Category: Podcast

Podcast interview with Airbnb hosts.

Interview with an Airbnb Host from Roanoke, Virginia – S2 EP3

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 Ninette Crunkleton, who manages 11 listings in Roanoke, Virginia. In this episode, Ninette will share with us about her story and experience performing co-hosting and doing long-term rentals.

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 3:
Long-term stays, co-hosting, and LLC on Airbnb in Roanoke, Virginia

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

Delia:

Hi, Ninette!

Ninette Crunkleton:

Hi, how are you?

Delia:

I’m good. How are you?

Ninette Crunkleton:

I am well.

Delia:

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

Ninette Crunkleton:

I heard about it from other friends and I had a couple of friends that were doing it. But they weren’t really clear about how it worked and what they were doing. And at that time, I was a crash pad host and a crash pad host is for pilots that their home base is in your city, but they don’t have a home there, so they need a place to crash while they’re waiting on their planes. So I had three pilots that were staying with me for quite a long time. And they’re plane stop flying here, so now all of a sudden, I needed to fill those places, you know, fill that lost income. So I tried first with the one room and it was a little haphazard at the beginning. But once I started seeing the flow and got it organised, I just started adding the rest of the rooms and other places.

Delia:

Okay, and how did you get your first whole listing? Did you manage it yourself? Did you buy property?

Ninette Crunkleton:

It’s in my house. The first four rooms are in the home, in my home and I felt safe with that because I could see if there was damage being done, I could get a read on the guests if they were happy or not. I also saw where the frustrations were with the guests. So I was able to adjust really quickly to make the stay more flowy for them and less hindrances. The things that people get stuck on where things you know, how do I get to places just hearing their frustrations and seeing the frustrations that was kind of nice and helped me learn really quickly.

Delia:

I see that’s great! So in the area you’re hosting, in the areas, because you told me there was another one pretty far from you. How is the seasonality like there?

Ninette Crunkleton:

In my city now where I live?

Delia:

Yes, where you manage your listings.

Ninette Crunkleton:

I first started doing short-term stays and I was surprised at how booked I was, I did not realise where I live was such a tourist Mecca, but it’s a very outdoors located place. So people love to hike, there’s some very famous hikes around here. Very famous marathons. Lots of different types of races, kayaking, just all types of outdoor sports. So people were coming for that I eventually had to switch to longer-term stays. So almost all my stays now are 30 days or longer. For those guests, it’s a huge mix. A lot of travel nurses, or residency doctors and there is a training hospital here. So they come through here quite a bit. And there are a lot of people moving to the Roanoke area. It’s really shocking how many people move here. So I would say over a third of my guests are people relocating. Then I have the travel nomads and then I just have people that are working for their company long-term and they don’t know when they’re moving on. So they just need a safe place to stay and leave all their things.

Delia:

I see. Is there a particular listing? Or you do more short-term rentals than the other ones?

Ninette Crunkleton:

No, all the listings right now have are all longer-term rentals. So one month or longer? It’s because is easier.

Delia:

Okay, is that because of your convenience or are short-term rentals not allowed in your area?

Ninette Crunkleton:

Good question. A little bit about, so to do the short-term rentals you have to go through the city when you’re in the city, and then you have to go through the process. And my house, my neighbours didn’t like it, so it was too hard to make it happen.Then I found that doing a longer-term listing is so much less work. Not flipping the rooms all the time, not having the exact same conversation every day, you know, when I had four people, or four rooms rented and every day have new people and it was the exact same conversation every single day. So it was a little exhausting at times. So now with people being here longer, I can relax a little.

Delia:

Okay, yeah, I see. So how is like your occupancy rates throughout the year?

Ninette Crunkleton:

I’m probably at I’d say 80 to 85% occupied. It’s really rare for me to have more than two weeks empty in any room.

Delia:

Okay, that’s great to hear. So for these listings you’re doing like for longer stays, how is your pricing strategy for that?

Ninette Crunkleton:

That’s been a big learning curve for me. I started off really, really cheap, just trying to get the reviews plus I thought, you know, personally, I thought it was outrageous to ask for $600 for a room. And now I asked a whole lot more, and people are paying it, especially the travel nurses, they have a bigger budget, and they are able to do it and they want someplace safe and clean. So they’re willing to pay for something that’s safe and clean. So my strategy is, for the rooms that have shared bathrooms a little bit cheaper, with a discount of only 20% for a monthly stay. And I have an apartment and I have in suite rooms, those are a little bit more expensive. They run probably 300 or 400 more than, yeah, about 300 more than the ones with the shared bath. And so I play with it a lot. If I don’t get a booking, and I’m sure I’m not the only one that hits panic button when it’s like “oh my god, I’ve been empty for two weeks”. So I’ll go in and I’ll add the discounts or the promos that Airbnb let you do just to get them more views. And it helps sometimes. I found that, especially with the travel nurses, it’s a cycle. It’s like a three month cycle. So all the requests come in within three weeks of each other. So I might be empty for two weeks, but also I’ll have three requests, and then I wish I had more houses.

Delia:

I see, I see. So regarding your pricing, do you get to use any tool? Or do you do all the pricing by yourself?

Ninette Crunkleton:

I do it by myself and I also allow the Airbnb smart pricing, which I don’t think they’re ever really increased that much more than I already have on there.

Delia:

So your experience with the smart pricing on Airbnb is really good then? Because from our past guests in this podcast, and also other hosts that I’ve read about, they don’t like the smart pricing feature at all.

Ninette Crunkleton:

I don’t find it particularly useful because you put your base price in, and they always want the base price usually more than a third less is what they recommend and that’s ridiculous. Like I said, I’ve seen maybe the price increase during the summer maybe a couple of times. But it’s not a huge value add, that’s for sure.

Delia:

Okay, I’m glad it works for you then. So throughout your journey on doing Airbnb, what have been your top challenges?

Ninette Crunkleton:

My first challenge was finding the rhythm and learning how to automate it. I guess the first challenge was learning that every single person thinks differently than I do and how to accommodate. You’re looking at things and thinking okay, how would that person that got frustrated, how would they like that done? And trying to flow the house and flow this process to be accommodating to everyone. There’s so many people that will come in they’re like “well of course that’s natural” and I’m like no. If you see how these people act, it’s not natural for them. So trying to put in rules, no I wouldn’t say rules, but you know suggestions of how to do things and what the expectations are of the house, so that everyone can get along, I don’t have a mess and they don’t get nervous thinking that they’re doing something wrong because the majority of the people don’t want to do the wrong thing, they want to do the right thing. So learning to give all the suggestions that they want and need, so that they feel comfortable that they’re not doing the wrong thing, this is the right thing to do, like opening all the cabinets or looking for pots and pans. So I have labels on all my drawers and cabinets and things, so they feel comfortable opening all those things. That was probably one of the bigger lessons at the beginning, automating the process, but the messaging, God that was one of the best things Airbnb did was the automated messaging. I love that, I hated writing those messages every time. And having the house guide and the rules at the beginning, so that the guests know, you know, no guests in the house. And I have the rule that if you have a guest in the house that, if you have anyone in the house that’s not on the booking, you’re immediately evicted. So it’s clear, there’s no grey area on that and learning that things like that do have to be that clear. I try to be more gentle in my approach. I don’t want a whole list of rules. I don’t want people to think, you know, they’re uncomfortable that I break a rule, but there are some things that to the guests that’s a no go zone. So yeah, those things were probably the hardest to get used to and that’s where now I add value to anyone that I’m bringing in to Airbnb, is I’ve already learned all those things, so I can get them fast tracked on it and help them get set up.

Delia:

Okay, so you talk about some issues you had with guests previously. Would you like to elaborate on that? Because many hosts right now are really scared to continue on Airbnb or get started in Airbnb because those nightmare guests, would you like to share us your experience with them?

Ninette Crunkleton:

Like my biggest nightmare one it was when I was first starting to, it was like on the first year. I’m a traveller and I travel a lot. And I just got a brand new co-host, you know, she was just learning to, she didn’t know my house. And I was still doing short-term rentals then, but this particular guest, the girlfriend had booked the room and had booked it for almost two weeks. And I had still pilots, I still had two pilots in the house. So I had two rooms on Airbnb and the other two rooms were pilots. And in first I get a message from the co-host asking, do you normally put, I don’t know I think was an earring, she was like “I found an earring in your living room. Is that supposed to be there? Was that there before?” and I thought “no, why would that earring be there?”. Then I get a message from the guest saying “I’m trying to put everything back” and I thought “what in the world does that mean?”. I’m in New Zealand, I forgot to mention that, I’m in New Zealand, so totally different timezone, totally different day when I’m getting these messages. So I asked her to elaborate and she doesn’t elaborate, she doesn’t answer anything else. And then one of my pilots messages me and says “Ninette, do you know this guy’s going into everyone’s room naked in the middle of the night?”. I was about to lost my mind. So I immediately messaged her and I said what is going on? And I asked my co-host to go over to the house because the pilot also said I think he’s moving your things around. So my co-host walks through the house with, you know, we were on video and shows me and there are just arbitrary weird things in weird places. He went through every single, I had a storage area in my basement with boxes with you know, photo albums where you know, just books stuff like that, right? He went through every single box, rearranged my photo albums, like took pictures out. He took my bike without permission, he was using my bike riding around everywhere. Even a year later, I was pulling out all my bakeware and I found a tube of Korean pot paste behind one of the pots or one of the pants. So I was so flabbergasted and I was so mortified. But by the time I sorted all the information out, she was on her last day of staying there. So that I think that was that was the first bad review I’ve ever left, I’ve only left a couple. But that was, I don’t know how to guard against that. There’s no rule, there’s nothing you can do. I just had a ton of guests, they would pull to different houses, tried to walk into other people’s houses, even though I have really explicit directions on how to get to my house, how to identify my house, they would think, well, the mailbox was on the other side of the road, so I went on that to that house. So it’s, again, trying to figure out how to stop those things and realising a lot of people when they do get here, they’re super tired. They’re not thinking clearly. Yeah and I think there was another… The same timeframe, I had one guest. She was not very friendly. She was a travel nurse and she wouldn’t answer anything. I kept asking her, how’s the stay going? What’s going on? And one of the pilots told me that she’s always complaining. She left me a two star review, but never answered any of my questions and what was going on? And so I asked her, I said, “how can I do better?”, that’s always my follow ups like, okay, I want to be a better host, what can I do? She gave me two pages write up of things that she expected and almost all were OSHA standards. And some of that was, I was like, “okay, yeah, you’re right, I should do this, I should do that” and so, I did make some changes, but the majority were just so over-the-top. So after the two star review, giving me all that feedback, two weeks later, she requested to stay again. I was like, you gotta be kidding me. And then the last nightmare was a young lady. She was a student here and she was also a stripper at a nightclub, which was fine, you know, no judgement. But she had probably a dozen wigs and it was during COVID and her hours got knocked back. I’m pretty sure my bedroom now is on one of those websites, I can’t remember the name of it because she would keep coming down in different outfits and different styles of makeup, different wigs different things. And she left my room with all this weird things on the wall like cranes and the room had a smell to it that took me literally four months to get rid of. I couldn’t rent the room out. I hired professional cleaners, I did every single tip trick, you know, every single thing I possibly could and painted the room and the only thing left was basically replace the carpet and the furniture, which I was not going to do. It took four months to get rid of it. I did charge her. Airbnb, you know being Airbnb, they didn’t want to cover any of the costs. So they said, resolve it with her. And I added up all the fees all the time loss and she paid it. So at least I got paid for that time lost.

Delia:

Yes, at least you get that and can you tell us how did you get to deal with these guests? Did you give them a bad review? Because many times hosts are kind of scared to give a bad review to the guests because they don’t want their reputation or something to be ruined.

Ninette Crunkleton:

Yeah, that’s a great question. I see that on the boards a lot. So the first two, yes, I gave the nurse, I think I gave her a three or four, the one that gave me the long critique. The people that had the walking around naked guy I gave them a two and said that they’re not suitable for Airbnb, that they’re better suited for hotel. The young lady at the end, I was her first Airbnb experience and I didn’t realise, you know, you only get two weeks to review. So I did wait to see how long I was gonna get rid of the smell and I didn’t know it was gonna take that long, but I felt bad. I thought she’s brand new. She’s very young. I don’t want to start her off that way with a really bad review, so I chose not to review her. And then she chose to review me and gave me a bad review. So I was really shocked because I was losing my super host status because of that review. One flipping review was gonna like make me lose my super host and there’s no way I could recover the stars. I wasn’t going to have enough bookings to make that number go up. So Airbnb sided with me, I was shocked and they removed her review because her review was not, it wasn’t based on anything, there was so much communication I did. That’s another lesson I learned to communicate, communicate, communicate every single thing on the Airbnb app. So they could see that I was trying and I did everything I could. And she never said anything and everything she listed as complaint wasn’t communicated to me.

Delia:

Okay, I see and did you received any other bad views in the past? Like previously to that girl or another type of guests? How do you deal with that?

Ninette Crunkleton:

If I get fours, anytime this the lowest I’ve ever gotten of them and that those two people. If I get a four I definitely follow up and I asked, you know, how can I do better? What went wrong? And I try to take that feedback to heart. And there are some people that that’s what they’re gonna give, that’s how they’re programmed, you know? They’re like, well, I just thought that, they’re like I had a good stay and I’m like, well, then why’d you give me a four?

Delia:

Okay, I understand. You have already given us many great tips, but if you have any other tip that you would like to share for other Airbnb hosts or future Airbnb hosts, that will be great.

Ninette Crunkleton:

The other thing is, is there are those Facebook pages, which I only recently, the last year joined for Airbnb hosts. And while they can be overwhelming and a little scary, it’s very diverse. I have learned a lot, so I’ve modified some things. We all know, we’re on Airbnb, Airbnb changes its rules, changes its format, changes the website, changes its offerings almost weekly. So it’s really hard to keep up sometimes with the page. So it’s really nice to be on the Facebook pages and to see what other people are doing and how they’re dealing with things to know that okay, now I need to go back in and I need to update my pages to say certain things or do certain things. So I think that’s a great resource to have.

Delia:

Right! So last thing I’d like to ask you about will be about co-hosting. I know many people wanting to get involved on Airbnb might like to start with something like that, or with rental arbitrage. How was your experience co-hosting so far?

Ninette Crunkleton:

As a co-host for my friend because she has four rooms, is overwhelming and she got a lot of lessons at the beginning, she had more problem guests or more problems at the very beginning than I had for, you know, for the past years. So she got a lot of trial by fire, which also meant that my messages blew up. So it was really a little bit overwhelming sometimes to see, between my Airbnbs and her Airbnbs, you know, keeping up with all that. But as a super host and her being a brand new host, when there was somebody that was being irrational or over-the-top with their requests or just, you know, there’s some times where you just get this vibe from people, that’s when I would tell her stop messaging them, let me step in and I can be the bad guy, you know and so then they can click on my profile and see that I have the experience, you’re not going to push me around, versus a brand new host, that they’re gonna feel like they can push around a little bit more. That’s been cool. And on the opposite end, when I travel, finding a co-host is pretty difficult, somebody that you trust, the one that I had was amazing and super attentive. She would remind me, “hey, you didn’t do this, hey, you didn’t do that”. She was all over it. I loved it. Trying to find someone like that, again, I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to. So that’s my biggest challenge, it’s to find another co-host so that I can travel and go do my things and do take care of those things. I know there’s people trying to build businesses and bigger cities. I think there’s one here in Roanoke that’s trying to start. But yeah, it’s having that too, having that backup person and I would suggest having a backup person.

Delia:

And what are the filters you put in this kind of person? You ask them questions, get them interview, like face to face, things like that?

