly to the late October is when it’s high. Then after that the occupancy drops off sharply and a lot of people in those beach communities where the occupancy drastically falls in the winter will bring in a snowbird and the snowbird will stay there for a few months. So you kind of switch it over to a medium -term rental or some people call it a long short where it’s still a short-term furnished rental, but it’s a longer period of time. Then other people just allow the occupancy or allow the vacancy and use it personally. I know this winter I was there making improvements just recently, getting it ready for all the Spring Breakers. So yeah, it varies across the country in a different markets. My next rental, I would really love it to be a one that’s hot in the winter, like a ski location because then my portfolio would be balanced across the year and I wouldn’t have the dips in the winter financially that I have to kind of brace for a little bit and it would help balance everything out. So that’s what I’m thinking of next.

Delia:

Oh, so if you don’t mind sharing, would you like to tell us about how much is your annual revenue?

Kim Fitzpatrick:

I don’t have my numbers in front of me right now, but my cash on cash return, I just looked it up, I did all the numbers for last year, a month ago or two. It appears that my cash on cash return is between 30 and 35% at each property, which to me are very, very great numbers. I think the stock market averages about 8% returns year over year. So 30 to 35, depending on the property is excellent. It’s more difficult to find now, a lot of people have gotten into short-term rentals and as we know, the housing market and inflation have all skyrocketed, prices. Then even more recently, interest rates are climbing. So we have to work harder to find those kinds of deals, they’re still out there, but we have to be more educated to be able to really dig in. Here’s my tip, if people are talking about places like Blue Ridge, Georgia or the Smokies or these popular beach communities, and everybody’s excited about them or they’ve had a lot of success there. My tip to you is that that market is probably done, you want to hit the wave early on and go to places that people aren’t talking about. If they’re already talking about them all over social media, then you’re probably not going to get a high cash on cash return for your investment at that point. So you want to look at newer emerging markets. And that’s where the STR insights and AirDNA can really help you know your numbers. So use your tools, it’s really important in this day and age.

Delia:

Yeah, I agree with that. Also that you mentioned your numbers, those are really good numbers. I agree.

Kim Fitzpatrick:

Thank you. Yeah, I’m pretty proud I have to say

Delia:

Yeah, you should be, those are great numbers! Which one of your listings is the one that brings you more revenue throughout the year?

Kim Fitzpatrick:

The most revenue we get throughout the year has been the property in Destin. I will say that pretty much all of the revenue comes in the summer. So we need to be careful the way we handle that one in that the winter dries up and if the occupancy is very low. It has higher highs and lower lows. So I’ve noticed in mountain communities the roller coaster is a little less softer and in the beach communities, the roller coaster is sharper. So I caution people to manage their money really well and really be forward thinking with finances so that you don’t think that the gravy train of summer is going to run 12 months out of the year. You really want to watch for that and be aware of that so that you don’t overextend financially.

Delia:

Yeah, I agree. And throughout all these years being an Airbnb host, what have been your top challenges?

Kim Fitzpatrick:

Ah, challenges, I would say my biggest fearful time was when I purchased the cabin in Tennessee, my first remote cabin. It had been rented for about a month as is before I could get out there and really make it into something special and amazing because of my work schedule. I got out there and COVID hit and as a teacher thought I had a two week spring break and then we were going to go back to school as usual and COVID would pass. I had spent all this money and effort fixing up the cabin making it really great. That was right at the beginning of COVID and the bookings dropped off completely and it was vacant for the first three weeks after I list it and I totally panicked. It was my first remote location and I thought “what have I done? Did changes I make ruin it? Was it working before, it was great?. That wasn’t the case. It was really COVID, I didn’t understand that was going to be such a substantial life changing event. So that was stressful for me. And I would say looking back, there have been moments where maybe there was an issue with a guest that I was very worried about in the moment, but looking back it doesn’t seem like that big of a deal anymore. Maybe there was some damage and I was really disappointed that they would treat my house so indifferently or with just a lack of care. But ultimately, it’s been really, really great and there hasn’t been too much struggles that we can’t work through and come up with solutions for. So overall wonderful, great guests. But there’s always that one or two that just make things stressful or there might be an issue, I had a water heater go out last summer in Destin. That was coupled with a guest that was not super flexible or understanding, so it just created a really difficult week. But it was one week in my whole life, at one property, and we’re through it now we have a great water heater and we refunded the guest. They’ll probably never come back, but you know, we did the best we could. So ultimately, it wasn’t as big of a deal as it felt like in the moment.

Delia:

Yeah, it must have been scary go through the COVID breakout like the first one ever, so just a scary experience. Will you like sharing some experience you have with trouble guests? So other people, other Airbnb hosts can see that it can be something they can pass through, that is not the end of the world because many got really discourage after one. They really think is going to end their business forever. So would you mind sharing some with us?

Kim Fitzpatrick:

Yes, I’m happy too, that’s a great topic. I do sense that somehow, new listings seem to attract difficult guests and I’m not sure why that is. But maybe it’s a SEO, maybe it’s chance, maybe it’s just my experience. But I’ve helped a lot of people get started and the nervousness of a new host mixed with a new listing and maybe they don’t know all of the ins and outs just yet or the rhythm of it. Then a difficult guest comes in, maybe it’s the lower price that people tend to start out with in their new listing, but they’ll get a difficult guests that might leave everything really dirty or sloppy or they might stay in sheets or something gets broken. But a lot of times, it becomes so emotional because we put our heart and our soul into these properties. We put all this love and care into furnishing them and thinking about what guests would want and appreciate and when it feels like it’s being abused, it feels like a personal attack, even though it’s not, it feels that way and it’s so hard to remove our feelings from the situation and just manage the facts. So I would say, when you are starting out, it is so important to have somebody that you know and trust that will be level headed that will hold your hand virtually or whatever through the process. A lot of times, I will help people get started and set up their listing, so they know what they’re clicking on what it means and what they’re choosing. Then I will co-host for them for a few bookings, so I can see the interactions and I can be in the background like “yeah, that’s cool. That’s legit, you should try this, say this, I would word the answer to their question this way” and it’s just really nice to sometimes have a voice of reason in the background when things don’t feel like they’re going well. I’ve been there I’ve been stressed. Then at the end, you think “oh my gosh, they’re not talking to me, why aren’t they talking to me what’s going on?” and then you find they’re just quiet. There’s quiet people, they enjoyed their stay and they left and everything was clean and you can breathe a sigh of relief or you know, sometimes things get broken or damaged and that’s a cost of doing business. It’s frustrating, but it’s part of the whole process and we get better with time too. We get better at vetting guests, we get better at attracting our tribe and repelling the people that we don’t necessarily want to be hosting. So yeah, it’s good to have somebody out there holding your hand through it though.

Delia:

Yeah, those are great words. Are there any tips that you would like to share for other Airbnb hosts? And also if you’d like to talk about your website, you can also do it.

Kim Fitzpatrick:

Um, yeah, I think I would just love if somebody would reach out to me and ask me any questions you have. I answer tonnes of questions all the time. I’m happy to get on the phone with people or chat via Facebook or Messenger or however it works best for you to answer questions and give you as much information as I can because I really believe there’s room for all of us to be successful at this, but it does take a tribe of people around you. I do have a website, it’s called strsource.com and that stands for short-term rental source.com, where I’m working with another woman, friend of mine, who’s also a business owner. She owns a cleaning company in several locations in several states and she is phenomenal at this as well. So at our website, strsource.com, you have access to the owner of a cleaning company, as well as the owner of local and remote short-term rentals, you can also find us on The Short Term Rental Source at Facebook. Then our email is [email protected]. So we have coaching and consulting and we are setting up our courses and there’s just a tonne of information that we’re loading onto our website and our Facebook group right now. So we’d love to get you started and right now we just have a waiting list for coaching and consulting. So if you want to jump on it when we have openings, we would love to help new owners become like really great short-term rental hosts. So now we’d love to guide you through the process.

Delia:

That’s great. Thank you for sharing that with us. So that would be it for today. Thank you for your time. Thank you for all your tips and for sharing your experience!