Ninette Crunkleton:

Yes. With the last one, we talked in-depth about what it was like, what the process was and she was very curious and really exuberant about it and kept coming over to the house and also was my next door neighbour, so that was even better. So it was really quick to be there and she could see everything that was happening. I’m trying to bring in a new one and he’s really, really eager to do everything, but again, thinks differently. So it’s building up that trust factor, you know, are you going to do it and so I’m home right now and I’m able to give simple things and see how those are being followed up on, and then know that if I can go into leaving the house to him or the rooms to him. So yeah, if I were to hire a company or bring in an outsider, yeah, there would be so many questions on “how would you deal with things? How would you handle it? What’s your protocol? What’s your procedure?” Because really, you need procedures and there would be a whole lot more and a lot more vetting. And I would want to see examples of what they’ve done in the past.

Delia:

Yes, that’s, that’s great. Thanks for that. Actually, I’ll like to make you one more question. You mentioned before that you had three listings being an LLC, right? Can you elaborate more on that? Because it’s the first time we have a guest with that characteristic, so I’ll like to hear about it.

Ninette Crunkleton:

So, when I started doing Airbnb, I didn’t think it was gonna be long-term, I thought it would be short-term, and then my house, so I really didn’t put a business structure around it. But I am so successful with this right now and I see this as being my cashflow income to where, if I get two or three more houses, if I get two, I’ll hit the magic number where I don’t need to worry about things. If I get three, I won’t have to rent rooms in my house, and I can get my house back. To do this, though, I felt like I really needed a business structure around that, so I built a graded LLC. So then if things do go wrong in those other houses where I don’t have that visibility like I do in my own house, where I can see when things are going wrong quickly, you know, but now they’re in a different place. I don’t have that hands on so much, that if something does go wrong, and they, you know, get to the point where they want to sue me or do something else, then my personal income, my personal life will not be affected only be the business and that house that they can take. Now when I buy the other houses that goes all together, that they can take those houses and sue me. So I still don’t know if I’ll set a separate LLC for each house or I’ll just join them together. I’ll talk to lawyers when I get to that point. But that was the reason why, I wanted to be under, if something went wrong that it couldn’t ruin the rest of my life.

Delia:

Okay, yeah, I understand. So that’d be it for today. Thank you for your time. Thank you for sharing lot of stories and tips with us. It has been very helpful, it’s going to be very helpful.

Ninette Crunkleton:

Right. I look forward to hearing it and let me know when it goes live.

Delia:

Thank you for your time and have a great day!

Ninette Crunkleton:

You’re welcome and you too!

Delia:

Bye bye!

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Podcast

Interview with an Airbnb Host from Clanwilliam, South Africa – S2 EP4

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 Eugene Muller, based on Clanwilliam, South Africa, who owns and manages over 10 listings in two different towns. Today, Eugene will share with us about her Airbnb host experience and also give some useful tips for those who might be interested in hosting in South Africa.

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 4:
How it’s like to manage short-term rentals on Airbnb in South Africa

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?

Eugene Muller:

I was first into permanent rentals. But in South Africa, the law doesn’t protect the the landlord, it protects the tenant. So the tenants start to be a problem because they don’t pay and the law doesn’t worry about that. But now I believe in property, I love property, so now I had to make something out of the property. So they know see, this guest houses in Cullinam, Cullinam is quite a tourist town in South Africa is one of the 10 best rock climbing places in the world. So I see the guest houses are full and I thought maybe I’d just start with one and one became two and two became three. That’s how I started. The main reason was because the landlord’s in South Africa aren’t protected at all.

Delia:

I see, I see and in the areas you’re hosting, how is the seasonality like? Is it like occuped all of the year?

Eugene Muller:

Normally, before COVID. Everything is before COVID. May month for some reason in our town, in Clanwilliam, is not the best and most of the guest houses are close or some of the guest houses close and go overseas for holidays and stuff. But then the small guest houses are open. So I have a bit of business. So May is our bad financial month, but 11 months of the year, we are quite full. So Clanwilliam is very populated or very popular place in the world and in South Africa.

Delia:

I see that’s great. So around the high season versus the low season, how is your occupancy rate like?

Eugene Muller:

Okay, low season about 40/50% and the high season 100%.

Delia:

That’s great and what months are those? What season of the year?

Eugene Muller:

The highest season? Okay. So, high season is from June till end of December. But our highest season is from one June till end of September. The 100% sort of thing.

Delia:

During all the year, how is your pricing strategy?

Eugene Muller:

Okay, so what we do is, I own two different towns. So the Clanwilliam’s one was quite easy. I know the properties, I know the people. So when I started seeing the places and I know exactly where it was, I just compare my property to the rest and plus minus that price range. But then I bought a new place in Elands Bay and they it’s totally different than mine. Firstly, my spot is 10 times better. The price range here is extremely low. So I just thought I’m not going to let me lead by them I’m better. So I just put my own price. So I’m the market leader in Elands Bay with the price.

Delia:

I see and you price all by your own? Don’t you use any pricing solution?

Eugene Muller:

No.

Delia:

Okay, that’s great. So through all your years being an Airbnb host, what has been your top challenges?

Eugene Muller:

Cleaning staff, it is really difficult to get good cleaners, really difficult. In these years, I started to, after a year or two, I got my stuff sorted out in Clanwilliam and everything is working perfectly. When I bought a new place in Elands Bay, like in one month in December, I had 16 different people working for me and I actually only needed two. So it was just about, they work for the day and then they just told me they don’t work that hard.

Delia:

Is it that cleaning staff problem like a common thing in South Africa? Have you heard about other hosts also struggling with it?

Eugene Muller:

No. Luckily in Clanwilliam, really, we don’t have a problem at all. The problem in this town, Elands Bay, I didn’t really know the town and its people. So it’s a small community, a poorer community, but the people is sort of the money, that they don’t have a job and pleading for a job and when they have a job, they say no, no, thanks. You understand? So not in South Africa the problem, but definitely a huge problem in Elands Bay. So I’m still struggling. I still struggle to get staff that stick. They just told me it’s too hard work. They don’t work that hard and you know, unfortunately, the guest houses business the accommodation business is hard work because every place must be extremely clean. For the COVID regulations, you know, I don’t want to go in a place that’s dirty. So cleaning is very important and they just told me they don’t work that hard. And then I must tell you so many places, guests booking into places they may check out, especially when I was a new in town, it was only three four months and then they check out and then they book with me. So that’s one of the reasons I’m always fully booked, because they check out of other places because it’s too dirty and then, they come to me.

Delia:

I see, that’s great. At least you have more public like that. So your guests, are they usually locals or are there tourists?

Eugene Muller:

Clanwilliam normally is 90% overseas guest so mostly the overseas guests, okay, so tourists. But I’ve just started in Elands Bay, and here is 98% local people. So currently, in Clanwilliam, is also like 90% 95% local, but I’m talking about normally, we work with overseas guests, and 90% of our guests in Clanwilliam are overseas guests.

Delia:

Wow, I see that’s interesting.

Eugene Muller:

Especially the Germans. The Germans love Clanwilliam. We are quite a hot town and they just love the sunshine and they love everything about us. Like I said the Rockland as they come here year after year, the same people. So if the same people comes back, it says something, you understand?

Delia:

Yeah, yes, I see. Would you recommend to other hosts to start their Airbnb rental business in South Africa?

Eugene Muller:

For sure I would. But currently with everything that’s going on, it is difficult or it’s more difficult. Like I’ve got quite a lot of places like I told you in January I had like five nights booked in all my places. Now if you need the money and you don’t have reserve, then you’ve a huge problem you understand? It was January which was my worst month even with COVID we didn’t have it like that. But saying you need to, can work with money. Airbnb is a wonderful thing to make money to pay property and everything, but you can’t make the money and use the money. I was always in business from 17 years old. So I understand how it works that you have to put money back for, you know, 7 years and 10 years. Well, that’s seventeen years. And we will now in seventeen years, and it was difficult. But yeah, hopefully the fattiest will come again, quickly.

Delia:

So any tips you’d like to share with Airbnb hosts, especially the ones who host on South Africa?

Eugene Muller:

In South Africa, the main tip I would say is, if you buy a property, you can make good money. But just remember, don’t use the money. Use that money to pay your Airbnb. When it’s almost paid, take that you pay in front, your Airbnb, in to the bank, then you take that money again, and buy a second one, then to pay back that bond, you understand? To try not to use the money, try to make an extra income, save, save, save to buy your properties. So eventually, then the second one is buy then you buy a third one and the third one, then is three Airbnb is paying off one. You understand how quickly you’re gonna have more and more in Airbnbs.

Delia:

How about restrictions there in South Africa or in the cities you host in?

Eugene Muller:

Okay, so we don’t have restrictions. So luckily, all my properties I have is business properties. So it’s already assigned to that. But in South Africa, if you have two or more places on one plot, you have to redone it. But if you only have one place, and you’re higher, it’s no problem. Nobody is concerning. But we also have, like security estates, they have their own rule. You can’t just open it and stuff. But the normal residential plots outside the security estates, no problem.

Delia:

Great, good to hear that. Would you recommend foreign Airbnb hosts to open an Airbnb business in South Africa? Would it be easy for them?

Eugene Muller:

From overseas? Or what do you mean?

Delia:

Yes, overseas hosts.

Eugene Muller:

You should if you have someone that can manage it for you because like I told you the cleaning is a problem. To find cleaning stuff is difficult. In other words, if you buy a property and you do Airbnb, you need to clean it. How are you going to do that? You understand? So in Cape Town, the big cities there is companies doing it. But then you give a lot of money away if you use a company to do that, then you have to have a high end type of property understand? That makes it worth your while. So yes, I would recommend it. But you must just sort out the cleaning.

Delia:

Yes, that’s the thing they have to solve. So that’ll be it for today. Thank you for your time. Thank you for your tips.

Eugene Muller:

Okay. Thanks a lot.

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Interview with an Airbnb Host from Richmond, Virginia – S2 EP5

Post author By Robyn Peña
Post date June 2, 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 Katelyn Almeda, based in Richmond, Virginia, who is an experienced Airbnb host and Airbnb ambassador. In this episode, Katelyn will share with us her experiences doing own rentals, rental average in co-hosting, along with some great tips for Airbnb hosts.

This episode is sponsored by Airbnb, the only one analystics 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 5:
Great Tips for Hosts from an Airbnb Ambassador

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?

Katelyn Almeda:

Sure. So I really started as a traveller, I started using Airbnb to stay at places in 2014 and I just really fell in love with the platform. The hosts that I was able to stay with, really inspired me and motivated me to give hosting a go. I’ve always loved to create warm and inviting spaces through interior design, and I love just meeting people, I’m a people person. So I felt like this was a great way to do all of that. So when I was 24, I purchased my first home and I set up my first listing, which was just a private bedroom and bathroom within my primary residence.

Delia:

How was your experience renting in your house?

Katelyn Almeda:

It was great, I loved it. No issues at all. I met some really cool people. Yeah, no issues whatsoever.

Delia:

Oh, so you have good luck with that. That’s great!

Katelyn Almeda:

Yeah, it’s really fun. I have met some of my best friends through hosting private bedrooms on Airbnb. It’s been a few years since I’ve done that I was able to purchase another house and now I only rent out full spaces. But just getting started, that was a fantastic way to kind of get my foot in the door.

Delia:

Yes, that’s right. I agree. You told me previously that you have done rental arbitrage in co-hosting in the past, can you tell us a bit of your experience with that?

Katelyn Almeda:

My experience with that was, I’m grateful for it, because it has led me to a lot of opportunities. But at the end of the day, I was not building any equity with those spaces. I was putting a lot of love and energy and money into fixing these spaces up and I didn’t own them. I was paying rent and I didn’t make a lot of money because my rent was really high because they knew what I was doing with rental arbitrage. I always try to get people if they’re able to purchase like that is the best thing that you can do because you’re building equity, you will be able to sell that house in the long run and get that money plus some back. Co-hosting is a great way to get your foot in the door without even, you know, worrying about paying a lease every month. So I tried to get people to look into co-hosting. I know it can be kind of hard sometimes to find property owners to work with. But that is great, because you’re just making a percentage right of each reservation. You don’t have to pay monthly to be renting that space. So I think that was a perk.

Delia:

If it’s not too personal… Can you tell us about how do you see the difference between the revenue you’re getting right now that you own a property in your right now that than the revenue you saw before doing rental arbitrage?

Katelyn Almeda:

Yeah, so it’s a lot more with rental arbitrage the property owner again, they knew that I was subleasing the space out and because of that my rent was very, very high. I basically was just making the cleaning fees and a little bit on top of that. With my property now that I own, you know, it’s all mine, 100% of the profit that I’m making is mine. I just have to pay my mortgage. But I’m certainly making a larger profit, that’s for sure with the property that I own.

Delia:

Okay, that sounds good. How was your experience? How did you get to convince landlords to do rental arbitrage? Because some hosts right now who would like to get started on Airbnb might not have the money to buy a property right now and are interested in doing rental arbitrage to get started, see how it goes. Was there any particular thing you did to convince the landlord?

Katelyn Almeda:

I think one thing that really helped me was the fact that I already had a listing, I was already an Airbnb host. So I was able to show that and say “hey, look, I’m already a super host, these are my reviews, here’s like, what my listing looks like”. I had background in hospitality. So that helped and also marketing, I was a brand manager for a long time for a marketing agency. So really focusing on that the fact that I was living at the property was a huge plus for the property owner, because they knew that I was going to be there on site all the time, just in case anything were to happen and I think a big plus is that I was keeping these spaces really, really nice, you know, because it mattered for my own business. So the property owners knew that like it was clean all the time, like, in better shape than it ever had been before and I was constantly putting love into making it better and better and better. So it’s nice, with just short-term rentals in general, that you can constantly improve the property, it’s more flexible, you have time between guests to make things better. So that was something that I really focused on when I was chatting with the property owner at the beginning. But so that was like a mom and pop just a singular property owner investor that I worked with. Now another route that you can go if you’re interested in rental arbitrage is actually looking for apartment complexes that actually allow it. This is becoming a lot more popular because there’s so much demand for this. So in a lot of larger cities, there’s apartment complexes that specifically allow home sharing or flexible living. I had an apartment in San Francisco that allowed that and that’s the whole reason why we signed a lease was because they allowed home sharing. So that could be an easier way for people who are interested in rental arbitrage to find the spaces just by looking for Airbnb friendly apartments.

Delia:

Yes, I agree with that. I didn’t know about it. Thank you for sharing that with us!

Katelyn Almeda:

Yeah, and just keep in mind also that every city has different rules as far as short-term rental regulations go. So in some cities actually do not allow rent rental arbitrage. So if anyone is interested, if anyone’s listening to this and they’re interested, the first thing you want to do is check in with your local laws to familiarise yourself with that and know exactly what is legal and what is not legal in your area.

Delia:

So in the area you’re hosting, right now, what is the seasonality like?

Katelyn Almeda:

In Richmond, the peak season is definitely the summertime, so like May through August is more popular. It’s not really much of a vacation town. Some people come in, I mean, it’s a fun city, but it’s not like you know, Miami or LA or anything like that. I do get a lot of weekenders that come in, so they check in on Fridays, check out on Sundays. But I’m definitely able to increase the rate on during the summer season the most.

Delia:

Are there any particular regulations there?

Katelyn Almeda:

Yes. So in Richmond, it has to be your primary residence. So you have to reside there at least 180 days out of the year. That’s the biggest regulation, you have to have a permit. You have to apply with the city and get a short-term rental permit in order to host under 30 nights, like reservations that are under 30 nights, a lot of hosts around here to kind of get around that will have a furnished space that they rent out for 30 or more nights. So kind of during that mid term stay, so kind of attracting like travelling nurses are really popular around here or folks that are relocating, maybe they’re buying new property and they just need a place to live for like a month or two that’s furnished. So that’s kind of the demographic that a lot of folks hosts here in particular, trying to target. But yeah, for as far as regulations go, it’s just has to be a part residence. That’s pretty much it and just get that permit and then make sure that you have smoke detectors in your house and carbon monoxide, if you have gas, just safety requirements, nothing crazy.