Kim Fitzpatrick:

Thank you too. I am so glad that you asked me to come on. It’s been great talking with you about all this stuff. This is what I love, all day every day.

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Podcast

Interview with an Airbnb Host from Detroit, Michigan – S2 EP14

Post author By Robyn Peña
Post date June 7, 2022

Welcome back to another episode of Into The Airbnb, where we talk with Airbnb hosts about their short-term rental experience.

Today’s guest is Scott Aaronson from Detroit, Michigan, who owns and manages eight listing start in Detroit. Today, Scott will share with us about his personal experience on short-term rentals, Airbnb as well and also some useful insights for people who might be interested in hosting in that area.

This episode is sponsored by Airbtics, the only one analytics dashboard for short-term rental investors managers, where you can find the precise Airbnb data such as occupancy rate, revenue, average daily rate and so on. So, without further ado, let’s get into it!

Into The Airbnb S2 EP 14: Making $7-10,000 monthly revenue in Detroit, Michigan with a property purchased in 2013

You can also listen to this Into The Airbnb Podcast Episode on Otter.

Delia:

Can you tell us how did you get started on Airbnb?

Scott Aaronson:

Yeah. So I started in buying properties in 2010 or 2012, after the 2008 crisis. Then I thought I saw the Airbnb thing, I think in 2018, and then I converted one of my units into Airbnb to see how it will do in Royal Oak. Then it did well, so I started converting more and more and now here I am a few years later going on the eighth one.

Delia:

Oh, so you’ve been doing short-term rentals since before Airbnb?

Scott Aaronson:

Yeah, yeah. Since 2012, I think or two thousand somewhere around there, 2013.

Delia:

2013, great. And how did you manage them before Airbnb? Did you have a website for them? Craigslist?

Scott Aaronson:

Oh, sorry. No, I’ve been doing long-term rentals since 2012. But I also have a youth hostel and some other in a house where I’d have people do month to month, I just advertised on Craigslist.

Delia:

Okay, okay. I understand, great. So in the area you’re hosting in Detroit, how is the seasonality like?

Scott Aaronson:

Pretty dead in the wintertime, less dead in the summertime.

Delia:

And in those seasons, how is your average occupancy rate like?

Scott Aaronson:

Lately, it’s been a lot lower. I would tell people be careful coming into this market because it’s starting to get oversaturated with Airbnb. So yeah, I would say maybe, you know, 50 to 60% occupancy now.

Delia:

Is this the low season or high season?

Scott Aaronson:

It starts in end of April, it starts the high season.

Delia:

Okay, so 60%. Are you thinking of expanding your listings to other places or just being there?

Scott Aaronson:

I am thinking about potentially going other places. But I don’t know where yet. Maybe Pennsylvania, maybe South Central America like Nicaragua or things that will support my lifestyle, but I’m definitely not going to expand any more listings here. The pricing is too expensive for the amount of money that you get with Airbnb, it’s good if, you know, it’s good if you purchase. If you’re like me and you bought Airbnbs and you bought houses in 2010, 10 years ago, it’s really really good, but I don’t see it as being really that good right now.

Delia:

I see and for those eight eight listings you have right now, what is your pricing strategy?

Scott Aaronson:

I have a minimum and then I use PriceLabs and they do an algorithm for me with a determined based off of, you know, they do the algorithm and other stuff. Probably similar to this Airbtics things.

Delia:

Oh, I see. Do you sometimes do manual pricing like your own research and stuff?

Scott Aaronson:

No, I just set a minimum. I set a minimum and I mean, maybe sometimes, there’s a couple of times like new years where I set the prices or there’s a big festival on May, I set the prices. Outside of that I just use PriceLabs.

Delia:

Have you tried the Airbnb smart pricing feature? And how was your experience with it?

Scott Aaronson:

Yeah, like most people. Most people will tell you that the Airbnb smart pricing features is pretty bad. They really encourage you to put your prices significantly lower than the market rate.

Delia:

Have you had any experience with it?

Scott Aaronson:

With smart prices? I’m sure I’ve used it before, but not for very long. I pretty much went to PriceLabs pretty quickly.

Delia:

Okay, yeah, I see. And what about the demographic of people you get in your listings? Are they tourists or close to each other? Do you get the same kind of guests?

Scott Aaronson:

You asked me what type of guests I get? In the winter, you know, it’s a mixture people. Sometimes it’s locals that want to come in and, you know, I’m by areas like Royal Oak, which are like little suburban hotspots with bars and restaurants. So the weekend, they get a lot of people that want to go out to local bars and then drive home, just have a local place. But you know, a lot of business travellers, some people coming to visit family, you know, all that type of stuff.

Delia:

And if you don’t mind sharing, what would be your return on investment, like your yearly return on investment?

Scott Aaronson:

Oh, gosh, it’s pretty high. Really, really high, but I’d say this with a bit of caution because I don’t think that you could replicate it now. I mean, my return on investment is really, really high because I bought in Detroit in 201. So like, I can tell you, you know, for instance, I’ll give you an example. This is revenues, I can make about 9 to 10. In the summer months, I make between eight, you know, I can make? Well, I’ll just tell you in percentage of revenues, well, I can make, you know, the top earning if I’m really doing a lot, I can make between seven and $10,000 a month off of a property that cost me 190,000, that’s revenue, so there’s expenses, obviously. A property that costs me $190,000 to purchase. So, you know, do the math on that, even if, you know, for me, I’m the 30 to 40% range, but like, don’t get the wrong idea because that property that I bought for 190 now, it’s probably you know, you’re gonna have to buy it for 550 to 600. So it’s like, you know, all of a sudden that return goes down significantly, you take that return down to levels that, in my experience probably, wouldn’t be that great for the amount of work involved and the amount of hassle and risk on your property and all that type of stuff.

Delia:

Right, I understand completely. And in all these years being an Airbnb host, what have been your top challenges?

Scott Aaronson:

Top challenges are always… Well, for me, personally, it’s been maintenance of the units, especially now it’s very hard to find people that can help. I think I was surprised with the amount of wear and tear that goes on to Airbnbs. There’s some advantages, like, you know, your units are cleaned every day, so you know, that everything’s cleaned and but like your units will get tore up a lot quicker than like, you know, I’m looking at rehabbing units that I’ve rehabbed just a couple years ago because everything’s broken and so part of my challenges have been finding good contractors that do the correct job on stuff, so things don’t break after a couple years. Then the second one is fixing all the errors in the beginning from when I didn’t have good contractors

Delia:

Is it easy to find crew for your listing there? For example a cleaning crew, plumbers, things that you’ll need?

Scott Aaronson:

Cleaning crew is easy. Cleaning crew isn’t a big dea, but everything else is very very challenging. You know, It’s less challenging for me because I’ve been in the market for a long time and I have a couple million dollars with real estate now. I have maybe a dozen places. I have a youth hostel in Hamtramck, you know, a 25 bedroom hostel in Hamtramck. I have enough properties where I can build these relationships with people that want to work with me, and I give people enough business. Like if I have a plumber, I’m giving him enough business between all my properties, where like, you know, I call him more than once a month, so he knows who I am and we’ve been doing this for so long that we have that relationship where he wants to keep you happy. If you’re coming into the market and you want to buy one Airbnb and you have to deal with this type of shifts, it’s gonna be a lot more challenging for you because you don’t have that economy of scale.

Delia:

I understand completely. So, lastly, any tips that you’d like to share for other Airbnb host?

Scott Aaronson:

Yeah. Know your market. Well, you know, that’s the number one rule for buying real estate in general buying or arbitrage. Again, I don’t do very much arbitrage, but you got to know your market, what that means is like, don’t just go to a random place that you don’t know anything about because you’ll look at numbers and you see a good return. I think if you do that, you’re setting yourself up for failure. If you want to go into a market, the best way to do it is to really, really know that market. So like, if you’re able to do it, if you’re in the right position with your family and whatever, go there, live there for a couple months, see what it’s like to be in that area, you know, see what type of travellers are. Then after that period, once you really understand the culture in the area and then start looking at investments. Like a perfect example is Detroit, you go on the wrong year, I mean, there are areas of Detroit that look really, really nice, but like, if you don’t know the nuances of the neighbourhood, especially in the city of Detroit, if you don’t know the nuances of the neighbourhood, you could really easily get screwed. So, you know, knowing the neighbourhood; or another option is if you don’t know the neighbourhood and you can’t go and move there, partner with somebody that does. Partner with a co-host or partner with someone that can guide you and say: “Listen, you don’t want to buy an Airbnb on this street. If you buy an Airbnb on this street, your house is gonna get broken into or you’re gonna get partiers or you don’t want to accept these types of guests. So just know your market, really put in a lot of focus. There’s another saying in real estate that people don’t make money selling, they make money buying. So make sure that you’re, you know, you got to make sure you’re getting a good value for your time. Sometimes with markets when they’re overpriced, you really can’t get that value and if that’s the case, you should don’t just get whatever you can just maybe consider waiting until the value changes.

Delia:

Great. I understand and for the people who already own houses in Detroit, like you who have been a property owner since 2013, I guess, would you recommend them to still do Airbnb there, so they can get like a higher revenue?

Scott Aaronson:

I’d recommend that they sell me their Airbnb units. Give me a call, my name is Scott Aaronson, I’ll buy your Airbnb units and go retire somewhere, you know, you don’t need to do this, this hardwork. No, I was joking. If your question is, if you already have property in Detroit, should you sell it? Or should you turn it into Airbnb? Is that your question?

Delia:

Yes.

Scott Aaronson:

I think that Airbnb can be a very powerful tool where you can make a lot of money, you know, but I would caution you that it’s a business and if you’re going to be in the Airbnb business, what I tell everybody is, if you’re going to be in the Airbnb business, be in the Airbnb business, it’s not a good passive investment. This is not passive income. You know, it’s don’t go in, you know, in your better with economy of scale, so don’t go in there with one property and expect it to be hands off. If you’re going to be running it and not having a co-host, expect to get those calls to deal with people that are not able to get in your Airbnb, expect to have to deal with that. And if you don’t, then you either get a co-host to manage everything and expect to give the co-host 20 to 30% of your profits or not your profits, your revenue. Or get into the long-term game, there’s a lot less stress and demand.

Delia:

Great. So that’ll be it for today. Thank you for sharing your story and some tips with us!

Scott Aaronson:

Cool. You’re welcome.

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If you are still uncertain about investing in Michigan, you might want to check out some of the best cities for Airbnb investment in Europe!

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Interview with an Airbnb Host from Grafton, Australia – S2 EP16

Post author By Robyn Peña
Post date June 7, 2022

Welcome back to another episode of Into The Airbnb, where we talk with Airbnb hosts about their short-term rental experience.

Today’s guest is Debbie Vlastaras, who is based in Grafton, New South Wales, Australia. She’s currently managing five listings listed on Airbnb and her journey hasn’t been the best. From having nightmare guests to a challenging relationship with Airbnb and services, that will becomes honest and transparent in this interview about her personal experience with Airbnb.

This episode is sponsored by Airbtics, the only one analytics dashboard for short-term rental investors managers, where you can find precise Airbnb data such as occupancy rate, revenue, average daily rate and so on. So, without further ado, let’s get into it!

Into The Airbnb S2 EP 16: Airbnb: A dream for some, a nightmare for others – Host from Grafton, NSW opens up about her experience

You can also listen to this Into The Airbnb Podcast Episode on Otter.

Delia:

So can you tell us how did you get started on Airbnb?

Debbie Vlastaras:

I was made redundant in my previous job and I couldn’t get another job. I had multiple rental properties, so I decided to do short-term rental. I started with one and grew from there.

Delia:

Did you do long-term rentals before that?

Debbie Vlastaras:

Yes, I did.

Delia:

And how did you see the revenue changing between you doing long-term rentals versus short-term rentals right now?

Debbie Vlastaras:

Natural growth.

Delia:

And did you have already all these five listings? Or did you start acquiring more and more as your short-term rental journey has been growing?

Debbie Vlastaras:

I had three, I added two.

Delia:

Great. So in the area you’re hosting Northern Rivers, how is the seasonality like?

Debbie Vlastaras:

I don’t have seasonality. It’s all year.

Delia:

All year, in all of your five listings?

Debbie Vlastaras:

That’s right.

Delia:

Oh, that’s great. So can I ask you about your pricing strategy? How does that work for you?

Debbie Vlastaras:

I have three levels. So I have three properties that are the bottom end. I have one in the middle and I have one high end.

Delia:

What kind of pricing strategy you use for that? Do you set your prices according to your competition? Do you use dynamic pricing solutions?

Debbie Vlastaras:

I review the competition, but one of my listings is the most expensive in town while the other of my listings is the most expensive in the middle band and the other three listings are comparable to Hotel Motel prices. So the cheap ones get booked first and then the middle one and then the day one.

Delia:

Which one of those listings is performing best according to you?

Debbie Vlastaras:

The cheapest.

Delia:

Okay, that’s great. In all these years being an Airbnb host, what have been your top challenges?

Debbie Vlastaras:

Horrible guests. Airbnb changing the rules. Airbnb site being really glitchy and not reflecting. Airbnb not allowing me to choose who I want to stay. Airbnb is dreadful customer service. Guests trashing my homes, normal stuff every house puts up with, but Airbnbs platform is utterly awful.

Delia:

Oh, and do you have any kind of troubles related to the area you’re hosting in? Is there any particular law or something that might be causing trouble for you?

Debbie Vlastaras:

What do you mean law?

Delia:

For example, in the United States, most of the places have regulations about short-term rentals.

Debbie Vlastaras:

We are regulated, one came in last October.

Delia:

Did that make your short-term rental work like difficult or did they stay the same way?

Debbie Vlastaras:

You just have to follow the rules. That’s fine. I agree that there should be rules.

Delia:

That’s great and since you talked before about some travel guests you had. Do you mind sharing some stories with them and how did you get to solve the problems?

Debbie Vlastaras:

First biggest problem is people wanting to bring extra people and not pay for them. The way I solve that is I make three queries before they arrive, I meet and greet and I do a headcount. I make it very, very clear that my insurance is void if they bring too many guests because I have to be covered by my insurance because you can’t trust Airbnbs cover. I’ve had beds broken. I’ve had things stolen. I’ve had kitchens left ugly disgusting. I’ve had a prostitute stay. I got to head to get the police to get her out.

Delia:

And how did you get to deal with those guests? Did you deal through Airbnb? Or did you just did it by yourself?

Debbie Vlastaras:

Well, I stood in front of them and said you’re not getting in until you give me the correct numbers really simple. With the prostitute, my neighbours complained, so I called police. I’m not a registered brothel.

Delia:

I see. So you had some really crazy guests. Are these type of guests common in your area? Have you heard about other Airbnb hosts complaining about this?

Debbie Vlastaras:

I’ve heard. The prostitute thing seems to be a very common now booking through Airbnb because they can have all their clients and it’s not a motel.

Delia:

So it’s getting very common in your area and with these experiences with the guests, are you applying some new kind of filters? Like running some background check on them before you accept them?

Debbie Vlastaras:

You can’t do that, like you can in the States. There’s no possibility of being able to do that.

Delia:

Oh, I see.

Debbie Vlastaras:

Here, there’s nothing you can do. There’s no way to vet somebody by putting their name into a search engine, unlike in the US.

Delia:

Oh and given that scenario, is there any particular thing you do to ensure the best guests possible for your listings?

Debbie Vlastaras:

Well, I don’t take new ones. They have to have good feedback from other hosts. So I communicate and I make it clear what my house rules are. I make it clear about the guests numbers. As I said, I meet and I greet and I count heads and I also tell them I live next door. That tends to turn things down a bit.

Delia:

Yeah, that’s right. How do usually people react with that?

Debbie Vlastaras:

Well, if they go into play up, they often cancel.

Delia:

Also, you mention that prior their booking time?