Delia:

I see and is it hard to get that permit? That’s why other hosts are wrongly hosting 30 days or more?

Katelyn Almeda:

It’s hard to get a permit if it’s not your primary residence. It took me a while to get a permit, just because it was just very slow, the city just wasn’t in a rush to get it to me. I know that in Richmond in particular, there’s about 800 short-term rental units currently live in the city, but only 14 of them have permits. So most hosts actually do not get a permit in Richmond. So that’s something that the city needs to be more active with. There’s not really any consequences right now, so a lot of people are like “okay, I’m just gonna put it up on Airbnb and see what happens”.

Delia:

I see, so it’s not that regulated then.

Katelyn Almeda:

Yeah, like there are laws, but there’s no consequences. Yeah, it’s something that the city is working on and I know that they’re looking to change the regulations and make more of a pathway for folks, that’s easier. I know that there’s a lot of push from real estate investors, of course, to allow them to Airbnb a space out all year round that is not their primary residence. So that’s something that they’re pushing very hard right now with Richmond. Also to allow rental arbitrage, because currently, rental arbitrage is actually illegal in the city of Richmond, but there’s a huge demand for it.

Delia:

Okay, good to know that thank you for sharing that with us. In the high season versus low season, how is your average occupancy rate?

Katelyn Almeda:

Yeah, so I mean, my pricing is dynamic. I change it all the time. So my occupancy rates stay pretty consistent year round. I’m just making a little bit less money in like the winter months.

Delia:

Can we know how does your revenue change in this month?

Katelyn Almeda:

Revenue? Yeah, it’s definitely lower in the summer months, or sorry, in the winter months, much higher in the summer months. I just started renting out my listing in Richmond as an entire house in December, so it’s only been a few months that I’ve been doing it with the entire space. But so far, I’ve definitely seen that like June, like the farther into the summer I’m getting the more people are paying. So yeah, but I’m constantly going in there every day pretty much and tinkering with the pricing and, of course, it’s higher for the holidays and the weekends, in general for the summer months. But occupancy rates stay pretty much consistent. I like to have my space booked about 50% of each month and I’ve always able to do that.

Delia:

Oh, and now that you talked about that, what is your pricing strategy?

Katelyn Almeda:

Yeah, so I go the DIY route, I do it my own. I’ve never paid for like an automated pricing service or anything. Like I said, I tinker with the pricing almost every day, I add when I have a brand new listing, of course, I find comparable listings or comps on Airbnb and at the beginning of with any brand new listing, you don’t have reviews, so you have to have a really high value to get some guests. So I usually go about 20% lower at the very beginning and something that I do is I’ll only open up my calendar three months in advance at any time. So I only have three months in advance that I’m booking and that way I can keep a really close eye on all the dates. You know, I’m not allowing people to book a year from now because like who knows there might be a big event that’s happening and it’s like not announced yet. I like to really keep a close eye on those things and like I said, I charge a lot more on Friday nights and Saturday nights because I’m trying to attract a lot of weekenders in Richmond. Holidays days where there’s special events, sporting events, concerts, I can charge a bit more. Usually Sunday through Wednesday is quite a bit lower in price from the weekends. But yeah, I kind of just feel it out, you know, and I tell a lot of my hosts that I work with to do this as well, like if you go live with a new listing and the first day you’re live, you get 10 reservations, like you might want to increase your price a bit or if you’re not getting any reservations for a few days, decrease it by a little bit and like over time, you’ll kind of find that healthy, happy medium.

Delia:

Do you also check on the pricing of your competition to set out your pricing?

Katelyn Almeda:

Yeah, like comparable listings in the area? For sure. Yeah, I’m very familiar with the other Airbnbs that are in the neighbourhood. How big they are, you know, how long they’ve been around because of course, like, the more reviews you have and if you’re super host status and all that, you’ll be able to increase the price a bit too. But yes, I always suggest you know, if you have a brand new listing, or even if you’re thinking about like purchasing this house and you know where it is like look for comparable listings, go on to Airbnb as a guest and do a search, just as you know, as if you were going to stay there and add in the filters, you know, how many bedrooms, bathrooms and beds and the special amenities that it has, that your place has, and see what the prices are alike and actually click in on them and look the photos and see how similar they are to your design and whatnot. Yeah, just like a real estate agent, but you’re right finding comps, very important.

Delia:

Yeah, right, that’s right. So throughout the years, what have been your top challenges while running Airbnb?

Katelyn Almeda:

Let’s see, I think a challenge for me and this was me going from having a nine to five job my whole life to becoming a full time Airbnb super host. This isn’t gonna be as challenging if you just have one or two units that you’re doing like part time. But for me, it was a big challenge was just being available and in keeping in mind that my guests are paying a premium to stay at my spaces, on weekends, on holidays on those special events, which I might want to attend as well. So just like being available and also having solid internet access 24/7 during guests days, is something that I’ve had to get used to. You know, being available in the middle of the night on Friday night, it’s like somebody can’t get through the door, like that doesn’t really happen anymore, but that is something that you just have to be really proactive about. Or if you know that you’re going to be on vacation with your own family for the Fourth of July weekend and you have guests coming, you want to make sure that there’s somebody there, maybe a co-host or a cleaner that can answer questions, should they arise and you’re not available. So that was a pretty big challenge for me just being available 24/7 during your guests days. What else… like city regulations, of course can be a bit challenging depending on where you live. It honestly, it wasn’t that bad for me to get a permit here in Richmond, but I know that it can sometimes take months, depending on where you live and there’s a lot of hoops that you have to jump through to get a permit for short-term rental in the area. Also thinking what other challenges, finding a cleaner, or just you know, having the time to clean all these spaces is quite a challenge that I hear from a lot of new hosts, finding a really dependable cleaner that can do your turnovers. I have a cleaner now, but even with her, she’s amazing, but I still go in after every cleaning and I make sure it’s all staged to grip correctly and the pillows are fluffed and there’s fresh cookies on the counter and like those little things. But yeah, finding a good cleaner was quite a challenge at the beginning.

Delia:

Can you tell us how did you manage to find a good cleaner or how did you deal with that? What are the filters they have to go through to stay as your cleaner?

Katelyn Almeda:

Yeah, so there’s a really awesome website now, it’s an app as well. It’s called TurnoverBnB. Have you heard of it?

Delia:

Yes, I have.

Katelyn Almeda:

Yeah. So I love it. It’s wonderful. That’s how I met my current cleaner. You can pop in your properties address, how many bedrooms and bathrooms it has and it will notify local cleaners in your area that actually specialise in short-term rental turnovers because you know, it is a bit different from a general cleaning. So you can go to their profiles read their reviews from past hosts they worked with, you can interview them. I had her come over, we met in person and I gave her a tour of the house and I showed her exactly how it should look after every turnover before each guest arrives and I pointed out little things like, “this is how I like the bed to be made and this is you know, your cleaners closet where you can find all of the bulk items that you might need” and we just hit it off. She’s a fantastic cleaner and she’s been my main cleaner ever since then. We still go through TurnoverBnB, so she can like check-in when she starts a cleaning and I can see that she has arrived. There’s like a checklists and I can see exactly what she’s working on during her time there. She can upload photos when she’s done with the cleaning and when she’s done, it will automatically pay her so my credit card is attached with my TurnoverBnB account and as soon as she’s done, she clicks done and she gets paid. So that’s really nice, because I don’t even have to worry about that. It’s like all automated now. So as much of a DIY as I am, that is one website that I find a really helpful as a host.

Delia:

Glad to hear your experience with that! I’ve heard from other previous guests on these podcasts that they mostly search for cleaners in their local area and just find them through interviews and stuff like that. So it’s good to hear a new, fresh way to do it.

Katelyn Almeda:

Yeah, I always told new hosts like check out TurnoverBnB. But if you have a hard time finding it there, because it’s not super popular in every city yet, it’s definitely great for larger cities. But if you have a hard time finding a cleaner there, ask a local real estate agent. Like real estate agents are great to be friends because they tend to have a lot of connections, can probably introduce you to a good cleaner, or even like also an electrician or a plumber or other people that you might need during your hosting adventures.

Delia:

That’s great advice. You already gave us a lot of tips, but is there any particular tip you’d like to share for other Airbnb hosts or new Airbnb hosts?

Katelyn Almeda:

Yeah, sure! I think a big thing that I, this is kind of another challenge that I had and something to just keep in mind is, when you first start hosting, don’t be perfect. It’s okay to not be perfect, you’re not going to be perfect, to your listing, you’re going to learn so much and you’re going to get better and better over time. You just got to dive in, you know, and every day you’ll like learn little things and little nuggets of information, you’ll make your listing better and take new photos over time and get new amenities and that’s okay, you know, that’s enjoy the journey. It doesn’t have to be perfect right from the beginning. Another tip is to hire a professional photographer because photos are extremely important to the success of your listing and people are very visual creatures. Listings with high quality photos do tend to get booked more and in my experience, it has been totally worth it to hire a professional real estate photographer. As with everything, communication is key. Fill out as much information as you can on your listing. Really take advantage of the scheduled messages and message templates that you can use to help automate things. Just make sure that your guests knows that you care about their experience and that you’re there if should they need anything during their stay. Then finally, my last little tip is just to connect with local hosts in your area. It’s great to have that network of other people who are doing something similar and living in the same area just to bounce ideas off of or ask questions too. It’s great to be involved with not only the local hosts in your area, but just in general, your neighbourhood HOA your city like going to board meetings, staying up to date on changes that might be happening with short-term rental regulations in your are. It’s really important to show up to get involved.

Delia:

I agree with that totally. Is there any particular experience you’ve had in the past with trouble guests because many hosts have had an encounter with these people and usually when they tell their story online, they scare a lot like the new hosts or soon to be host. So it will be great for you to share that if you have any experience with that?

Katelyn Almeda:

You know, nothing, I’m going to be honest. I’ve hosted well over 1000 guests and there’s not really any time where there’s been a guest that was like a really bad egg. I’ve gotten really lucky. I think it’s because I bet my guests well and I am very make things very personalised, I’m trying to think of like a bad thing that happened. I know one time I was threatened a bad review because and maybe this is true, the guest said that there was a bit of like, the top of the refrigerator, or the back of the refrigerator had some dust on it and so she threatened to give me a bad review if I didn’t give her money back for this day. That was really challenging for me, it kind of broke my heart to be honest because I put so much time and love into creating the space and making her cookies. I said multiple times throughout her stay like if you need anything at all, let me know and live right next door. Nothing, not a peep and then once she checked out, she sent me a message demanding the money or sending me a bad review. At the time, I didn’t know, I sent her like half the money, I was just really upset about it. If that happens now, I know that I can just call Airbnb and let them know that the guest is threatening a bad review and they can take the review off. That’s a thing that Airbnb will do for you if there’s clear evidence. But that was the bummer for me because I just put so much love into it and I felt like it wasn’t appreciated in that particular instance. But like, no one’s ever hosted a party as far as I know or like left the house a mess or anything like that, I really had fabulous guests. If anything, you know, like I’ve said, I’ve met some of my best friends, people leave me presents all the time like, it’s very rewarding to be a host. And I know sometimes, especially in like groups on Facebook for hosts and whatnot, it’s easy to focus on the bad things that happen. You can have 200 amazing guests and five star reviews and it’s great, but like the one guest that comes in and doesn’t follow a rule or leaves a bad review, it really sticks with you. You know what I mean? So it’s easy to focus on and I understand why you see those on line and whatnot, but you can’t. That’s not the majority of the experiences.

Delia:

You got very lucky with guests then. Is there any particular thing you do that make you have these really good relationship with guests?

Katelyn Almeda:

I think just having a very personalised experience, like, you know, whenever they message me, even though I have templates where I can, like upload them for all the check in directions, for example, I still always add, you know, at the top of it “hey, Jen, I hope you’re looking forward to your birthday weekend”. You know, just like those little things that they tell me, I’ll remember them and I’ll talk about them and just really try to make it as personalised as I can. If they say it’s a birthday weekend, I’ll get them some cupcakes from a local bakery or like have a little gift that’s waiting for them when they arrive. Those little things can make such a big difference for our guests, even just having a personalised welcome board that has you know, “welcome, Jen!”, when they arrive and they see that as soon as they walk through the door, it can completely make the whole experience like it started off on a positive note. So I just think those little things and I call them cherry on top items, CoT items. I think these are our big reason why I’ve had so many respectful guests and so many fabulous reviews because they know that I really truly care about their experience. It’s not just about the money for me, I’m doing it because I love people.

Delia:

Right, right, that’s great. So I’ll like to know lastly, how do you choose your guests or how do you decide to accept their booking? Do you usually check on their background? Something particular you do for this?

Katelyn Almeda:

Yeah, great question. So I have opted into the verified ID process that Airbnb has. So Airbnb verifies every guest who stays in my space has to have a verified ID. That is something that Airbnb does for me, I never asked for guests IDs, but they have to upload it onto Airbnb and be verified by them in order to book one of my listings. So that’s one thing I do. Another thing I do allow Instant Booking, but only guests who already have positive five star reviews from past hosts can book my spaces instantly and if they don’t, maybe they’re just a newbie to the website and they just haven’t booked before that would come to me and manually to approve or decline. So if that’s the situation, I’ll ask them some extra questions “hey, what brings you to town? Any special occasions? Is this your first time coming here? I noticed the number of guests on the reservation is two, is this correct? What is the name of that their guest?”. Usually I get a pretty good sense of somebody just from having a bit of a conversation. I feel like the more communication I have, the better I feel about a reservation and I feel like a lot of hosts are like that. So I’m just asking those questions and again letting them know that I’m available. Should any questions arise throughout the whole process, I’m always free, message me anytime. I think those have helped. I know that, when I was in San Diego, I met a lot of my guests in person when they first arrived and I know that really helped because when they meet somebody in person face to face, there’s just something about that human connection and they’re like, “oh, this is actually a cool person and like they seem like a friend” and I want to respect their space. They’d also use I lived right next door so like I could hear you know, they’re being loud or something, but I had very respectful guests. Today, I’m trying to do a bit more remote hosting, so not meeting every single guest in person. But I do send a welcome video of myself just “hey, welcome to wristband like let me know if you need anything” and I’ll just include that little video in the welcome message that I send and I think that also helps.

Delia:

Yeah, that’s good! Is there anything else you’d like to share with us?

Katelyn Almeda:

You know, if anyone’s listening and they’re interested in hosting on Airbnb, go for it. It’s the best thing that I’ve ever done. It’s completely changed my life in so many positive ways, which is why I get so amped on helping new people start their own Airbnb businesses. So just just do it. Just dive in. You won’t regret it.

Delia:

Great. Thank you so much for your time today!

Katelyn Almeda:

Absolutely. Have a good one!

Delia:

Bye bye. Thank you.

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Interview with an Airbnb Host from Washington Coast – S2 EP6

Post author By Robyn Peña
Post date June 2, 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 the en DeAnne Davidson based in the Washington Coast, who has been a short-term rental owner since 2007. Today, DeAnne will share with us about her experience in the last 15 years, some useful tips and the secrets to become a successful and respected Airbnb host.

Into The Airbnb Podcast S2 EP 6:
Pioneer Airbnb Host Excelling at Short-Term Rentals for 15 years

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

Delia:

Can you please tell us how did you get started on Airbnb or on short-term rentals?

DeAnne Davidson:

It was on accident. We had a vacation home ourselves on the Washington Coast but went for a drive and found this beautiful property up on a cliff that had a 180 degree ocean view and we decided to purchase that and build two townhomes, a duplex style townhomes on it. And basically the only way we could afford it is to do short-term rental. What we plan to do is on one side and have the other place for ours, but it became so popular that we ended up renting both sides short-term rental and doing very well. We were one of the first short-term rentals in our area. So there was a high demand when we started 15 years ago in 2007. From there, we bought other ones, in the mountains and more on the ocean over time. So kind of got started on accident and I didn’t discover Airbnb until about 2009, but they were fairly new back then as well. So we had already formulated all our rules and how to stay at our place before we got to Airbnb, but love Airbnb because they have the systems down as well. So that’s kind of how we got started.

Delia:

Oh my God, that’s a great history and tell me before you discover Airbnb, how were you doing these short-term rentals? Like how was the distribution of the news that you’re doing short-term rentals? Where did your guests came from and all of that?

DeAnne Davidson:

Okay. Before Airbnb we did our own website. So we’d have a website to refer to and we did, believe this or not, we did little colour brochures that we passed out in the little travel companies around our state. Most of our people come from Washington. They travel you know, from Eastern Washington or you know, a couple hour drive to come to the beautiful beach clam dig, horseback ride, to do fun stuff. So we found that was a good way. Then online, we got the people that travelled to Washington from other states coming to us. So summertime we get the travellers from all over the United States and in the fall, winter and spring we get the locals.

Delia:

I see, I see. So when you first discovered Airbnb and started to use their platform, did your revenue significantly increase with that?

DeAnne Davidson:

Well, I would say it did help, in the beginning, it did help to give us another avenue to get people from, but it helped us more I guess in the later years, more as we stayed on and became you know, the good hosts that we are and now known. So in the beginning, it was a little different because we had already had established our website and everything, but I like a Airbnb because they do screen and they do verify owners and I do like the way that they do the reviews. You know each one can honestly review and that just makes me more comfortable when people come and stay.

Delia:

Since you were one of the first people I guess who got to use Airbnb since you were already doing short-term rentals before, have you tried using other platforms similar, for example, VRBO? And what was your experience with them?

DeAnne Davidson:

I did use VRBO and in the beginning VRBO was very good. My experience with them over the years is they got too big and they didn’t have a lot of things in place like Airbnb. So I chose to not do VRBO anymore. I also do a website with a local Oregon and Washington. It’s just beach houses, it’s called Beachcombers NW and we do get people that directly want to come to the beaches in Washington and Oregon, through that website as well.

Delia:

Okay, that’s good to know. So let’s fast forward to the present and I’ll like to ask you, in the area you’re hosting, how is the seasonality like?

DeAnne Davidson:

The high season is summer, of course, because we have the perfect 75 to 80 degree days in the summer and we get a lot of travellers from out of state coming to see our beautiful Northwest. But we do have a strong winter season because people love to watch the storms come in. We have front row seats to the winter storms and they’re fun to watch, but you’re cosy in our comfy home while you watch them. So a lot of couples like to get away for a little romantic getaway. So we do have a strong, we call it offseason that’s pretty steady, at least on weekends in the wintertime as well. Fall is a wonderful mid season time because the weather is kind of moderate, it’s 65 degrees and lots of clam digging happening. So we’re pretty much busy all year long with guests, they’re just different types of guests during the seasons.

Delia:

Okay, that’s good. And in all this, like, throughout the year, what is your average occupancy rate like?

DeAnne Davidson:

Okay, we’re 100% in the summer months, we’re 100% occupancy. I would say in the lower offseason months were probably maybe 60% occupancy during those times. But it’s great because we get to enjoy it and we also get to work on our houses. That’s the time to get to do, you know, maintain our homes and make sure that they’re really good for the high season.

Delia:

That’s right. Okay, so also throughout the year, what is your pricing strategy?

DeAnne Davidson:

Pricing strategy? Well, we’ve got our prices pretty well set, I have noticed the demand has increased. So we’ve kind of elevated our prices somewhat, but I kind of watched the competition to make sure, you know, we’re kind of in the ballpark, we’re not the highest, we’re not the lowest, but we we want to have the best product out there. Most of our clients right now been 15 years, our repeat guests. So I have developed a little club called the “Whale Tail Club” that our repeat guests join that means they’re good guests that have always left our home in good condition and they get little perks from us, you know, they get a little discount or they get a little surprise when they come. So they get to book way ahead, you know, the public. So I’ve offered these repeat longtime loyal guests, some benefits to stay with us. So we do keep full with that and then we fill in with some new guests in between.

Delia:

That’s so sweet! Can you tell me if you tried like, in the past or right now, a dynamic pricing tool or a pricing tool?

DeAnne Davidson:

You know, I have not used any of the pricing tools. I kind of just watched the market. You know, kind of do a market analysis in our area and you can always tell you know, if your phone’s ringing off the hook is probably too low. So, we’ve kind of found our niche with, you know, couples with the dogs seem to be our niche and the price point that they’re willing to pay and in the outcome is usually good that you can’t tell they’ve been a guest here, they leave our house so good. So, you know, that’s all factored in. I don’t just try to get anybody in here, we have a pretty specific clientele.

Delia:

Well, that’s good that you know about your target audience so you can get your track them and get to see how they behave. Right now that you’re doing Airbnb, how do you get to sort out your guests? You won’t like to bring anyone, that’s what you told me, so do you run a background check on them or something?

DeAnne Davidson:

What I do is, I do the auto book on Airbnb and I’ve listed the criteria that I want and they have to have a referral from a prior guest, that’s one of my criteria. We also narrowed our down when we used to sleep aid in each home, I’ve narrowed it down to four. So by having a smaller groups, we get the couples, the couples with the grandparents or the couples with two kids. We just get a smaller crowd and that’s, you know, that helps us become more effective. But if they fit all the guidelines on the auto booking, then it’s not an issue. But I do talk to them, message them before to make sure we’re a good fit before they come. You know, I want to make sure we’re a good fit. So I do have the conversation with them in the messaging format after they’ve booked, so we want to make sure. Anyway, that’s kind of what I do.

Delia:

That’s a great strategy, to be honest. After you got started on Airbnb, did you find there to be more trouble guests than before? Or you didn’t get to experience any of this yet?

DeAnne Davidson:

When I first started on Airbnb, well, I was less experienced and so we were getting random, troubled guests. But for the most part, if you utilise the platform properly, you know, it’s a trust in us and trust in the guest and if that doesn’t happen, then you’re not going to have a good guest. So that’s why I go back to the conversation after they book or when they’re asking to book if they don’t qualify for some reason. They might ask to book and then I have many questions. I don’t necessarily block someone or I don’t necessarily not book someone if they haven’t had any experience yet. But if I have the conversation and ask the appropriate questions and they fit then I will let them.

Delia:

I see and do you still get some trouble guests sometimes in the present or not?

DeAnne Davidson:

You know, I haven’t had any trouble guess probably in the last five or six years. Yeah, no bad ones from Airbnb because I’m really sticking to it and sticking to what they lay out and following their guidelines on that. And they do let me reject if I’m uncomfortable I can reject that guests and not be penalised as as a host. So it’s worked for me.

Delia:

That’s every host dream to get no trouble guests at all. Are there any tips you’d like to give out to Airbnb hosts so they can also get to know their target audience and to filter out the bad guests in Airbnb?

DeAnne Davidson:

Yes. The best for new person, brand new do hosting I would suggest starting out with just even if you can sleep more people starting out with smaller groups, don’t try to do a group of 10, you know, in your first year, until you get a feel for people because we are in the people business basically, it sure we offer nice homes and everything. But you have to understand people you have to like people to be in this business and you get a feel for when you have conversations to get a feel for the type of person that’s going to be staying in your home. I think that’s really important, when you’ve invested a lot of money in your real estate that you get good people in your home and you treat them good. So I would say that my best tip is to start with small groups, couples, couples and a child, you know, just to start with, until you get to know and till you get some good reviews on your belt and a good feel for it. Then my second tip is to always go and stay at your home, you know, every so often, for a couple nights and see what the guests are seeing because you’ll see something different than just walking through a home or looking at the pictures of your home. When you actually live it, you go “oh, yeah, that’s what the guests meant by their feedback”, you know. So that would be a second tip I’d offer.

Delia:

So that’s a really good tip to get your own Airbnb experience, right? I’ve never heard about that before, but yeah, it’s really good. In all your years doing short-term rentals and also Airbnb, what have been your top challenges? It can be anything guest related, money related, property related, you can let us know.

DeAnne Davidson:

Okay, the top challenges I would say, for any Airbnb owner or vacation home owner and for myself at times is finding good team members to help you, the cleaners, the yard workers, the home repair people. When you’re in a remote area where your resources are limited sometimes that is very, very hard. Trust me your cleaner is probably your most important asset that you have in this business. Without a clean home, your guests aren’t going to return. So that would be my top challenges for that, for owning a vacation rental that you rent out.

Delia:

Yeah, that’s good to know your experience as well. Any other tips you’d like to share for Airbnb host any particular thing you learn or anything you’d like to share?

DeAnne Davidson:

Boy, thought I covered everything. My biggest, I wouldn’t do over 30 nights, you’re getting into long-term rentals there and in Washington it’s a whole different animal you have to evict if it’s over 30 days, you have to go through formal eviction. So I wouldn’t try to get in that over 30 days on a guest. That would be one tip and I wouldn’t do one nights either. You don’t get as good of guests for one night. Pop in pop out, that’s like a motel person. We found that our sweet spot was three to four nights. Those were the perfect guests. You know, they kept the place clean, they were neat and tidy and they they got to relax those enough time to relax. So don’t try to do those long-term. I know Airbnb pushes that a lot, but I think you’re asking for more trouble when you get into that. It’s a whole different game than the travelling public.

Delia:

I see. So now that you’re telling us this one tip, have you tried short-term rentals, sorry, long-term rentals before and that’s where your knowledge come from?

DeAnne Davidson:

I have done long-term rentals and they’re a disaster, at least in Washington State because there’s so many rules. There’s so many rules that favour the tenants over the owner. So I got out of all my long-term rentals and change to short term and I love short term rentals.

Delia:

I see, I can understand about it. What were things that you hated most about the short-term rentals, long-term rentals, sorry. Did they affect your revenue significantly? You told me that you have many troubles with that with the Washington State.

DeAnne Davidson:

Yeah, Washington State law is different. It may be different in every state, I don’t know. But in Washington state law, if it’s over 30 days and they don’t leave, then you have to file court case and have an index. So they can technically stay here a year without you being able to kick them out, if it’s over 30 days. So that’s just it’s nonsense to even try to do something like that. Also, I have done like a 20 day summer stay and you do lose revenue when you do those long-terms because you can’t charge the same rate when they’re doing 20 days. We found the optimum was three, four or even a week is good and that way you keep a handle on what’s going on inside your home, if it stays clean, you can keep it up. The long-term stays, there’s a lot of hindrances with that.

Delia:

Can I get to know an average? How will be like your monthly revenue or anual your revenue?

DeAnne Davidson:

Our annual revenue, I mean, we just have two units now and like I said, we sat down on five. Two units, and each unit produces about 50 a year. So for the two units about 100,000 annual.

Delia:

So that’d be it for today and thank you for your time. Thank you for sharing all these tips and all your experience with us, it has been great!

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Interview with an Airbnb Host from Oakland, California – S2 EP8

Post author By Robyn Peña
Post date June 2, 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 Annie Sloan based in Oakland, California, who is an experienced Airbnb host, co-founder and CEO of The Host Co. In this episode, Annie will tell us more about her company and also share her experience doing short term rentals. So, without further ado, let’s get into it!

Into The Airbnb Podcast S2 EP 8:
Catching up with a Credible Airbnb Host & Business Owner (Oakland, CA)

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

Delia:

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

Annie Sloan:

Yes, I can. So I am one of the super OG Airbnb users. And even prior to Airbnb, I used Craigslist to rent out my apartment in San Francisco. I have always been a very much geared towards short term rental and I’ve used it from the start. I used it to travel around the world from my apartment in San Francisco.

Delia:

Oh, so you were doing short term rentals even before Airbnb?

Annie Sloan:

Yes, via Craigslist.

Delia:

Wow, that’s impressive. At what point did you get change to Airbnb?

Annie Sloan:

You know, I think that so Airbnb started in, I think 2007, right? So I started using Airbnb, I don’t even know about right away and I think maybe not many people did it because it was mostly in New York. On my Airbnb profile, I have my first date in 2009.

Delia:

I see and you told me you are currently managing over 10 listings?

Annie Sloan:

Yeah, I run a company called “The Host Co.” and what we do at The Host Co. is we make Airbnb shoppable. So we help host sell anything in their rental, or pre arrival items, like, you know, “stock my fridge”, “decorate for a birthday party”, etcetera. So I am an Airbnb host, myself, I have a number of units. My co founder, his name is Michael Hubbard, he runs times a real estate, which is a large real estate company and property management company. So he also runs quite a few Airbnb ease. But on top of that, on our Host Co. channels, including our Instagram and our blog, we have across that about 14,000 hosts in our community.

Delia:

That’s great. Can you tell us about how did you started your company with your partner?

Annie Sloan:

Yes. So as hosts, I think every host knows this. Guests are always asking for the same things, right? Where do I get food? Hey, I forgot sunblock. Do you have money? Do you have any phone chargers? Can I get a late checkout?, etc. So we decided, hey, guests are always asking for the same things. Let’s build a technical platform, that host can easily sign up on and sell all of the things that those guests are specifically asking for and do it in a way that everything is automated. So means way less work for the host and more money per booking.

Delia:

That’s good and that was great idea also. Can I ask how do you deliver the items to the guests?

Annie Sloan:

Yeah, so for our platform hosts sell anything they want to sell. So they can sell the snacks in the fridge, they can sell anything they want to sell. We make recommendations for hosts pretty much weekly items that guests often ask for, and the guests can get those items, or sorry, the host get those items sometimes off of Amazon as a general thing. And what most most hosts do is they will buy a bunch of items and they will put them in and out of the way space like a stock closet and do a stock kind of every three months. And the really cool thing is that your guest doesn’t get the location of that item until after they’ve checked out. So on their instructions, they’ll say great, those items are in the garage or those items are in the kitchen on the top shelf. So it’s a theft prevention measure as well as a way for hosts to just stock once and forget about it.

Delia:

Yeah, I understand now, that’s great. I’ll like to ask you more about your Airbnb host experience. So in the areas you’re currently hosting, which are them?

Annie Sloan:

Most of our rentals are in Southern California in the Joshua Tree, high desert areas. Some are in Northern California or Central Oregon. California as well.

Delia:

Oh, I see and in those areas, how is the seasonal living like?

Annie Sloan:

Well, the great thing is where we are in the high desert, seasonality, you know, you have some ups and downs, but we’re right by a National Park that people want to visit all year round, so that’s the great part. You know, something surprising about Joshua Tree is it does get cold in the winter, it snows, right? But it is just as beautiful in the snow as it is in spring, fall and summer. So we have a bit of a dip like most people, you know, March, April, when people are working hard, kids are in school. But then once we get back into the summer, we basically it goes all the way back around until February of the following year.

Delia:

I see. In the high season versus the lowest season, how is your average occupancy like?

Annie Sloan:

Oh, gosh, because it’s all Joshua Tree. Joshua Tree is one of those locations that is booked all the time. So I would say it’s about 65%.

Delia:

In the high seasons, or throughout the year?

Annie Sloan:

Throughout the year, I would say except for maybe March and April, although this year, I think that my specific place and Joshua Tree that I’m thinking of, I think it had three days without occupants in March. Another one of our locations, in February, had 13 bookings. And February is the shortest month, right? So some people were checking in and checking out. It’s a very hot location right now.

Delia:

Oh, I see. So it was crazy for February, I see. For the listings you manage on your own, what is your pricing strategy?

Annie Sloan:

You know, that is a very good question. I work with my property managers to often come up with that pricing strategy. I do sometimes consult, AirDNA for pricing strategy. I think they’re a really fantastic resource. Then another key strategy is just looking around at other rentals, I’ve found for our rentals and the type of rentals we have, that we’re not trying to compete by pricing, but by amenities, it’s a much better way because people are willing to pay more for a nicer place.