Debbie Vlastaras:

Yes. I ask questions. I don’t allow anybody to instant book.

Delia:

Okay, yeah, that’s a great way to save your listing. Are there any tips that you’d like to share for Airbnb hosts?

Debbie Vlastaras:

Don’t turn on instant book. Understand that you’re not going to get help from Airbnb. They don’t have an Airbnb SWAT team to come and save you. You manage your listing, it’s your business. The review system is totally biassed against hosts and they use it as a stick to beat you. As soon as I’ve got my own booking site. I will be leaving Airbnb.

Delia:

Oh, I see. So your experience with Airbnb has been really bad then.

Debbie Vlastaras:

They want to put fees up. On my properties, they charge anything up to 20% on top of the booking cost. Outsourcing the Help Desk to somewhere that doesn’t understand policy. And when you win them, you can hear children and chickens in the background. You can’t speak to a supervisor. You can’t talk to anybody who can actually do anything and every time you try, they tell you “I’m going once the next two days”, so they say they’re going to renew and they don’t. So no I don’t trust them and as soon as I’ve got my own booking site up that’s where I’ll be. I have not being looked after as a host.

Delia:

I see. Yeah, I understand your troubles. So do you think this kind of problems you’re having with Airbnb are more common among hosts from other parts of the world that are not the US?

Debbie Vlastaras:

Yes.

Delia:

Okay, I see. So is there anything else that you’d like to share with us?

Debbie Vlastaras:

Lots of people think running an Airbnb is easy money. It’s not. You need to have 24 hour availability. You need to be able to fix things in an instant. And people are looking for a hotel experience, but without the hotel cost. Unfortunately, you can’t do it. So, Airbnb sold themselves as something fabulous, but unfortunately, their infrastructure and their background and their assistance just doesn’t exist.

Delia:

Okay. Yeah, I understand that the Airbnb experience might have not been the best for you.

Debbie Vlastaras:

I’ve been doing Airbnb across my dwellings for five years. So I’m not an inexperienced host and I have just found that they have gone backwards.

Delia:

Yeah, I’m very thankful that you’re sharing all this information with us because so far, we only get to hear about some Airbnb hosts who really like Airbnb. I think it’s good to hear the other side, too.

Debbie Vlastaras:

Well, there’s only 20 host properties in Grafton and I have five. We’re a very, very small market,

Delia:

Very small market. So that’d be it for today and thank you for sharing about your experience with us!

Debbie Vlastaras:

Okay, no problem. Thank you.

Delia:

Bye bye. Have a great day!

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Interview with an Airbnb Host from Jacksonville, Florida – S2 EP13

Post author By Robyn Peña
Post date June 7, 2022

Welcome back to another episode of Into The Airbnb, where we talk with Airbnb hosts about their short-term rental experience.

Today’s guest is Mandy Konecki, based in Jacksonville, Florida, who manages five live things in Jacksonville Beach, in Cape Canaveral, Florida, and in Ellijay, Georgia. In this episode, Mandy will tell us about her hosting experience and also share some useful insights of her listings locations.

This episode is sponsored by Airbtics, the only one analytics dashboard for short-term rental investors and managers, where you can find the precise Airbnb data such as occupancy rate, revenue, average daily rate and so on. So, without further ado, let’s get into it!

Into The Airbnb S2 EP 13: Take advantage of a good market during this vacation year – 80-100% booked in Florida and Georgia

You can also listen to this Into The Airbnb Podcast Episode on Otter.

Delia:

Can you tell us how did you get started on Airbnb?

Mandy Konecki:

Sure! In 2018, my husband and I decided to sell our primary home and move back to Ohio, we were both with our nine month old daughter. We had a lot of equity built up in our house because we were house hacking for several years. So we had a lot of equity to cash in and we knew that we were going to be visiting Florida frequently as my job is here and we have all of our friends as well. So we were going to be looking for a place that we could stay when we come to visit, sort of all of our things. So we didn’t have to haul around beach toys and suitcases and pack and plays and all of those things and sleep on couches or hotels. So when we moved back, we started gradually looking and discussing opportunity and a condo came available in Jacksonville Beach that looked like something that we would definitely be interested in. We had our realtor go check it out and we actually bought that site on scene, which was caused a lot of sleepless nights, but it was definitely exciting. There was a lot of headaches that we entailed with that, especially being far away and it was going under a massive assessment that we were unaware of. So I’d say our first one was kind of disastrous, we definitely learned a lot. There were times that we wondered what we did, why did we do this, etc. But to this day, we would say that’s definitely the best move that we’ve made so far as it got us into real estate. It definitely build a confidence. We learned tonnes of lessons and absolutely love the industry.

Delia:

Good story! And can you tell us how did you overcome all of those problems you had with that one listing? And how do you plan to acquire more? Now you have five listings, right? How do you decide to make a step forward and acquire more properties?

Mandy Konecki:

Yeah, it was very stressful because we didn’t really know what was going on. The management company had zero communication and zero management of the construction project that was being seen. So we really didn’t know what was going on until our guests told us the process. What they were working on the stage of that. I ended up being able to get in contact with a person on the construction crew that he gave me his number, so I got regular updates with that. And stayed in front of communicating with the guests that were booked prior too, we offered a lot of discounts, gave our guests the opportunity to cancel or help them rebook if they weren’t up for staying there during the construction. So we did offer a lot of discounts and there was a lot of additional communication. We found some local people here that we knew through our network that were able to drive by drop things off check on the project, etc. when they came by. So finally when that was done and relieved and we got through all the renovations it was smooth sailing after that. We were excited to continue to come in because everybody loves a vacation. You’re not dealing with people that are grumpy, stressed, etc. Most people that book, especially coming to the beach are looking forward to it, they’re excited, they love the accommodations. So it’s great working with people that are excited to be on vacation and enjoy what we call home.

Delia:

Right and about your most popular listings, where are they located?

Mandy Konecki:

So right now we have five active listings in Jacksonville Beach, in Cape Canaveral. We do have three to four other ones that are going to be going live here in the next three to four weeks one is in North Georgia in the mountain area and then the other one will be in St. Augustine, so both are touristic places. We picked the North Georgia location because we were there on vacation visiting a friend and absolutely fell in love with the atmosphere. That’s really what got us into the industry was we absolutely love to travel, I travel for work and one of our biggest family hobbies is travelling. So we like to be able to have a place that we can also enjoy when we have time to get away and also be able to share with others, so they can enjoy the same experience that we have.

Delia:

Right! In the areas you’re currently hosting in, do you know how is the seasonality like?

Mandy Konecki:

I would say, the Jacksonville Beach area, that’s been our longest one we’ve had for four years. During high season, we’re 100% occupied, especially now that we’re in the vacation year it seems. In our low season, I would say is 89 to 90% occupied, we do have a three night minimum in this location. So the time periods that we aren’t booked are typically because there’s not a three day window in there, it’ll be one or two nights, which we’re unable to fill. The Cape Canaveral area seems to be longer-term stays. So we get a lot of people that are coming from Canada or up north to enjoy the snowboard seasons. We also get a lot of people that are there for employment working on the SpaceX and travelling nurses, which is nice because they’re able to stay for a longer period of time instead of the more frequent turnovers. And we’re new to the Georgia area, but every time that we’re up there and we communicate with people, everybody loves it, it’s like a little secret gem, so it’s definitely growing up there as well. And as people are able to continue to work from home, we’ve noticed that our length of stays are increasing too. Instead of people coming for three, four or five nights, maybe a week, we’re getting more three weeks to three month time periods when people are coming to visit.

Delia:

How has been your experience with remote hosting?

Mandy Konecki:

Remote hosting is great. One of the biggest things I would suggest is getting your systems down. Once you have your systems, the time that is involved with managing that is very easy with your check in instructions, your checkout instructions, knowing how much linens that you have available, your supplies, etc. and keeping those replenished. You can definitely host from anywhere, which is great.

Delia:

And what about the crew that helps you in those properties?