Delia:

How does your revenue change when you use like the different pricing levels? How did it change when you use AirDNA? How does change when you use your property management company help?

Annie Sloan:

I would say property manager is the best as particularly if they’re an experienced property manager, they know what to do, right? They know that when you’re starting out a place that you’re going to price it lower, because you want more reviews, and you want them faster. But as you grow and look at the market, particularly if they are managing other rentals in that same market, they’re gonna have a much clearer idea. I definitely would not turn to Airbnb, or any of the other platforms to set that pricing for you.

Delia:

Okay, yeah, that’s great. So in all your years being a short term rental manager, what have been your top challenges?

Annie Sloan:

Well, I would say my currently upsells. So the top challenges for me are definitely my company, because we were just trying to figure out how we could make more money via upsells. Because the rental income is great, but once your guests check in, it’s a sunk cost, right? They crank up the AC, they break the wineglasses. So by using host code stores, now we can say okay, if you want to late checkout here, it’s $50, right? So we’re able to take our time and make money off of it and that previously was our biggest challenge was we are spending a good deal of time on this place that is not directly resulting in revenue, right? All of the emails, all of the messaging, how to really minimise that and make everything much more streamlined and much more passive has been by far the biggest challenge this time.

Delia:

I see and what about your challenges as an Airbnb host?

Annie Sloan:

Kind of the same thing, is how do we do this in less time? Because when hosting, there’s so much as you I’m sure know, back and forth with guests. You know, like, oh, how do I turn this on? Oh, is this broken? No, it’s not broken. Here are the instructions. They don’t read the instructions, they call back and they say it’s still broken, right? Hey, where’s this? Where do I get food? You know, the relationship doesn’t stop when the guest checks in and that has been like, oh my gosh, this is so time consuming to answer all these questions, right? And these questions are not resulting in any sort of different payment structure. So I can, you know, I can talk to a guest six times a day throughout the entire five days day. And that’s not, you know, that’s like “I’m getting nothing out of that” would probably be the hardest thing. And just making sure that everything can get done in the allotted amount of time and that guests stay happy has been the hardest part because one interaction like one text you don’t get back to for four hours could be result in a negative review, right? So keeping guests happy has been probably the, and also keeping a smile on your face, right? The whole time has been up there in terms of challenges.

Delia:

I understand and does your company try to ease that part for your hosts?

Annie Sloan:

Yes, yeah. What we do is we just set up, it’s essentially anticipating guests needs and setting ways for them to fulfil that needs without me having to be involved at all. Here’s some really common examples. Hey, you know, we have a rental in Death Valley like, hey, I forgot sunblock and I’m in Death Valley, the nearest store is 30 miles away. If you have sunblock, even if it’s for sale, right? In that space, your guests love you. They’re like “oh, yes, thank you so much”. Phone chargers are another big one. Everyone forgets their phone charger, right? And everyone needs to buy a new one. Or another thing is like Advil and Gatorade. You know, the morning after a wedding, I’ve certainly been there and said, I would pay $50 for Advil and Gatorade and if you provide that for your guests, they are so happy. They’re literally like “hey, you saved my life in this Airbnb”.

Delia:

Oh, my! So that really results in more happy guests.

Annie Sloan:

Yeah, much, I mean, I find that and I don’t know about you, but people are gonna give you often a five star review no matter what. Unless you mess up or you don’t respond or something like that. But to differentiate it with like super glowing reviews, that’s really the goal.

Delia:

Yes, I agree completely. Any tips you’d like to share for future Airbnb hosts or people who are already running Airbnb or short term rentals?

Annie Sloan:

I think my tip, you know, on The Host Co, we do tonnes of tips almost every day about hosting. We do like Airbnb hacks and when you’re getting started, I think the biggest thing is, you know, you should expect that you’re gonna make money, more money from your equity, and not as much, you’re sure you’re gonna make cash incoming. But often you’re gonna want to put that cash right back into the property to improve it. So I would look at it as a much longer term play for wealth creation, then a cash generator.

Delia:

Yeah, I agree with that completely. Anything else you’d like to share regarding your company? Like how is your dynamic? Can you briefly explain how it works? Your story?

Annie Sloan:

Yes. So you can go to thehost.co and sign up there. That’s how it works and it is technology that is very easy to, it takes two minutes for hosts to sign up. It is free for hosts always and host consensually sell anything that they want to sell, hosts are selling everything from decorate for a birthday party before I get there, add fresh flowers, stock my pantry to in home items to things like I’m gonna leave out a Polaroid camera and sell the film, right? So there’s a lot of great ways to use it and we seek the creativity of hosts getting on board every single day, which is just thrilling. And it’s just an amazing community to be a part of, of people trying to really leave the traditional workspace and get into this. So thank you so much for your time and it was great to meet you.

Delia:

Yeah, thank you so much for your time as well. Bye bye.

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Interview with an Airbnb Host from Idaho – S2 EP7

Post author By Robyn Peña
Post date May 31, 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 Lori Newton, based in Idaho, who will share with us about her experience on Airbnb, and also give out some tips for other Airbnb hosts.

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 salary, and so on. So, without further ado, let’s get into it!

Into the Airbnb Podcast S2 EP 7:
Managing 4 listings in Idaho – 98% booked during high season!

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?

Lori Newton:

We got started on Airbnb because I always wanted a cabin in the mountains. But I had teenagers and teenagers don’t like to go on little vacations like that. So we had it and everybody would just always never wanted to go. So rather than wasting it, I told my husband let’s go ahead and put it on Airbnb and see what happens. We didn’t think anything would really happen with it, to be honest with you. And once he put it on there, the listing it just took off.

Delia:

Good to hear it was a good start then.

Lori Newton:

Yeah, it was more by accident!

Delia:

At least you started good by accident or not. So did you get started on Idaho as well?

Lori Newton:

Yeah, that’s yeah, that’s where we started was in Idaho. Yeah, it’s a little town just outside of West Yellowstone.

Delia:

Okay, I see. So in the area you’re hosting, how is the seasonality like?

Lori Newton:

So winter time, is a very popular area to go snow machining people from all over the United States go there to snow machine. And in the summer they visit because they want to see West Yellowstone National Park. So it’s busy, pretty much 12 months out of the year. There is one month they call mud season and that’s when the snow starts to melt. And it dries up a little bit during that period of time, but you still get some people that are still travelling through that still book the Airbnbs we have there.

Delia:

I see. So how is your average occupancy rate like in the high season versus the low season?

Lori Newton:

I would say in the high season summer we’re probably 98% booked if not more and in the wintertime, probably 75%.

Delia:

That’s a pretty good number.

Lori Newton:

Yeah, it is a pretty good number!

Delia:

What is your pricing strategy?

Lori Newton:

You know, my husband was the one that really came up with more the pricing strategy and he did a really good job of it. He basically looked at other Airbnbs in the area and the same size, but then he started out with a lower rate until we started to get the occupancies right and the reason his strategy for that was, he said nobody knows a year down the road what you’re originally, you know, pricing those to still keep them full and people, you know, you’re graded on your value for what you paid. So basically they would always say good values, so you we’ve never really had a problem with value because every year he creeps it up just a little bit more and then pretty soon, you do the smart pricing and then Airbnb pretty much is pricing it compared to the others in the area. So then after a couple of years, you’re right up there with everybody else.

Delia:

So do you get to use Airbnb smart pricing?

Lori Newton:

Yes we do. I know, he got us hooked up on the Airbnb smart pricing. But when he very first listed the place, no, he doesn’t do it that way. He undercuts the market pretty good to get them going.

Delia:

So your experience with the smart pricing is good. I’ve been told from other hosts that their experience with the smart pricing from Airbnb is really bad. Like they don’t like it at all.

Lori Newton:

I don’t think we’ve really much had a problem with it. I’ve never heard him complain about it or anything and they seem to still, you know, stick within that range that we’re asking. But yeah, we do utilise the smart pricing. But we’ve never had a problem and maybe that’s because there’s not a ton of Airbnbs in the area and maybe that’s why, so they can keep them a little bit high.

Delia:

I see. So have you tried using any other dynamic pricing solutions?

Lori Newton:

No, no, we haven’t.

Delia:

How did you perceive your revenue changing while using the smart pricing versus when you weren’t using it?

Lori Newton:

I wouldn’t say there’s much of a difference, to be honest with you. The only time really smart pricing never kicks in, it seems like it’s when there’s a lot of occupancy in the area and then it’ll kick in the under bid or keep under everybody else. It is just a little bit and you’re not talking a lot of money, but people will always want, even if it’s $1 less people still want to save $1, right?

Delia:

Yes, I agree. So can you tell us throughout the years, what have been your top challenges while running Airbnb?

Lori Newton:

You know, I would say cleaning services can be tough because you’ve to have a good cleaner and you have to treat your cleaners right. You can’t be cheap with them, basically, they call the shots when it comes to pricing the cleaning of it. And basically it’s what I do, I always let the cleaner bid and then I always have a little bit of wiggle room there. So like right now with gas prices going up, right? Her fees are going up too because everything’s more expensive, her cleaning supplies are more expensive, fuel to get to these places is more expensive and she just raised me not that long ago, but I’m still under the dollar amount that I charged for the cleaning fee. And that cleaning fee also includes snow removal, trash, that kind of stuff. So there’s still some wiggle room there for the pricing of cleaning. But cleaning was probably my biggest challenge and finding somebody I could trust, because I was actually making that drive almost daily and it’s about an hour and a half away from where I live. And I work a full time job and I also own other businesses. So it was consuming my time huge. And I would say that was probably my biggest thing was just finding a good reliable cleaning service that I trusted.

Delia:

I see that’s a problem that I heard from many other hosts. How did you overcome that problem? How did you get to find the person or the cleaning team you trust for your properties?

Lori Newton:

You know, that’s kind of interesting because basically, I don’t belong to that community up there. And this is a very interesting community, they don’t like outsiders. So what I did is I started joining their Facebook pages, their community Facebook pages and you know, comment on things that we stayed positive. Then pretty soon after about four or five months of being on there, I was able to just say, “hey, I’m in search of a good cleaning service that’s reliable and I can trust” and multiple people had gotten in touch with me. But with those multiple people contacting me, I knew that they were probably just starting out because I had always heard in that area that it’s hard to get a good cleaner, somebody that’s willing to take you on because everybody was full. And this guy reached out to me and said this person is moving back to the area, she’s originally from here and she’s starting a cleaning service. And I thought, you know, that would be good to have somebody that knows the area, is involved with the locals, can keep me in the loop because it’s great when she keeps me in the loop during fire season, she’ll text me and say, “hey, I’m gonna put notes on the tables that says no open fire pits, we’re in fire season”. She’s so into the community and just knows everything that’s going on, it’s so helpful. So that’s how I did it, it’s just became kind of a tried to become kind of a little part of the community and started asking questions.

Delia:

That’s good, good that you found a good one. So you told me that all of your listings are in Idaho?

Lori Newton:

Yes.

Delia:

Are they in different cities or towns?

Lori Newton:

Yes, I have. I’ve always been a landlord of full time rentals, the long-term rentals and I slowly started to convert the long-term rentals over to the short-term rentals. So one of the ones that’s in another town, it’s in a really small dinky little town, it’s the only Airbnb in town. And I got a lot of flack first from the neighbours and from City Council. But that house attracted bad people, I don’t know what it was about it. It was a nice place, but it would always attract problem people. So I just told the City Council and I said “give me six months and if you’re happy and the neighbours are happy, just give me a chance”. And so in six months, I was able to show these guys because it’s in a small farming community, but within this farming community, there’s a resort, a local resort that’s close by. But you’re also very centralised in this area, you’re an hour and a half from so many of the major attractions in Idaho. So it’s basically it’s a home base, it’s in the middle of everything. It’s also located near the Snake River, so I get a lot of fishermen. So that one does pretty good. And it also during the COVID time, that one was interesting, too, because a lot of people chose it because we put in really good internets. A lot of people chose it to work from there, while their families visited different parts in the area. But that was done pretty well too. The other one… I wanted to see how it would work out on my own property because I have seven acres right along the river and we’re very, very remote. So I told my husband, I said, “let’s just put the fifth wheel up”. It’s a two bedroom, two bath fifth wheel, it’s a good size fifth wheel. Let’s see if it’s worth building another home on our property and doing like a farm experience. So we set that up back by the water in my house. First thing my husband said is “there’s no way somebody’s going to want to rent our backyard”, but our backyard is the river, it’s a forest and it’s located in a wildlife sanctuary. That place is full all summer long, we of course take it down in the winter, but it’s full all summer long. But now that we know that that will work, we’re actually breaking off some of our property and building a new home on it just strictly for the Airbnb.

Delia:

I see. Aren’t any of those listings far enough that you need to do remote hosting? Like get to hire other people to manage for you?

Lori Newton:

No, I manage them myself now, when we start going out of state because the five year plan is to start going into other states because we also want to live in an area when we retire that is warm because Idaho is very cold. I mean, before we went down to go visit Florida last week, two weeks prior to that was 15 below zero, it’s cold here in the winter. So when we do that and go out of state, we will more than likely possibly have a manager, if not, we’ll be under contract for maintenance, pool service, all of that to make sure that everything’s being done properly and cleaned properly.

Delia:

Right. Sounds like a good plan. You told me previously about a listing that only attracted bad guests, how did you get to raise the bar for those guests? I imagined you got to get better guests than that?

Lori Newton:

Yeah, the long-term renters were the bad ones. But the Airbnb guests are awesome. They’re phenomenal. They’re normal, regular, good people that are just looking for a vacation. No, it was the long-term rentals that was causing troubles there, not the Airbnb. No, not those guests. Matter of fact, when I showed six months down the road, I did re meet with our City Council members and I said “I told you to give me six months or I asked you to give me six months, the six months is up and I’d like to know if you’ve had any complaints about the rental or if there’s any problems”. And one of the city council members said no and I drove by your place and it looks beautiful. He goes “your utilities are paid up to speed” because that was the other thing too, the people that were renting from long-term rentals, they were constantly ditching out on the utilities and everything else. He goes “your utilities are paid in advance” and then I showed him the reviews the place had. This is such a tiny little town, so to get support to the little restaurants and everybody said “oh, we ate a little Mexican restaurant every morning. We grabbed our breakfast burrito before we hired our fishing guide up in the canyon”, which is another local guy. “We came back and we ate at the little restaurant on Main Street. We enjoyed the pizza parlour” and he was just like, “wow, these people are spending money here” and I said exactly, it’s good for the community. Then the City Council member goes “how do we get others on board?”. So there you go!

Delia:

Oh, so you did to revive an entire community. That’s so good to hear.

Lori Newton:

Yeah it was a very positive thing. And the neighbours said they love it. They have no problems with any of them. They go, your guests are never even around. I’m like, they’re not here to sit and watch TV. They’re here to spend money.

Delia:

So you brought good guest there. That’s good to hear.

Lori Newton:

Yeah, the long-term rentals and I do have other long-term rentals in the area, that over the next four or five years, I will have nine just in this area. So once I finish those, the next one we’ll start looking at state.

Delia:

Sounds like a good plan! Have you got any other listings? Or you got trouble guests from Airbnb site?

Lori Newton:

Oh, yeah. There’s been a couple of those too.

Delia:

Yes, I can hear you!

Lori Newton:

Oh, okay. We’ve had a few. We had one, she was new to the platform and didn’t understand, it was the only time I ever allowed pets to stay in one of my Airbnbs. It was a brand new one, it was the one that I was telling you about that I converted from long-term to short-term. And I will not ever allow pets after that again. I had to go through that and it had brand new furniture and brand new flooring, and we had to deep clean that and that was a big one, that was bad. We did have another guest that tried to extort us. He had a good stay, he never had a problem, he never complained any problems. But about two weeks or about a week and a half after his stay just before, you know, your time’s getting up on the review point. He says if you don’t give me a full refund, I’m going to give you a one star review. So obviously he blackmails guests into giving him refunds because he threatens them with reviews. I reported him to Airbnb and they said that they don’t have any more communication with him and we didn’t. And when he put the bad review up like he threatened he would do, they removed it right away and they also compensated us for the problems that we had with him. So they were very fair.

Delia:

Glad to hear that. Glad to hear that.

Lori Newton:

That happens, right? people’s level of cleanliness compared to others is different.

Delia:

Yes, that’s right, I agree. Is there any other tips that you’d like to share for other Airbnb hosts?

Lori Newton:

Be patient and it does take a while. It’s not like you’re going to list your property out of the gate, being brand new and it’s going to take off, it takes a while for that to snowball effect. Once that snowball effect happens, it’s a good thing, then you can roll on to your next one and your next one. It’s a great thing. I hope that some communities don’t give people too much hassle, I think looking for places that are not in HOAs if you’re going to buy is a really important one, people can change those HOAs at any time on you. I think trying to stay out of HOAs and out of states that it’s a problem. But other than that I, and a good cleaner, like I told you and treat your cleaners good!

Delia:

That’s a good tip. That’s a really good tip. Before we take off anything else you’d like to share? Any experience, story, any tips?

Lori Newton:

You know, there’s some people that I have noticed on some of these Airbnb. They want to meet the guests and they want to spy on the guests with cameras and you know, or babysit in their properties. You can’t be like that you have to let it be and let people enjoy themselves. Some people want to be your friend and talk. Others don’t appear to be, you know, they’re here to experience something with their families. Others do. I mean, I find that all the time on our own property, you see people that you may not ever meet and then you see people that come up on the back deck and want to have a conversation with you when you’re sitting outside in the evening. So just make sure you feel free, you know, get a feel for your guests. Don’t be overbearing and man stop watching the doorbell cameras!

Delia:

Yeah, I agree and all of those tips. Those are really helpful. I hope they reach every Airbnb hosts out there.

Lori Newton:

Well, thank you!

Delia:

That’d be it for today. Thank you for your time as well!

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Interview with an Airbnb Host from Carlsbad, New Mexico – S2 EP9

Post author By Robyn Peña
Post date May 20, 2022

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

Let’s listen to our today’s podcast featuring our guest, Janelle Hicks, an Airbnb host who is based in Carlsbad, New Mexico. In this episode, Janelle will share her experience in managing short-term rentals in Carlsbad and Ruidoso, along with some crazy experiences she’s had with guests.

Into The Airbnb Podcast S2 EP 9:
Managing Short-term Rentals in New Mexico

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

Delia:

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

Janelle Hicks:

Sure! So we moved to Carlsbad, New Mexico for my husband’s job and I was home with a newborn baby and a two year old. And we had some extra money from the sale of our house in Arizona. So there was this little house on the gate. It was I think 40,000, it’s only 600 square feet. So I just took a look at it and thought, you know, let me turn this into Airbnb. So I did, we bought it, we fixed it up and did a little bit of like rehab on it and then listed it on Airbnb. And it’s been kind of building ever since then we started with that one and then, seemed like each year, we bought another one and then the next year, we bought two more, etc.

Delia:

Oh, so how long ago was that?

Janelle Hicks:

That was, I think 2017 when we bought our first one.

Delia:

Okay, great. So in the areas you’re hosting because you told me you were hosting in two cities, how is the seasonality like in those cities?

Janelle Hicks:

So Carlsbad to me is more of like a year round thing. It seems like there’s a little bit of a low in January and February. And then it’s otherwise, I mean, it’s a little slower in September right after school starts. But otherwise, we’re right near the National Park. So people come pretty much year round and it’s a cave, so it’s not like it’s not good certain times of the year, so people come all the time. In Ruidoso, that one is a lot more seasonal because people come specifically for the snow or they come to get away from the heat. So like Christmas is really big, February is pretty slow. Although it was pretty good this year, so it’s much more like the weekends tend to book versus the weekdays lower.

Delia:

Okay, good to hear that! And in the high season versus the low season, how is your average occupancy rate like?

Janelle Hicks:

Yeah, in the summer, basically, June to August, we’re like 100% book. In the low season, I’d say 70 or 75, maybe 6% occupancy in Ruidoso. But in Carlsbad tends to be pretty full, it’d be 75 the lowest.

Delia:

Do you run short-term rentals in all of your listings?

Janelle Hicks:

Yeah, so I’ve started occasionally taking like travel nurses, but mostly they’re all, yeah, two to three days. So occasionally, I’ll take like travel nurse for three months. But I don’t discount the rate that much just because it’s, I mean, it’ll book if I leave it on Airbnb too.

Delia:

So what would be your pricing strategy for your listings?

Janelle Hicks:

So a couple of months out, I usually have higher rates. People who book in advance, you know, they’ll get the higher pricing, but they get to choose their days versus, usually within, you know, maybe two weeks out or whatever, if I’m not full any empty nights, I reduce the rate. And I try to stay kind of right in the middle of similar listings for my area. We take really nice photos and I do really nice, you know, decor so they stand out online. But yeah, the pricing, I usually just drop it maybe the week before if I have like an empty night and if I have like single nights all by themselves, sometimes that will lower than the average rate. But in general my rates in Carlsbad, I mean, it varies because some of the houses are like a one bedroom. So like a one bedroom would go at like, you know, at $9 a night, I’d say that would be the average, plus a cleaning fee on top of that. Then the bigger houses in Carlsbad, so like a three bedroom, I list those usually like 100, well during the summer, like up to $149 a night and then add the cleaning fee on top of that. Then in Ruidoso, that’s a cabin, it’s like a six bedroom, three bathrooms. So that one I priced like, usually like $300/$400 a night, up to like $900 a night at Christmas time.

Delia:

Okay, I see. Do you get to use any pricing solution for your pricing? Or do you do margin research on your own only?

Janelle Hicks:

So I looked at pricing solutions or whatever and I used actually one for a little while, but I didn’t see a huge difference versus me just like, you know, watching and also just having done it for four years, now I have a pretty good idea of what the rates are. Also, I can tell based on how many bookings I’m getting, like, if I get too many bookings all at once, I’ll drop the price, I mean, I’ll raise the prices a little bit because I don’t want it to fill up too fast. So it’s really based on, you know, if my calendar is completely full, I know I’m too cheap, especially if it’s like two months out. So if I start getting a lot of bookings, like right now, it’s March, so if I started getting a whole bunch of July bookings, I’d start raising my rates for July because I feel like, clearly that’s in demand. So yeah, I don’t know, I just like doing it myself.

Delia:

Sounds like good strategy though! So throughout the years you have been running Airbnb, what have been your top challenges?

Janelle Hicks:

Finding cleaners was a hard thing at the beginning, but now I’ve got a pretty good team. We did at one point have to like, you know, my main cleaner, my head cleaner, decided she didn’t really want to have to manage other people anymore. So we’ve started using TurnoverBnB and that has been good to us. You know, it has more flexibility as far as like, if somebody needs to, drop a day and we can add somebody else in or whatever. So that was a challenge. Then other than that, it’s just, you know, dealing with guests that are not used to New Mexico. New Mexico, it’s kind of an interesting place like, one guest, we had a bunch of complaints one time about going head to the yard and that’s not even something I can control. They don’t like float in the air. So if they’ve been out hiking or whatever, they’ll bring it back. It’s something that it’s really hard to mitigate. And dust can be the same thing, you know, if you leave a window open in New Mexico, you will get dust inside the house for things like that. Or people who just don’t like the look of like the neighbor’s house or whatever, which again, New Mexico is, compared to some people who are used to like, Dallas or Houston or a subdivision somewhere, New Mexico is kind of unique in that way. Like there’s some architecture, not so much architecture as they just did it themselves or I don’t know, just some creative house decor and things like that out here that I don’t think you see as much in other places.

Delia:

Oh, so people just complain about other people’s houses?

Janelle Hicks:

I’ve had a couple of people, yeah, that like, they stay, I mean, one of our houses in particular is not that it’s a bad area. it’s just the house next to ours is really ugly and like poorly. I mean, I wouldn’t say poorly maintained, it’s just like, they have a poor design sense. It’s just ugly. So we’ve had guests show up and see that and be lik “oh, well, it’s a bad neighbourhood” or whatever. It’s not, it’s just people watch, like TV shows about, you know, like, the Breaking Bad TV show and stuff like that. Then they come and they see a house that got, you know, some crazy paint colours and whatever and then, they think “oh, like, this house is sketchy” and it’s really not my fault. You know, my house is fine and, you know, whatever.

Delia:

Yeah, it’s really weird that they complain about that. So now that you’ve talked about guests, have you had any major troubles or even small troubles with nightmare guests?

Janelle Hicks:

I’ve had some nightmare guests. Yeah, we’ve had let me see… We had one guest who showed up, basically dropped his kids off and then disappeared. So we showed up to clean and it was just like, some little kids in the house by themselves. So we’re calling the guest and you know, I ended up calling child services because I was like, I don’t know what to do, these children are just here. And let’s see, we’ve had guests who’ve had like, you know, drug use in the house and things like that, where we have to do a full deep clean after they leave. We’ve had guests who we’ve never had a party really just, I mean, at the cabin, we’ve had people who clearly had a party, but they cleaned up mostly after themselves. And things break and stuff like that, which doesn’t really bother me usually. The worst one for me was definitely the one where they left their kids at the house and eventually they did like, you know, come back, but it was like, what are you doing?

Delia:

Yes, that was ahardcore experience. And how did you get to deal for example with guests who use drugs in your property? Do you get to message them and tell them you’re going to charge them a little bit more because of the smell or stuff like that?

Janelle Hicks:

Yeah, so the most recent one for example, the guests had stolen somebody’s credit card booked the house snd so the person whose credit card it was, messaged me saying “hey, I didn’t make a reservation it’s not me in the house”. And so we had to call Airbnb and then we actually called the police and the police said not to go to the house, so me being me, we drove out to the house, but we didn’t knock on the door or anything, we just kind of staked it out and just watched as the police kind of banged on the door and one guy ran out the back, it was the whole thing. When the police had left or whatever so we did a file report and then when we went in, you know there was like a smell and there was like paraphernalia or whatever. So we basically placed a claim with Airbnb saying that we had to do extensive cleaning which we had to wipe down basically everything and throw away some things, fix a couple things. I mean the big thing is just cleaning because you want to be really careful about, you know, you don’t know what kind of chemicals there were, so we had professional crew coming and do a deep clean. And Airbnb, I think ultimately didn’t actually pay out the entire claim and they paid out I don’t know a good portion of it, but not not everything I felt like they should have done. But I was glad they covered anything considering it was like a stolen credit card and all that. But I mean I’d say on the whole like, I mean, I forget how many houses, but you know, out of all those we’ve had maybe three or four bad guests and other than that, it’s all been good.

Delia:

Okay, sounds good then, but those have been some great experiences for you! Would you recommend for people to start Airbnb in New Mexico not because these crazy guests’ stories, but can be in case there’s any regulation or anything?

Janelle Hicks:

Yeah, you know, my city is actually pretty lenient, Carlsbad itself, I think the rule is like if you have more than four units and that’s in a single property, so there’s like a tax, there’s a largest tax basically. That’s basically it. Then in Ruidoso, it was kind of the same thing that you get a permit and then you pay taxes. But other than that, I’d say, they’re really friendly towards that, they expect it and it works out. You know, it works out well for the city because the city gets money from it. It works well for a visit and it works well for me. I know Albuquerque, like I know up north, in different parts of New Mexico, there are different rules. I know Albuquerque and Santa Fe probably have more strict policies, but down here in south are less strict about those kinds of things.

Delia:

Okay, that’s great to hear. Are there any tips that you’d like to share to other Airbnb hosts? Can be regarding any topic, anything you’d like to share.

Janelle Hicks:

If people are interested in this area, they’re welcome to, I don’t know, get a hold of you and contact me or whatever and I’d love to talk to them.

Delia:

Anything else regarding your Airbnb host experience that you like to share? Like some tips?

Janelle Hicks:

Oh, yeah. I’d say like, the most important thing to me seems like, just be really honest, in your listing, you know, because every house has flaws in it. You know, to me, I don’t, I mean, maybe some people do, but I don’t focus on having a house that is completely perfect in every single way. Like, if I buy a house, I buy it because I can see good things about it that people will appreciate and I try to be really, like really honest, in the listing about like, you know, “there’s a wonky floor here” or “okay, the ceilings are lower in one spot” just because I don’t think people like to be surprised by that. I think they like to know what they can expect. So the key thing to me is like, you know, your house doesn’t have to be perfect to host you just want to be clear about like “okay, this is my house, this is what I what I can offer you”, you know. It might have old carpets or something, it doesn’t have to be renovated, top to bottom, every single surface brand new and that to me, also attracts the kind of guests who are like, looking for something different than like a hotel, where every room is exactly the same and exactly perfect. Like it’s a unique experience, as opposed to just a generic one.

Delia:

Yeah, I agree and also, being honest with your guests will give them no space for complaints about them.

Janelle Hicks:

Yeah. It cuts down on bad reviews because you can be like “well, it’s in the listing”.

Delia:

Yeah, right, right!. So that’d be it for today. Thank you for your time.

Janelle Hicks:

Okay, thank you!

Delia:

Thank you. Bye bye!

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Interview with an Airbnb Host from Delta, Colorado – S2 EP10

Post author By Robyn Peña
Post date May 20, 2022

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

Let’s listen to our today’s podcast featuring our guest, Molli McConnell from Delta, Colorado, who has been an Airbnb host since 2017 and is managing a very particular listing: an old (remodeled) school building that she turned into her own residence. Today, she’ll share her experience with home-sharing and how it’s like to sell a place — not only as an STR but also as an experience.

Into The Airbnb Podcast S2 EP 10:
Old School turned into an Airbnb Homeshare Listing in Delta, Colorado

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

Delia:

So can you tell us how did you get started with your first Airbnb listing?

Molli McConnell:

You know, we bought a bigger house and we just decided we had just about 2000 square foot upstairs that we never used. And it just kind of made sense that we’d been here for a couple of years. It just made sense to try to Airbnb it. So it’s a home share and it’s worked very well.

Delia:

Good to hear about it. And so far, how has been your experience with that home-sharing?

Molli McConnell:

Very good, have not had one bad experience yet and I’m thankful for that, this is our fifth year.

Delia:

That’s great. What kind of guests do that type of lifting usually attract, at least in your area?

Molli McConnell:

Most of our guests are passing through the area, we don’t get very many long-term guests. I’d say on average, they spend one to two nights, we’re in a very rural area. So we get people that are going from say Denver, Utah or to southwestern Colorado. They spend a couple of nights with us and love it and then, we send them on their way refreshed.

Delia:

So you’re the only home-sharing listing in the in your area, in your city?

Molli McConnell:

I have to think about that. I think there might be one more in Delta. Most listings around here are whole house listings, separate unit.

Delia:

Oh, and compared to them, would you say that with your listing, you’re doing a good amount of revenue by comparing to the whole houses?

Molli McConnell:

That’s a hard call Delia. I think a lot of people when they travel are looking for a whole house, we did not accept animals, so I think that could be a factor too. I do believe that what draws people to us is the history of the building itself. It’s an old school house that was built in the early 1900s. So we get older, well, actually teachers or are still teachers or people that are interested in old architecture that draws them to us.

Delia:

So you get to mention that, for example, in your Airbnb description or name, so people know what it is about and get attracted by that?

Molli McConnell:

Yes, it’s called the Columbine school house and our first picture that they see, shows a picture of the building. I think that draws a lot of people.