Mandy Konecki:

I would say they’re probably one of the most important pieces of the industry. Having a reliable cleaning crew and a handyman on call is definitely the key, you want to make sure that you have someone that you can trust, someone who does a great job for you. I would say that you pay for what you get, definitely take care of these people because they’re your backbone. If your place is not clean, when a guest shows up, you’re gonna get a bad review and that’s going to reflect on the future. If something is broke and you don’t have someone to go fix it like a leaky pipe, anything could happen light bulbs, refrigerator could go out. So having someone able and capable and willing to make those changes for you are definitely key.

Delia:

I agree and how did you manage to acquire the people you’re working with right now for that?

Mandy Konecki:

Networking, networking, networking. This day and age, there’s so many different ways to network, not just through social media outlets, but there’s several different groups that you can rely on, local groups, nationwide groups, global groups, actually. And then, I would say most cities probably have a local meetup to for RBIs and that would involve anybody in real estate, from real estate agents to investors, lenders, mechanic’s, cleaning services, they all get together and word of mouth and referral here and there. So when you find your people, I don’t want to share them, but I do share them, but make sure that they know that they still have to take care of me.

Delia:

Right and thank you for sharing that with us! Let’s talk about your occupancy rate in the areas you’re hosting, how is it like in the high season versus the low season?

Mandy Konecki:

Our high season is 100% occupied, especially today’s year. We have people checking out checking in same day, pretty much this entire year. Previous years, I would say our occupancy was still 100%. But that would be more April, March time and June/July with a 90% occupancy during the slower seasons.

Delia:

I see. In the Georgia listing that you’re currently hosting remotely, right?

Mandy Konecki:

Yes.

Delia:

You told me that there was more longer stays in that listing, right?

Mandy Konecki:

Now in that one, I think that’s going to be more vacation.

Delia:

Which one was the one with longer stays?

Mandy Konecki:

Cape Canaveral.

Delia:

Okay, so are you managing that one remotely as well?

Mandy Konecki:

Yes. That’s only about two hours, so we are able to get there in a day if need be. But we do manage it remotely.

Delia:

Okay and how has been your experience with long-term rentals?

Mandy Konecki:

It’s been great. I love the long-term rentals. People come in and they’re self sufficient. They take care of their laundry, their additional supplies, etc. I haven’t had any issues with any of my long-term rental visitors, which is fantastic.

Delia:

Good then! And for all your properties, how is your pricing strategy?

Mandy Konecki:

We use the recommended Airbnb just as a guideline that seems to be lower than what we have. Our low season I would say is around $250 a night up to $300 a night and we recently renovated it. We were 90% booked through August by early January. So that indicates that we weren’t keeping up with our pricing structure and the markets on there as we definitely got booked a lot further in advance.

Delia:

And after that bad experience with that pricing, what alternative did you decide to use?

Mandy Konecki:

We like to price a little bit higher than suggested depending on our occupancy. If we aren’t getting any bookings, you can always adjust that to the market fluctuate there. If you want to offer a specific discount, a last minute booking discount, we tend to offer those if we get a cancellation. A couple of weeks in advance, we’ll give a discount to get that period booked. But Florida has seen a lot of foot traffic over the last many, many years. Everybody loves to come to the beach and sunshine, especially in the winter months. So our occupancy stays pretty full without having to adjust too frequently.

Delia:

Good. And have you tried using any dynamic pricing solution or smart pricing solution?

Mandy Konecki:

I have not personally tried that. I’ve heard a lot about it, but I have not implemented any of the strategies yet.

Delia:

Okay, okay. Good to know. In all those years running Airbnb, what have been your top challenges?

Mandy Konecki:

The top challenge is definitely finding people to rely on, showing up on time, making sure your cleaning services there and you have your handyman available to do ASAP fixes whenever possible.

Delia:

Yeah, I’ve heard about many other hosts struggling with the same. Are there any tips that you’d like to share for other Airbnb hosts, especially the ones managing around your area?

Mandy Konecki:

I would just say don’t give up when it gets tough. Every project is gonna have its obstacles, learn from it, learn to expect it. It’s part of the process. Love what you do and make sure that you’re doing everything you can to make other visitors experience great. That’s how you’re keeping your fill rate occupancy, paying your mortgage and income. Continue to network, networking is key. You learn from everybody that you talk to has a different view, different thought, process, experience, etc. So share what you learn and take whatever anybody else can provide as well.

Delia:

Great. Are there anywhere they can contact you for some extra help or something?

Mandy Konecki:

Absolutely. I’m on Airbnb, VRBO, Facebook and Instagram. Our Instagram page is surfing turtle inn. You can find there or Mandy Konecki on Facebook.

Delia:

Okay, great! So that’s it for today. Thank you for your time.

Mandy Konecki:

Absolutely. Thank you. I appreciate it!

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Podcast

Interview with an Airbnb Host from Cranston, Rhode Island – S2 EP12

Post author By Robyn Peña
Post date June 7, 2022

Welcome back to another episode of Into The Airbnb, where we talk with Airbnb hosts about their short-term rental experience.

Our guest today is Jennifer Leroy, based in Cranston, Rhode Island, a super host who manages over eight listings in Providence and Prudence Island. Today, Jennifer will share with us about her hosting experience and also some 5-star tips to keep your listing at the top of the search pages.

This episode is sponsored by Airbtics, the only one analytics dashboard for short-term rental investors and managers, where you can find precise Airbnb data such as occupancy rate, revenue, average daily rate, and so on. So without further ado, let’s get into it!

Into The Airbnb S2 EP 12: SEO optimized Airbnb host from Rhode Island reveals her secrets

You can also listen to this Into The Airbnb Podcast Episode on Otter.

Delia:

So can you tell us how did you get started on Airbnb?

Jennifer LeRoy:

Well, I am a divorced single mom of three kids and basically, I got a chance to keep our rental property and my ex husband kept his office. So I was now left with a building of tenants that were off a little stressful and challenging. I ended up going on a trip to Ireland. I was looking at hotels, they were very expensive, then I looked into Airbnb and I decided to stay at a shared unit. And from there, I was surprised how simple it was to replicate. So that’s shortly after I started my first unit, after I came back from Ireland.

Delia:

And do you started with your first unit in that building you have?

Jennifer LeRoy:

Yes, that’s my first one. I had a tenant move out and I cleaned up the apartment. I found a student who was a interior design student at our design school. She came over, she did measurements, she gave me furniture and wall decor, recommendations, bedding, everything, every type of recommendation to start an Airbnb and I followed her checklist. And that’s how I furnished my Airbnb.

Delia:

Oh, great! How many years ago was that?

Jennifer LeRoy:

Three years ago. I started in 2019.

Delia:

Oh, great and over the course of the years, how do you acquire your other four listings?

Jennifer LeRoy:

The other two were occupied by tenants and as soon as I got the hang of one listing, I began to, you know, have them move out, they were transitioning to other apartments or there were some evictions and I just would flip them into another Airbnb. So my three family building is on a very original model, where I have three individual units, which are three separate apartments and my last listing, I list the entire building. Someone could rent the entire building all at once. That is my fourth listing.

Delia:

Okay, I see how it works now. Since is an apartment and there are different people renting at the same time, how do you see that? Does it works for you? Are they comfortable with that?

Jennifer LeRoy:

I have to really screen all of my Airbnb candidates well. I ask every single one for their trip purpose. I stay away from things on Airbnb. They try to have you do instant book. I stay away from instant book. I like to ask my guests questions. This weekend, I have a family of three with a small baby. They’re travelling in for the holidays, the Easter and everything else and I have another small family and I’m on another floor and I actually had an inquiry from someone else saying they would like to have a birthday gathering at my building on the third floor and I said no, because it’s not a good match for the overall atmosphere of my Airbnb and it could cause a disturbance.

Delia:

I understand that completely. Do guests ever get mad at you for making questions and stuff?

Jennifer LeRoy:

No, it’s pretty easy. They have a very limited access, when they ask respectfully to use your house and they might say, that they like how it looks or something like that. They ask respectfully and you turn them down, sometimes it’s obvious, but you’ve turned them down and and say, you know, this is not a good match and best of luck on your future searches. But this is a prop, you know, it wouldn’t work out for the property.

Delia:

Oh, it’s great that they understand! And do you usually get the same demographic of people in your listings?

Jennifer LeRoy:

I feel like I do get the same demographics. It’s to the area and it’s also to what I cater to. In my slower seasons, I tend to cater towards maybe visiting nurses, maybe contractors. They’re coming into town to work hard for a week, they’re out in the morning, at 5:30 in the morning, to work and they come home at 5:30 at night. Same with the visiting nurses, they sometimes leave at 10 o’clock at night, come back at, you know, seven in the morning. Now, I do also have shorter term guests, maybe 2,3,4 days at a time and those guests are generally alumni to the university, there are people in for interviews to something in the city of Providence where we live and it might be just people, tourists, people who want to travel on a budget and just see a place they’ve never been to. So I try to cater to the widest amount of people for the demographics.

Delia:

Okay, yeah, sounds great. Now, I’d like to ask you about the areas you’re hosting in Providence and Prudence Island, right?

Jennifer LeRoy:

Yes.

Delia:

Okay, so in those areas, how is the seasonality like?

Jennifer LeRoy:

In Providence, which is where our primary listings are, our high season is May. May provides us the opportunity to host people coming into town for five different graduations, everything in like, all of Rhode Island. They are booking for these graduations and staying at units close by. Through the summer, it’s just summer visitors for tourism, regular guests just trying to see the city. But after that my low season, it starts about just after Columbus Day, which is October and it goes right until about April 1 or around Eve Easter. Yep. The Prudence Island house is a little bit more challenging. During the summer, it is fully booked and these are very highly organised people. They come because they want to be secluded. They want to get away from everyday life and just be with their families cook on their own. It has one general store and one post office and people love the islands because it’s almost a throwback to the 1950s. There is a hunting season in October and February, but after that, it does slow down a lot. Yes. We handled that, we lower the rates down a little bit on our Prudence Island house. We lower it just enough where if someone’s somewhere else in Rhode Island and they just want to go away for the weekend, they probably would get it at almost half price or two thirds of the price, you know, just to get a little traffic into this house. The other locations though, I generally flip my demographics a little. I do cater to the travellers that are coming in town just to see the city. However, I also cater towards the visiting nurses and the contractors I was speaking of.

Delia:

Oh, okay. I see, that’s great. And how is your average occupancy rate like in the high seasons versus in the low seasons?

Jennifer LeRoy:

I always, at my highest in occupancy, it’s about 76 to 80%. I use an optimizer, it’s called. It’s just a guy that is in Shanghai, China. I pay him per listing and he optimises my listing to appear near the top of the page.

Delia:

Oh, I’ve never heard about that. Can you tell us a little bit more if it’s not too personal?

Jennifer LeRoy:

Oh, yeah, obviously! Daniel is an owner of, I want to say over 10 Airbnbs is in Shanghai and surrounding areas. And I just tell him, “hey, Daniel, I need help optimising my listing” and he will go ahead and he will act as a co-host for a very short time. He will add things like emojis and little things to catch people’s eye. I don’t exactly know what he does, but he works with the algorithm and I always end up on one of the first or second pages of Airbnb when people do searches for Providence. Yep.

Delia:

Oh, that sounds cool. It’s my first time hearing about it. I know that you can help algorithm with some specific things in your listing page. But I’ve never heard about something like this.

Jennifer LeRoy:

Yes, yes. He’s an expert with that and he’s got, I want to say many listings all over the world that he helps to optimise. He’s literally in China and I work with him on the hours, you know, on off hours. So as I am just getting up, he is winding down for bed.

Delia:

Oh and if you don’t mind sharing, how did you find about this person that does this kind of work?

Jennifer LeRoy:

Yes. I found out about Daniel through a website called Fiverr. It’s a freelance website and you can find services for practically everything. I looked on that website just to, I was trying to look for things that might help me boost my business and I ran across Daniel’s ad. At that time, I said, okay, I cautiously tried one listing and I saw the occupancy rate difference. He showed it to me and he was like, “here is your occupancy rate now” and after 30 days, he showed me my occupancy rate again and it went up by maybe 30%.

Delia:

Well, that’s a lot. Thank you for sharing that with us!

Jennifer LeRoy:

No problem!

Delia:

I bet it’s going to be very interesting because personally, it’s my first time hearing about it.

Jennifer LeRoy:

Oh, okay. I can send you links later to Daniel. He’s so easy and personable to work with. I asked him one year to add some Chinese characters into my listing to cater to more international travellers.

Delia:

Oh, great then. Now I like to go back to your listings’ question and if you don’t mind sharing, what is your pricing strategy like?

Jennifer LeRoy:

Okay, so my pricing strategy is very simple. I was trying to use websites like price labs and other types of websites to see, “hey, they may know something more than me” or I might use smart pricing through Airbnb. Sometimes I look at the recommendations through Airbnb of what they feel that I should be charging per week. I will normally, if I see the recommendation says a certain amount of money, then I will adjust it to within 5%. But I really truly feel I have to do my own homework, I have to go on as a traveller and say, “hey, I want to stay in a two bedroom or three bedroom in the Providence area and I have to check my competitor pricing”, I do this very frequently and from that, I adjust my pricing. My optimizer also will adjust pricing if I ask him to. But in my market, I know that, you know, he would not be aware of certain holidays and also certain big events like the March Madness basketball tournaments, Easter break, and the graduations I spoke of before. So I have to look and compare to my other colleagues. What price I should put down for my listing and I always go into it at least two times a week, no less than two times a week.

Delia:

I’ve heard you mentioned about using smart pricing from Airbnb, is your experience with that good too?

Jennifer LeRoy:

It is not good. I used smart pricing on my first year a little bit. I remember there was a concert called Phish. I don’t even know what it is, it’s P H I S H. I put my pricing out for one of my Airbnbs at about 125 per night and it was in my low season and all of a sudden, I was getting so many inquiries. I was almost about to book them as reservations. Then my local colleagues said, “we bet this concert is sold out” and I should be more likely at $225 a night because so many concert goers are coming up just for this. So I was almost very much shortchanged by the smart pricing and I would highly recommend to any person who has an Airbnb, what they need to do is find a collection of people local to them, very local, their fellow competitors in the area and I would start a small Whatsapp group. We have a small Whatsapp group and they tell us about special events. They warn us about guests that might be trying to throw a party, they will tell us about, you know, legislation coming up as far as government legislation that we need to be aware of, but we communicate together. This way I find out things like “oh, there’s Brown University reunion weekend, you may want to raise your prices because you will get top dollar”. So that’s a good example of how we communicate together in our Airbnb professionals community.

Delia:

That’s so kind of them that they agree to do these kinds of communities.

Jennifer LeRoy:

Yes, so helpful!

Delia:

Have you ever tried using any dynamic pricing solution and how was your experience with that?

Jennifer LeRoy:

The only one is price labs that I used and it was not a good experience because I loaded it up for a 10 day trial. I knew about how my month of May should look already, which is our largest month in Providence and the app didn’t match the proper pricing that was out for the local community. It might have been a very general pricing or delayed, but it was not indicative of showing us pricing for five graduations. So I knew immediately, it would not work.

Delia:

I see then, I see. Thank you for sharing that with us. And in all of these years running Airbnb, what have been your top challenges?

Jennifer LeRoy:

My largest challenges have been… My Airbnb, I consider it a artistic expression of myself and I try to every time improve on it and get new things to make it more comfortable or more travel friendly, luxurious. I want a situation where I feel that it has everything that a traveller want inside. So my challenges has always been, you know, sometimes you want to afford some big things, you’re not quite ready. But I always take about 10% of my earnings and invested back into my property, buying things like new linens, nicer wall decor, maybe nicer lighting fixtures, nicer faucets. Those go a long way in making a person say “wow, they care about this property”. My other challenge is the housekeepers, oh my gosh” They are my frontline and if they are not consistent, they don’t show up or they’re not dependable, it can change the course of my day very fast. Just yesterday I had three housekeepers and I told them all “we have one person renting the whole building for a bachelorette party event”. I allow events for the whole building. So fourteen women came and you know, they used all the beds, towels, everything. So everything needed to be scrubbed down and cleaned. Out of the three of them, one showed up and they showed up a little late. So it’s very hard, because I’d have to turn it over before 3pm. So I have to, you know, use my own resources on call a fourth housekeeper and ask “hey, will you come over and help clean and turn over 3000 square feet before three o’clock?” because if that unit is not ready, then I cannot get a new booking in and feel comfortable that they will get to check-in on time. So housekeepers are my issue as always, yeah.