Delia:

Do you offer anything like an experience? Do you usually walk them through the property or tell them the story of the property?

Molli McConnell:

Yes, we do. I greet every guest when they get here and break upstairs. And as I’m showing them around their suite, I give them basically the history of the school itself. And it sat vacant for I’d say about 30 years before someone actually bought it and refurbished it and they took the roof off of the original schoolhouse and added a whole second storey, which is the guest suite.

Delia:

Oh, do you mind sharing how much did you bought it for?

Molli McConnell:

Let’s say, we bought it in 2012 for 250,000.

Delia:

Okay, now I’d like to make you some questions regarding the area you’re hosting. Is that okay?

Molli McConnell:

Sure.

Delia:

Okay, so in your area, how is the seasonality like?

Molli McConnell:

Seasonality, here in our specific area, I’d say that’s within an hour drive of where we live. High season is basically mid April, through mid November, maybe the first of November, depending on when winter actually stepped in. And then very sporadically, from mid November, through mid April, we’ll get a few guests here and there. I keep the listing up, mostly for those people that are travelling through and if there’s bad weather, or, you know, just a spur of the moment trip, they’ve got an option.

Delia:

Okay, great. And is your listing only listed on Airbnb? Or do you use other platforms?

Molli McConnell:

I do a little bit of marketing on Facebook and Google. They can find me easily on a Google search.

Delia:

And do you get good guests from those sites as well?

Molli McConnell:

Not much from Facebook, I’ve gotten a few from Google. I think word of mouth really helps a lot. And I’ll bet probably 15 to 20% of our guests are referrals from friends and other people that we know around here.

Delia:

Yeah, the word of mouth really goes well in these occasions.

Molli McConnell:

Indeed.

Delia:

So for your listing, what would be your pricing strategy?

Molli McConnell:

When I started, I basically did an Airbnb search as a guest of all the places that were within 45 minutes of our home. And I just did a spreadsheet of what amenities were offered, how many people they slept, if they allowed pets. Looked through their reviews, looked at their availability, prices, obviously. And that was how I came up with. When I started, I wanted to be on the low end of the prices. And since it come up probably in the last two years, I’ve brought my prices up, probably 30%. Seems the more I charge, the more quality guests I get, shall we say?

Delia:

Yes, I understand. It happens usually. And have you tried using any pricing solution for that?

Molli McConnell:

I have not. I follow a blog and follow a couple of Facebook pages for other hosts. And it sounds to me like, I think I hit the sweet spot by doing it the way that I did, as opposed to price labs or anything like that.

Delia:

Yes, in the rural area, I bet there’s not too much pricing research to do.

Molli McConnell:

Yeah, there’s not. You hit that on the head!

Delia:

So can you tell us, you told me you were a host since 2017, right?

Molli McConnell:

Yes.

Delia:

So as an Airbnb host, what have been your top challenges?

Molli McConnell:

I would say, especially with us being a home share, we want people to realise that we are a home share. They do not have the entire house. And it’s more my challenge, I think would be to make sure that the guests have read through the listing to make sure they know exactly what they’re walking into, as opposed to just reserving and then not hearing anything about the property. So yeah, I would say guests that don’t read through the description is probably my biggest challenge.

Delia:

Oh and you had some troubles with those guests before?

Molli McConnell:

No, we’ve had one couple that was surprised. Actually, as soon as they got out of their car and this was in our first year, they got out of the car and didn’t realise that it was a shared property. And they were okay with it, they still left us a great review and they were happy campers when they left. But it has made me change my strategy when people reserve now. One of the first responses that I have to them is to make sure that they’ve read the entire listing and that they do understand it’s a shared home.

Delia:

Yeah, that sounds like a good move from you because, I mean, if it’s not in your title, people should read the description at least.

Molli McConnell:

Yeah, I see a lot of hosts have that same frustration, shall we say, as far as guests not reading house rules or anything like that. And I’m very specific to not show that it’s not a shared kitchen, our kitchen downstairs is not for the guests use without special permission. They’ve got a kitchenette in the suite and then I’ve also got a barbecue grill out on one of the decks that they can use. And I, again reiterate that when I walk them through the suite to familiarise them.

Delia:

Okay, so you didn’t have any problem with that there? Everyone so far understood that?

Molli McConnell:

Yes.

Delia:

Okay, great then. Can I ask about your listing? You manage all about it, like cleaning, etc.?

Molli McConnell:

Yes, I do all the cleaning myself. I do have a friend that also has an Airbnb in the area. If I run into a bind, she can come in and clean for me. That’s very rare. Other than that, I manage listings and all the reservations and cleaning myself.

Delia:

Okay, so it’s not too much work?

Molli McConnell:

No, not at all. I’m retired, so that made a big difference. I retired last year and ran it for almost four years on my own while I was working full time. And yeah, I just got to the point where I didn’t want to work for the post office anymore and I just wanted to run my Airbnb.

Delia:

Oh, great. Everyone who lives with you, if you live with someone else, agrees with the home-sharing in Airbnb?

Molli McConnell:

Yes, it’s just my husband and I and he was on board when I told him that I would really like to try it. And it’s just been so successful that we’re both happy when we get guests.

Delia:

Oh, that’s good. That’s great. So lastly, any tips that you would like to share for other Airbnb hosts, especially for the ones in remote areas or doing home-sharing like you?

Molli McConnell:

I think one of the big tips that I would have is communication with the guest. So they know exactly what to expect when they get to your property. Don’t wait until they get here to communicate with them about anything that’s needed. And to always remember that we are in the hospitality industry. We’re there to make people happy and make sure they know exactly how we can help them and anything they need. We are at their disposal for their stay.

Delia:

That’s right. I agree with that as well. So that would be it for today. Thank you for your time and thank you for sharing with us your story!

Molli McConnell:

Thank you, Delia. I appreciate it.

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Podcast

Interview with an Airbnb Host from Texas & New Mexico – S2 EP11

Post author By Robyn Peña
Post date May 20, 2022

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

Let’s listen to our today’s podcast featuring our guest, Andrea Whitson, based in Central Texas, who is an experienced Airbnb host and manages five listings in Texas and New Mexico. In this episode, Andrea will tell us about her experience doing short-term rentals and remote hosting. So without further ado, let’s get into it!

Into The Airbnb Podcast S2 EP 11:
5 Successful Airbnb Rentals in Texas & New Mexico

Andrea Whitson is an experienced Airbnb host from Central Texas who manages 5 listings in Texas and New Mexico. In this episode, Andrea will tell us about her short-term rental and remote hosting experiences.

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?

Andrea Whitson:

We’ve not been doing Airbnb all that long. But in 2018, I really wanted a beach house down on the Texas coastline and I found a great deal on a house on Crystal beach. And it’s a beach that’s closest to Houston, that’s the closest major city. And my husband agreed to make the downpayment as long as I would make the monthly payments. And so I’m no dummy. I didn’t want to pay out of my own pocket for that payment. So we made it to Airbnb, and I’ve never ever had to make a payment once with my own money because it’s been so well. And since we have the beach house, we added three ski town properties in New Mexico, just so that we could have more. We could have a summer season with the beach house, we could have a winter season with a ski properties.

Delia:

Okay, so in the areas you’re hosting in Texas and New Mexico, how is the seasonality like?

Andrea Whitson:

Well, I’ll put it this way on the beach house, the bookings that we have from Memorial Day, which is mid May or end of May, through Labour Day, which is the first of September, those bookings pay for the property’s annual expenses. So that’s where we make the bulk of our money that covers all of our expenses for the year. And the same is true for the ski properties and their winter season is December to March. And again, that pays for the rest of the year’s expenses for those properties and that gives us income as well. But we always try to pay for the properties with the seasonality and then anything else is profit.

Delia:

I understand. So in the high season versus low season, how is your average occupancy rate like in both of those places?

Andrea Whitson:

Well, I don’t know much look at it that way because our ski properties we acquired in September of 2020. So we don’t have a long history, whatever say is all of our properties together and we just added another one in the urban area, right outside of Austin, is our first non-tourist location home that we added, so that’s actually the fifth house. So we average right now 67% occupancy across all properties year round.

Delia:

I see, I see. And do you remote host the ones in New Mexico?

Andrea Whitson:

Yes. And even the beach house, we do that remotely because it’s a five hour drive. So we do all of those remote and have teams in place in those tourist locations.

Delia:

Oh, so four of them are remote hosted? Okay, great. Can you tell us about your experience with remote hosting?

Andrea Whitson:

Actually, you know, we’ve done it from the beginning because we didn’t open with a house that was near us, we now have one and it’s much easier with it near you. The remote hosting though as long as you have a cleaner and a handyma. And you have a very, very good system, very good record keeping, the remote hosting is very simple. There are so many tools and resources available in terms of application to help you with your communications, to help you with your pricing, to help with all of your bookings. So the remote management to me is just part of how it is and we’ve been able to work it very well.

Delia:

Good and how did you manage to get a good team to help you in your listings?

Andrea Whitson:

A lot of it is really asking around, one thing that we just covered in and I don’t know if it’s small town, it’s probably best to visit small towns, but our properties, aside from the one in the Austin area, they’re in small towns. So almost all of these towns have a Facebook page, where residents will talk where they share information and share plumbers, painters and things like that. So we always look for that. And that gives us a great way to find someone in an emergency and also find out who other people use, a lot of times, it’s hosts, other hosts, that it could be residents as well. So we typically get our cleaners that way. Now we’ve been through a couple of cleaners in the beach house property and we just start asking around and finding out who does cleaning, and who is able to, one thing that we find really critical is that we’d be able to book them digitally. So when a booking comes in, they get noticed right away, what we don’t want to do is be having to send texts and emails and calling them to give them our schedule. But we haven’t had any problems finding cleaners. But we’ve definitely had problems maintaining the right level of cleanliness with our cleaners. And I assume, now in my Austin property, I’ve not had that issue, but it hasn’t been online all that long. We went live in December. So the cleaners, I think part of it is really trying to get the best real relationship you can get with them, get to know them personally. At Christmas, we send gifts, you know, they’re our friends, they’re our partners. And so right now our cleaner in the Coast area, they’ve really begun to partner with us and really treat it like it’s their income as well and it is literally. But still the day to day, people who are cleaning the house. That’s really where you can run into problems because if they’re have a lot of back to back bookings, they’re tired. They’re, you know, the season is, is really busy. When they stopped sailing, that’s when things get really rocky. So it’s really important on the cleaners to have someone who has a team of cleaners versus one person cleaning everything.

Delia:

Yeah, I agree with that completely. And about the areas you’re hosting, how is your average occupancy rate like in the high seasons versus the low seasons?

Andrea Whitson:

So I’m trying to think like I said, the majority, I’m in the high season, we’re probably 90%. Now what I will say is, we use Airbnb only, we do not booked through VRBO. And we’ve just had some bad experiences. So that does limit, you know, how the occupancy, you know, potentially that limits it. The other thing is in our properties, we try to make sure that there’s a reasonable amount of people in the house, we don’t try to get in every bed that you could possibly get in there to increase occupancy and the daily rate. But we are occupied enough so that we have bookings that pay for the rest of the year. I’ll say that.

Delia:

Sounds good. Sounds good. And throughout the year, what is your pricing strategy?

Andrea Whitson:

Well, we have actually just moved to dynamic pricing through price labs, so we began that in the fall of last year. So what the difference is so far, right? We don’t have a lot of history to really look at it. But what we’re finding is the occupancy is less, but the daily rate is much more. So we’re actually making more money and having less wear and tear on the house. We’re definitely getting to a point where we’ll have to decide, okay, now that we’re making the money we wanted to make and we could choose to increase the occupancy, there’s some value add things we could do to bring up the occupancy, but I will say that once we went to that dynamic pricing, it really changed the game instead of us trying to manually do that, which we had done for a couple of years.

Delia:

I understand. So will you recommend people to use like a dynamic pricing solution instead of pricing by yourself?

Andrea Whitson:

Yes. Not only is it easier, there’s just things that they’d be aware of that, depending on how many properties you have, you may not know about local events that drive high occupancy and that is all part of the dynamic pricing where there’s visibility to that, and the trends and people booking. So again, depending on how many properties you have, that gets really hard to keep up, with the dynamic pricing certainly is a much easier way to go. And the added bonus to the dynamic pricing actually is, we’re not questioning if our house is worth that much or not. We’re seeing what other people are charging, we’re seeing what the rates are and so, it’s supporting the rates. So we don’t have a skewed view then about what the house might rent for. So it’s sort of take depersonalised it, which has helped us make more money.

Delia:

Okay, good to hear about your experience with that. And can you tell us in these years being an Airbnb host, what have been your top challenges while being in Airbnb?

Andrea Whitson:

You know, the only, what I’ll say is, every unit, when we first take it online, every unit is bumpy. And I can’t tell you why, it’s not one thing, it’s several things. So for about two months, usually, we keep our prices, you know, low to get people in there and we use that as a testing ground to find out what needs to be fixed, what is not working for guests. So I would say, always anticipate, at least in our experience, that it’s going to be bumpy, the first one or two months. After that every time it smooths out and then we have almost no problem. The ongoing challenge, I’ll go back to the cleaning, I can overcome most everything else. But what I can’t overcome easily is a cleaner. I had one time where a cleaner, I don’t know if her child got sick or something, but she left the cleaning job right in the middle of it and didn’t tell anyone. So the guest shows up and the mop, you know, the bucket and all of that is out there. So, again, I’m looking more for cleaning companies at this point. But I think cleaning will still be a challenge because no one’s going to clean it. And it’s not only cleaning it, but it’s also staging it for Airbnb for the guests. So I find that very challenging.

Delia:

Oh, so right now, how are you dealing with the cleaning problem?

Andrea Whitson:

I actually take pictures of everything how I want it. And April is a good month when both of our markets are pretty good. So we try to get down to those units, you know, refresh things, I take pictures of all of the rooms, how I want them to look, I take pictures of my supply closet, how I want them to keep the supply, closet, inventory and all of that. So I’m putting systems in place that help them make it, it’s easier for them to let me know what’s going on. But I still find that they just don’t look at it with the same eyes as a host, as an owner does. So I think really that will continue to be a challenge.

Delia:

Yeah, I understand completely and I agree with that. So any tips that you would like to share for other Airbnb hosts or a future Airbnb host?

Andrea Whitson:

What I would say is, I might be a little bit different host than the norm. I turned 60 years old last year. So I’m getting to a retirement age and my personal strategy is to replace my corporate income before I retire. So within the next couple of years, I want to 100% replace my corporate income with Airbnb income, so that I can have the lifestyle I want without having to work the same amount of hours. And with that in mind, where we have bought property, we have been very strategic and that’s because we choose places we’ll want to visit during retirement. We can go to Brazil, for three months, we can go to New Mexico for three months, we can go to the beach house for three months, we can go to the Austin house for three months. So we’re very strategic and how we choose where we have our properties and we’ll end up selling our big primary house and then we’ll just travel to the places we love. But it will all be a business expense. So we’re trying to turn everything into a business expense. Then in terms of my exit strategy and I think you need to know what your strategy is. My exit strategy is to pass away and then our children will inherit all the property and they can either sell it or continue running a short-term rental business, if that’s still a thing at that point. I always tell them, that the way that I look at short-term rental, or any rental real estate really is, I stopped and I tell myself, someone, I don’t even know if buying me a house, to give to my kids. So that is the perspective that keeps me wanting to do better and knowing that it’s pretty amazing that I have homes and I’m not making payments myself. So that drives me, I’m very passionate about that.

Delia:

Oh, that’s really sweet. Thanks for sharing that with us. So that will be it for today. Thank you for your time!

Andrea Whitson:

Thank you. Thank you, Delia, I appreciate the opportunity!