Delia:

Oh, so would you say that in your area is a little bit hard to get through a reliable cleaning crew?

Jennifer LeRoy:

I’d say in every area, you have issues with cleaning crews. Once you settle and find the right match for you, your job will be effortless. But when you’re in between and in transition trying to figure out which housekeeper will work for the long-term, it’s very challenging. You’ve to have a housekeeper who feels it’s their vested interest to help out and on this house and they make it almost like their own. Doing things above and beyond.

Delia:

I see and right now what is your strategy to find housekeepers?

Jennifer LeRoy:

Um, my strategy is pretty simple. Since I’m not a, you know, huge commercial company that does this, my strategy was very simple. I just got kind of fed up one day and I drove up to the hotels, I believe it was the Omni Hotels. I was right near a service door and I saw a housekeeper come out for like, a smoke break and I said “hey, would you be interested in earning some extra money on your off days?”. She was very interested and she says, “okay, I even have another friend, if I’m not available, I can give you her number”. Those are the housekeeper’s that tend to really know the dynamics of cleaning an Airbnb and making it look like nice hotels.

Delia:

Oh, okay, great then! Now, I’d like to ask you about your experience with rental arbitrage since you told me before you’re doing some listings with this, right?

Jennifer LeRoy:

Yes.

Delia:

Can you tell us a little bit more about it?

Jennifer LeRoy:

Yes, yes. With rental arbitrage, um, at the time, three years ago, I had a primary job and I was actually a banker in private wealth and I ended up starting a small, you know, cleaning business as a second income. So I went to clean somebody’s move out cleaning and I ran into a landlord from Boston, which is an hour from me and I cleaned his unit, he was very impressed. I asked him “hey, how much is it if I were to rent this particular unit from you?” and he told me the price and I said “okay, I would like to be considered for this unit, I have, I own a building and I have my primary residence and I really think that this would be a good place for me to rent”. So he owned a duplex and began renting half of the duplex and then he said that it was going so well, he was so impressed about seeing the apartment furnished and looking nice and how meticulous I kept it that he offered me a great deal in also obtaining the other half of the duplex. So that is my, the duplex is obviously two units, but sometimes I even have a third listing out of it, where I rent the entire building to one person similar to my three family apartment building that I own.

Delia:

I see thank you for sharing this with us. Finally, I would like to ask you, are there any tips that you would like to share with other Airbnb hosts?

Jennifer LeRoy:

Um, yes, yes, definitely. I read a lot about how to market myself and how to be the best host I can on Airbnb. I actually take 15 to 30 minutes before bed and when I wake up to research. I know people looking to get into Airbnb, they number one, have to check with their city government, go to the city hall and ask about short-term rentals. Certain cities have very difficult restrictions and you’re wasting your time if you go into a city that is about to eliminate Airbnb altogether or they have numerous amounts of restrictions that will make it difficult for you to launch your business on your first listing. In terms of marketing, they say there is a shortage of what’s called mega Airbnbs. These are Airbnb similar to my three family where I can sleep up to 22 people in one building. Just this past weekend, I rented it to some, you know, women in their late 30s for their event and they rented my house, maybe my three family for $800 a night. So rather than dealing with three separate guests, three separate families, essentially, I rent it to one person and that’s it. People just want to gather together. I host weddings, wedding parties there, bachelor parties, bachelorette parties. I host tasteful events like multi family, multi generational gatherings like reunions, book clubs, women’s gatherings, those are very lucrative and they are hard to find in my city. I believe there’s only three of them. Also, when you are setting up your Airbnb, another area that Airbnb is having a shortage in is also handicap accessible buildings. You want to make sure that you cast a wide net. In the questionnaire for Airbnb you’ll see, is your Airbnb handicap accessible? Do they have a security, you know, a security bar inside the shower so someone doesn’t fall? How many steps do they have to go up? Can a wheelchair get inside the unit? those things. That’s a hidden market that is untapped and people are looking. I have people that inquired saying they recently had a surgery, a knee replacement surgery, they need to stay in my unit for six weeks, so they can recover, they are a phenomenal market to work with. Another is just make sure you read through those amenities that Airbnb has on their website. If you see, “hey, does your unit have a pack in play?”. It’s only $50 to $100 to get a pack in play, to get a high chair, to get baby dishes and cups and cutlery, some some kid toys, that opens your market. Another thing might be to cater to business clients. Do you have a good workspace for them to conduct a zoom conference, for them to set up laptops and other paperwork at your Airbnb? Cast the widest net possible. This past winter was my most lucrative year in the down season. I was a little bit nervous going into it. However, another hidden dragon is the, Airbnb has a section called airbnb.org, please opt in to that! I hosted over 60 Afghan refugees. I was at 95% occupancy during my lowest part of the season. They pay through Airbnb on the market they are aware that there are current market rates out there and they say you name your market rate and it’s lower than what you have your house that, you know, already advertised for. Then you are able to get on refugees. I hosted the nicest most respectful people and they didn’t need anything. I would go in and clean every 10 days, change linens, see if they needed anything. I was so pleased with that arrangement. They had very large families, but they were so grateful for me to be available for their interim housing before they got their long-term housing. The US allowed 10,000 refugees into the country from Afghanistan and right now, on their Airbnbs page, if you search as a traveller in big red, it says “please assist us in hosting”, over 100,000 refugees are coming to the United States. So please think about that. I will be ready and available with space for that, but I really encourage people to tap that market. A lot of people overlooked it or didn’t care.

Delia:

Great, thank you for sharing all of this with us. This has been very helpful information. So that will be it for today. Thank you for your time!

Jennifer LeRoy:

Okay, thank you for having me! If anybody has any questions for me, my name is Jennifer and my last name is LeRoy like L E R O Y. You can reach out to me on Facebook, on messenger and on Instagram is Jenniferaleroy. I would be glad to help you and support you and be there to ask any questions. Yeah, I have a very good business model I love and I have been able to leave my full time job and do this short-term rental business full time for my entire family.

Delia:

Thank you. That’s so kind of you, I’ll be including that!

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Podcast

Interview with an Airbnb Host from Austin, Texas – S2 EP2

Post author By Robyn Peña
Post date June 3, 2022

Welcome back to another episode of into the Airbnb, where we talk with Airbnb hosts about their short term rental experience. Today’s guest is Vivian Yip Keller from Austin, Texas, who has been an Airbnb host since 2019. Managing five rentals of her own Vivian will tell us how is it to perform corporate rentals and will share some of her tips with us.

This episode is sponsored by Airbtics, the only one analytics dashboard for short term rental investors and managers, where you can find precise Airbnb data such as occupancy rate, revenue, average daily rate and so on. So, without further ado, let’s get into it!

Into The Airbnb S2 EP2:
Short and Mid-term Airbnb rentals in Austin, Texas

You can also listen to this Into The Airbnb Podcast Episode on Otter.

Delia:

Can you please tell me how did you get started on Airbnb?

Vivian Yip:

Well, I’m actually a real estate investor. So I sort of started Airbnb on accident, I came across a property in Round Rock, Texas in 2019, which I don’t own anymore. But, you know, when I saw the location, and I saw that it didn’t have an HOA, and I saw how many people were coming to visit Austin and I thought, wow, you know, this could be a really good opportunity to try Airbnb considering, you know, I love hospitality. So I basically just kind of hopped into it, I found a house that it needed renovation, it was off market and I had the chance to, you know, renovate it to however I wanted to and make it really nice. And that’s when I decided to put it, make it as Airbnb.

Delia:

That’s great. So in your area in Austin, Texas, how is this seasonality like?

Vivian Yip:

Austin has pretty mild weather throughout the year. But definitely, really popular place from spring through fall. So it might slow down a little bit during the winter season, but people are coming here to visit family anyways. So I would say that it is a higher season in the summertime because there’s just so much to do. All around it’s a pretty good market for Airbnb.

Delia:

Great to hear that. Comparing the high season to the low season, how is your average occupancy rate like?

Vivian Yip:

Well, the one in Round Rock did really well. I sold that one just for personal reasons. The current ones that I have today, they’re all, it’s hard to say because the ones that I have today, three of them are more corporate rentals. So they’re not really short term rentals like Airbnb, even though they’re listed on Airbnb, they’re more like midterm rentals. So I don’t really have a seasonality there. I seem to be 100% booked all the time on those. However, the one in Leander, I just started that back in December. And so far, so good. Our occupancy is about 86%.

Delia:

That’s great. About the midterm rentals you mentioned before, do you also get them from Airbnb?

Vivian Yip:

I have them through a mix of different sources. I just joined VRBO a month and a half ago and I’m currently hosting my first listing on VRBO. But Airbnb is my primary source, but I also because my husband is a realtor, I’m also able to list them on the MLS and furnish finder.

Delia:

I see. So now that you talk about VRBO, can you tell us which platform do you prefer? like Airbnb or VRBO? What do you find the difference between them?

Vivian Yip:

I find the Airbnb a lot easier to use than VRBO. VRBO just seems to be less intuitive. So but you know when you have to look at the data, when you look at the opening in Airbnb, you have to look at the data to understand if your market is booking more on VRBO or booking more on Airbnb. And for us. I think, you know, three out of four bookings come from Airbnb, which is why I chose to focus more on Airbnb. But you know, I had to put a leg into VRBO as well just so that I don’t miss that 25% chance.

Delia:

Okay, that sounds great. So can you tell us about your pricing strategy?

Vivian Yip:

Pricing is, you know, definitely really important in Airbnb. There’s a tool in Airbnb called smart pricing, which I don’t recommend to anybody to use. There are at least three different pricing platforms. One is called Wheelhouse and the other one is called PriceLabs, and the third is called Beyond Pricing, I believe it is. All three of those have a special pricing structure where they use large data to figure out what your pricing in the surrounding market and in your neighbourhood should be. So I use one of those three and it’s been very helpful to help me understand what kind of seasonality or what kind of things might increase or decrease the pricing for my listing. And finally, the most important tool that they have is that they basically zap your listing every single day with the new price and that helps you with your search engine optimization.

Delia:

Oh, great. So you rather to use dynamic pricing solutions than to price yourself? I know you have five listings, right? It will be kind of hard to price according to just your knowledge or manually every day.

Vivian Yip:

Correct.

Delia:

That’s right. So what has been your top challenges while running Airbnb?

Vivian Yip:

For sure, the challenges, you know, with the corporate rentals, like the midterm rentals is, you know, trying to stay competitive to the pricing. I couldn’t do a normal Airbnb short term rental because of the permit process here in Austin. And I didn’t want to break any rules and risk any fine. So that’s challenging there. The second one that’s challenging is remote hosting, sort of, the one in Marble Falls, it’s 45 minutes away from us and I finally was able to find a cleaner after searching for a year, that would be able to make the trek out that way. You know, the property location is at the end of a long, windy road and and some people get carsick or they can’t handle the turnover, or it’s just too difficult. So I finally found someone to partner with that can help me with the turnover there. So finding someone that’s reliable and will care for the property as much as you will is probably the hardest thing.

Delia:

How did you overcome that? What were your steps to find this reliable person to help you take care of your listing?

Vivian Yip:

Yes. So the first step was, you know, obviously, Google trying to find, so first of all this, this town of Marble Falls is very far west of Austin and then there’s another town to the east, is called Lago Vista. So my property is right smack in the middle, but it’s 25 minutes one way, or 35 minutes on the other way. And so being in such a unique destination, it’s hard to find someone in Marble Falls versus Lago Vista. So I tried using Google first to try and find a cleaning company, was unsuccessful there. Then I tried using my neighbor’s cleaning company, but they only clean on Tuesdays, which made it very difficult for me, if I had, depending on the kind of bookings that I had. So I just dealt with that for a while and I did my own turnovers for a while. Then finally, I joined a neighbourhood Facebook page for Lago Vista and I was able to find a cleaner that was willing to drive 25 minutes to come in and do the turnover for me.

Delia:

That’s great. How do you know you can trust this person you’re giving your listing to, because there are many people who are not sure how these cleaners or people who help them co-host are going to take care of their property as much as you will on your own?

Vivian Yip:

Yes, that’s a really great question and, you know, a lot of the times it’s really important for me to meet the person and get a feel for them, in person. This particular person, she’s wonderful, she’s a school teacher, previously. So I know she’s great with children, and she has to pass certain, you know, backgrounds. She’s married to a cop, which also makes it very important that their, you know, criminal records are clean. Lastly, she’s also a mother of five grown kids. So, you know, I have two kids and I know how difficult that is to manage sometimes I can’t imagine managing five. So you know, you have to have a certain level organisational experience to be able to manage a household. So I take that into consideration. You know, she asked really great questions when I was working with her and walking her through the property and I just got a really good feel for her.

Delia:

That’s good, good to hear how did you find her. Also, on your guests, since you’re doing midterm rentals, do you run background checks on them?

Vivian Yip:

I do not actually, on the midterm rentals. I mean, I let Airbnb do ID verification number one, so that’s really important to me is that I will only rent to them if they have ID verified through Airbnb. I do not collect any personal information myself. So I rely on on that a lot. If I do something off the Airbnb platform, usually it’s a realtor that’s bringing it to me and I will collect the security deposit.

Delia:

Okay, okay, that sounds good. Have you ever had problems with your past guests, any kind of light or hard problems with them?

Vivian Yip:

I’ve been very fortunate. I’ve only had one small problem where I had a group of young, maybe partiers, they were probably about 20 years old and, you know, I had a no pet listing and they brought their dog. But that was really the only bad problem I’ve ever had.

Delia:

Well, that’s good to hear that you had very good experiences because many hosts these days are really thinking through about that, about getting on Airbnb, because they hear a lot of stories of nightmare guests. And they don’t want to go through that, of course.

Vivian Yip:

Right. I think, you know, we hear about this all the time, in some of the Facebook host groups and I think a lot of the problems stem from pricing too low. Some people are so concerned about occupancy rate, rather than just pricing their property correctly, that they price too low, and they invite the wrong demographic of people to come in, you know, sometimes pricing at like $40 a night, you’re probably inviting some trouble. So, you know, I would say that if you’re at 100% occupancy, you’re too cheap. I would even say that I’m almost too cheap at 86% occupancy, I would say the focus would be to aim for you know, 75 to 80% occupancy and then you’ll know your price right with less work.

Delia:

Right. that’s right. So lastly, any tips that you’d like to share for other Airbnb hosts or future Airbnb hosts?

Vivian Yip:

I actually have tonnes of tips. Quick tips are you know, use a great electronic lock. Number two is you’re gonna come across, you know, bad guests that either smoke in your place cigarettes or marijuana or they’re going to cook something really stinky. There’s a really great product called an ozone machine that’s really useful to have in the closet sometime and those are about $99 on Amazon. You have to make sure you follow the instructions properly on how to use those. But definitely something that would be a good item to have on hand because it’ll help you clear out the smell.

Delia:

You told me about a YouTube video. Do you have platforms where you teach about Airbnb that you’d like to share?

Vivian Yip:

Well, my husband and I we actually flip homes, that’s our primary bread and butter. So we do have a YouTube channel, it’s “Austin House Flippers” and you can find us on YouTube and we love to share pro tips on how we do transformations, including Airbnb.

Delia:

Okay, that’s great. That would be it for today. Thank you a lot for your time and for your tips!

Vivian Yip:

Thank you very much for your time. I appreciate it.

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