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Podcast

Into the Airbnb EP 15: Managing four Airbnb listings in Albany, New York remotely

Post author By hannah mandapat
Post date March 9, 2021

Welcome to the latest episode of Into the Airbnb, where we talk to Airbnb hosts about their short term rental experience. Today’s guest is Earl from Denver, Colorado. Together with his old uni classmate as his business partner, he purchased and converted a duplex into 4 Airbnb listings all the way in Albany, New York. He tells us about how he manages the property remotely and the challenges that came with that. So far, he has made above $80,000 gross revenue on his $230,000 property.

This episode is sponsored by Airbtics, the all-in-one analytics dashboard for short-term rental investors and managers where you can find precise Airbnb data such as occupancy rates, revenue, and average daily rates of your area.

So without further ado, let’s get into it.

Summary
How did you get started with your first short-term rental property? 1:06
How has COVID-19 affected your short-term rentals? 4:33
When are your busiest seasons? 6:10
What is your occupancy rate like in the last 12 months? 8:19
What’s your revenue like? 9:15
What are your expenses? How much profit do you make? 10:39
Are you looking to expand? 15:58
How are you managing your Airbnb rentals remotely? 16:21

How did you get started with your first short-term rental property? 1:06

Jae

So my first question is, yeah, I can see that you have four listings. And are they all in the same location, same building?

Earl

They’re in the same building? Yeah.

Jae

How did you get started with your first rental?

Earl

So, this is my first and only short term rental property for now with the four listings. My first long term rental was… I got it the year prior. I had done some creative financing. Not the short term rental. The short term rents I can go into a little bit as well, but the long term rental I have is a three family also in the Albany area. I had saved up about $23,000 but the cash to close was about $38,000 I was short 15 grand. I pulled it from a credit card balance transferred from a 0% APR credit card and then, you know, deposited a check into my savings account and let it season. So when it comes time to close, you know, it showed enough cash to close for the loan to approve for the remaining 75% of the loan to value of the property. That was the first one.

When I had done that, shortly after I’d done that, some folks that I went, well, one guy I went to school with, at NYU, he was just about getting his real estate agent licence. But he ultimately wanted to do investing and real estate agent doesn’t teach you how to become an investor. So he partnered up with me and brought along another friend of his to go into this next deal. My second deal – their first – and this is what ended up being the short term rental. So the short term rental, we had acquired that last… we had acquired in November of 2018, after you know, spending a lot of 2018, trying to find the right property. We weren’t necessarily targeting short term rental initially, actually, it was a bit of an accident, we found a property that had some bonus units, and we’re like, “Oh, we could do long term rentals on the main units and short term rentals on the bonus units”.

So we started with, you know, purchasing that. So I went into that deal, actually with them, they had put up the downpayment and closing costs of about $48,000 on a 240,000- $233,000, purchase price. So they put in the down payment and closing costs for that one, but borrowing my credit, really putting it on my credit. That’s the way we went about it, just to get their foot in the door. And then, so I had used some promotional credit cards to furnish one unit, then two units, then eventually three and four units. And then we had paid that back from the profits right away so that I was all in my own pocket, you know, about three grand only from my credit cards, ultimately, which I paid back from the subsequent profits, of this unit, of the property

Jae

Your first short term rental, you mentioned that it was $230,000.

Earl

Yeah, the whole building. Yeah, it’s four units.

Jae

Oh, so it’s with the four units.

Earl

It’s all yeah, it’s technically a duplex, but it’s got the bonus basement and attic. So we were initially thinking those would be the only short term rentals. However, it worked out that, you know, we just decided to turn all four units into short term rentals.

Jae

Right. Okay. Makes sense.

Earl

Yep.

How has COVID-19 affected your short-term rentals? 4:33

Jae

And what’s your current situation with your rental? Like, among the COVID situation?

Earl

Yeah. So I was surprised, you know, in the second half of March, I had a whole wave of cancellations. You know, my phone just kept dinging, and dinging and dinging. And everything, everyone was cancelling straight through, you know, April and May. And right now, you know, it’s, I was quite surprised when I started April, it was about 5% occupancy, or something very, very low. That was the beginning. And usually you want to start the month. A good start of the month would be about 50% occupancy, and then as the month goes on, the rest of the remaining 50% gets filled up. But we started the month with 4%. And we ended the month at 95%. So that was cool.

Jae

Wow. So you’ve managed to hit like 95% across the four listings.

Earl

Yeah. And I didn’t really change anything. It was a matter of guests who stayed there. And similar to you know, your guests, they, they stay there for a week, and then they stay there for another week and another week. Anyway, had some people checked out and then other guests filled in and then you know, those guests came back later. So it’s a bit of intermittent guests, repeat guests. And yeah, it just ended up being… there was a good chunk early April for one of my units that was like, you know, over a little over a week long that was empty, but the other three units made up for it. So that’s why it came out to be 95% occupancy. That’s across the four units.

When are your busiest seasons? 6:10

Jae

Okay, that’s awesome. When are the busy seasons and when is the quietest month for your rentals?

Earl

The busiest… so I have noticed that similar to others, it is a little bit seasonal, but not quite. January is surprisingly busy. For some reason. February, is you know, normally dead and you know, so didn’t think much of it, February and March. But you know, until all the cancellations came in, you know, I thought it was just normal February and March. July and August are also very busy and actually so is May. May is always booked because it’s graduation season and there’s several colleges in the area that have graduations. So a lot of family members use Airbnb instead of hotels.

Jae

Right? So do you increase the price during the graduation season?

Earl

Yeah, I don’t do much of it. I don’t do much manual price. I don’t do any manual pricing. I use tools like Smartbnb and Beyond Pricing. Actually, Beyond Pricing is not available in Albany. So I use PriceLabs instead of Beyond Pricing. In other cities like Denver, New York City, the bigger cities have Beyond Pricing is available. But for PriceLabs, I set a minimum price, a base price and a maximum price. And with the Coronavirus and the lower demands, it’s been tending towards the minimum price, sometimes it will eat up a little bit for each unit. I actually have that only set for three of the units because the basement unit I just have smart pricing on. And surprisingly, the smart pricing has been pricing it higher than what I used to have as the minimum price. I had the basement unit for typically around $45 to $50. And I’ve been seeing people book it for $65 regularly. So it’s the Airbnb algorithms.

What is your occupancy rate like in the last 12 months? 8:19

Jae

How has been your occupancy rate like throughout the season? You’ve mentioned 95%. But how is it like in the last 12 months?

Earl

Last twelve months? Yeah. So the occupancy in the last 12 months typically hovers between 85% and 95% on average. I have not seen it dip significantly. You know, I think on a slow month, a typical slow month, and a slow month might be you know, October, November. That slow month is about 80%.

Jae

Understood. When I had a look on your…

Earl

84%, that was for last November. I believe October was slower. Oh, no, it was not. October was 94%.

Jae

Yeah, that’s awesome.

Earl

And how’s December? December’s 87%. All right. Well, I guess I don’t have a slow month.

What’s your revenue like? 9:15

Jae

What’s your revenue like? If your occupancy is 80-90%?

Earl

Yeah, yeah. So okay, I found a slow month. That was February of this year, February 2020 was 80%. There we go. And in terms of revenue, that varies a little bit, but across the four units, gross revenue is averaging about $9000- $8500 to $10,000. One month or so I might have had slightly higher. February was low. So about 80% I was getting this past February was $6747. So that’s cool. And if I look at November. That was $8407. And December was $8700. So the most I got was in June of last year. Actually that was uh, that bumped up over 10,500, it seems.

Jae

That number seems to be…

Earl

…$10,600. Yeah. For four units. Yeah. That’s pretty good for gross. So yeah, in terms of just you know, not occupancy, but rather revenues. I can see June and August is your typical, you know, seasonal bump, right? But May is actually, May and October are surprisingly a close second.

What are your expenses? How much profit do you make? 10:39

Jae

Yeah. And what’s your expense, like for the cleaning supplies and all those things. So let’s say, if you make $10,000 per month in revenue. What’s your actual profit?

Earl

Yeah. So, other models, I know they own a property… or they don’t own the property. They might rent it but since we own the property, we also have you know, PITI: principal, interest, taxes and insurance. But not including that, you know, cleaning expenses tend to be approximately $2000 a month. And utilities, electricity and gas are about $500 a month. And then water, sewer, extra $30 small stuff and supplies, approximately, you know, for all four units, this one I haven’t, you know, really calculated out, but I would guesstimate about $150 a month, maybe less.

Jae

Right. So that’s giving around $90,000 to like $100,000 profit per year? Before like tax and insurance and all those things, PITI?

Earl

Yeah. So yeah. Without the mortgage,you mean?

Jae

Right.

Earl

Yeah, I mean, with the mortgage, I would net up probably about $5000. This was pre-COVID level. So we’ll see what 2020 will turn out, but we’re expecting about $4500 in net revenue. That’s after the mortgage.

Jae

After the mortgage. So you’re actually like earning interest-free? I mean, what’s that? You’re not buying equity at all? Or are you building…?

Earl

That’s also building equity. So that’s with the, you know, principal and interest and taxes and insurance, the principal part building the equity. So, you know, if we use other strategies on top of that, we could really knock out that mortgage payment in very, very short amount of time.

Jae

Yeah. How much of the equity are you building per year for that?

Earl

So that’s, that’s dependent on… For the whole building, you mean?

Jae

I mean, yeah, for the whole building, but for the rate of the mortgage that you’re paying.

Earl

Yeah, that’s based on the amortization schedule, and here in the US, you know… I’m not sure about the UK, but we have a standard 30-year, mortgage, conventional loan, right? And that’s based on an amortization schedule, where it’s front-loaded interest. So you’re paying much of interest. So very, very, very little principle gets built up in the first, you know, seven years or so, unless we apply other strategies like velocity banking, to apply the cash flow against the mortgage and accelerate it to build up equity way, way faster and save on the interest.

Jae

So yeah, if I just assume that you’re building towards the equity around $7000-8000, roughly, a year. That means that actually your gross yield is above 25%. Considering that your property was like $235k, and you’re making $45,000. And building some equity on top of it.

Earl

Yeah, yeah, I guess that’s one way to think about it. I believe, you know, that would be the capitalization rate. Right? But, you know, we were more looking at the cash-on-cash return, meaning the partners had put in $48k, when are they expected to get paid back essentially, from the profits? And we’re estimating about three years.

Jae

About three years. Yeah, for the cash-on-cash return.

Earl

For the cash-on-cash return. Yep.

Jae

Right. How does that work with you? Your net revenue is $45,000 a year?

Earl

Approximately, yeah.

Jae

That’s your

Earl

Yeah. If that’s the net revenue, then they would be paid back in one year. Right. Is that what you’re saying?

Jae

Yeah.

Earl

And we also split it up a different way. So because they put in the money, and I did not put the money in. So I get a fraction of that. But also, let’s see. So that would actually Yeah, no, I think you’re right, that the two, three years was prior estimates for when we would be getting the money back. However, the setup costs also played a factor into the first year. That first year was basic, like, yeah, it netted $85,000… No, sorry, it grossed $85000 in the first year, that one I know from just the Airbnb’s printout, transaction report. However, there was a lot of setup costs that were used to, you know… the revenue was not the profit. So profit was probably closer to $30k.

Jae

Right, in the first year.

Earl

In the first year, so there’s that first year. And then the second year will be, you know, we’ll make up for the difference. And so we’ll have all our money back. Or at least the partners will have all their money back. After the second year, hopefully. So we’re in our second year now.

Are you looking to expand? 15:58

Jae

I see. Are you running Airbnb elsewhere?

Earl

Nope, not yet. Not yet, have not gone to expand that yet.

Jae

Right. Are you planning to expand it into like other areas? Or that area?

Earl

Probably not in that area? You know, but I’m not sure yet. We haven’t really like… especially with, you know, with a little bit of downturn here. A couple months ago, we were looking to expand a little bit, but those plans have changed.

How are you managing your Airbnb rentals remotely? 16:21

Jae

Right? Is your partner living near there? Who is managing the Airbnb?

Earl

I’m managing it remotely,

Jae

Like, completely remotely?

Earl

Yeah. Yep. Completely remotely.

Jae

How many times have you visited there this year?

Earl

When’s the last time I was there? I think I was there for the holiday season. Yeah. So December, late December, I was there.

Jae

Right.

Earl

And the other two partners are actually living in New York City or no… One guy lives in New York City, the other guy moved back to Taiwan. But they’re more silent capital partners than anything.

Jae

Okay, what are the tough challenges about running remotely?

Earl

You got to have the systems in place. I think. Challenges involve… Okay, so I was on vacation once in Hawaii. So there was a big time difference. So time difference, I’ve gotten used to at least, with only a two-hour difference. It’s not too much. And we used to have a lot of, you know, a lot of guests, you know, one night stays, so there’d be constant turnover. So handling that was, you know, I have automated messaging with Smartbnb, and all that. So that was crucial, but some challenges still exists.

And you know, and those usually lie when guests don’t read the instructions. I have all the instructions in place, and maybe too much instructions. But sometimes they just straight up don’t read it, and maybe they don’t read it because it’s too much. I don’t know. But the point is that they get an email, I have August Home locks, they get an email as soon as they book with the codes in it and also the instructions if they wanted to use the app. Sometimes they completely miss it. Maybe it goes to spam. I’m not sure, but I do have in my Airbnb chat to confirm that they received it and most people do confirm that they receive it but the ones that don’t, then it gets a little wary.

But 48 hours prior to check in I have an automated message as well that gets sent out with all of the detailed step by step instructions. The instructions include “Hey, get that code from that email. If I can just figure out a way to get the August Home codes directly into the Airbnb chat message then that would slightly streamline some things but you know…

When I was in Hawaii, there was a sewage backup. So the basements started getting flooded with sewage.

Jae

Oh and the guests were there…

Earl

The guests were there.

Jae

How did you do?

Earl

So yeah, they reported it, I got emergency plumber to come by. My cleaner had done a lot of work cleaning that up and I believe we had also shut off the main water supply just to prevent it from getting worse. But yeah, I had a plumber, you know, commercial plumbers clean that up, but just like clean out the pipes. And then I had the guests the guest situation obviously- well not obviously- but they couldn’t stay there. I believe I had ended up, what did I do with them? Either I moved them to a unit upstairs or I had booked a hotel, you know, at my cost, at my expense for them.

Outro

Many thanks to our guest, Earl, again for sharing his story with us. If you’d like to hear more about what it’s like to host and manage Airbnb properties, make sure to follow us to be notified of the latest episodes.

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How did you get started with your first short-term rental property? 1:06

How has COVID-19 affected your short-term rentals? 4:33

When are your busiest seasons? 6:10

What is your occupancy rate like in the last 12 months? 8:19

What’s your revenue like? 9:15

What are your expenses? How much profit do you make? 10:39

Are you looking to expand? 15:58

How are you managing your Airbnb rentals remotely? 16:21

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Into The Airbnb S2 EP 3:
Long-term stays, co-hosting, and LLC on Airbnb in Roanoke, Virginia

Into The Airbnb S2 EP 4:
How it’s like to manage short-term rentals on Airbnb in South Africa

Into The Airbnb S2 EP 5:
Great Tips for Hosts from an Airbnb Ambassador

Into The Airbnb Podcast S2 EP 6:
Pioneer Airbnb Host Excelling at Short-Term Rentals for 15 years

Into The Airbnb Podcast S2 EP 8:
Catching up with a Credible Airbnb Host & Business Owner (Oakland, CA)

Into the Airbnb Podcast S2 EP 7:
Managing 4 listings in Idaho – 98% booked during high season!

Into The Airbnb Podcast S2 EP 9:
Managing Short-term Rentals in New Mexico

Into The Airbnb Podcast S2 EP 10:
Old School turned into an Airbnb Homeshare Listing in Delta, Colorado

Into The Airbnb Podcast S2 EP 11:
5 Successful Airbnb Rentals in Texas & New Mexico

Do you want to maximize your profit?