Interview with an Airbnb Host from Cranston, Rhode Island - S2 EP12
Welcome back to another episode of Into The Airbnb, where we talk with Airbnb hosts about their short-term rental experience.
Our guest today is Jennifer Leroy, based in Cranston, Rhode Island, a super host who manages over eight listings in Providence and Prudence Island. Today, Jennifer will share with us about her hosting experience and also some 5-star tips to keep your listing at the top of the search pages.
This episode is sponsored by Airbtics, the only one analytics dashboard for short-term rental investors and managers, where you can find precise Airbnb data such as occupancy rate, revenue, average daily rate, and so on. So without further ado, let’s get into it!
Into The Airbnb S2 EP 12: SEO optimized Airbnb host from Rhode Island reveals her secrets
You can also listen to this Into The Airbnb Podcast Episode on Otter.
Delia:
So can you tell us how did you get started on Airbnb?
Jennifer LeRoy:
Well, I am a divorced single mom of three kids and basically, I got a chance to keep our rental property and my ex husband kept his office. So I was now left with a building of tenants that were off a little stressful and challenging. I ended up going on a trip to Ireland. I was looking at hotels, they were very expensive, then I looked into Airbnb and I decided to stay at a shared unit. And from there, I was surprised how simple it was to replicate. So that’s shortly after I started my first unit, after I came back from Ireland.
Delia:
And do you started with your first unit in that building you have?
Jennifer LeRoy:
Yes, that’s my first one. I had a tenant move out and I cleaned up the apartment. I found a student who was a interior design student at our design school. She came over, she did measurements, she gave me furniture and wall decor, recommendations, bedding, everything, every type of recommendation to start an Airbnb and I followed her checklist. And that’s how I furnished my Airbnb.
Delia:
Oh, great! How many years ago was that?
Jennifer LeRoy:
Three years ago. I started in 2019.
Delia:
Oh, great and over the course of the years, how do you acquire your other four listings?
Jennifer LeRoy:
The other two were occupied by tenants and as soon as I got the hang of one listing, I began to, you know, have them move out, they were transitioning to other apartments or there were some evictions and I just would flip them into another Airbnb. So my three family building is on a very original model, where I have three individual units, which are three separate apartments and my last listing, I list the entire building. Someone could rent the entire building all at once. That is my fourth listing.
Delia:
Okay, I see how it works now. Since is an apartment and there are different people renting at the same time, how do you see that? Does it works for you? Are they comfortable with that?
Jennifer LeRoy:
I have to really screen all of my Airbnb candidates well. I ask every single one for their trip purpose. I stay away from things on Airbnb. They try to have you do instant book. I stay away from instant book. I like to ask my guests questions. This weekend, I have a family of three with a small baby. They’re travelling in for the holidays, the Easter and everything else and I have another small family and I’m on another floor and I actually had an inquiry from someone else saying they would like to have a birthday gathering at my building on the third floor and I said no, because it’s not a good match for the overall atmosphere of my Airbnb and it could cause a disturbance.
Delia:
I understand that completely. Do guests ever get mad at you for making questions and stuff?
Jennifer LeRoy:
No, it’s pretty easy. They have a very limited access, when they ask respectfully to use your house and they might say, that they like how it looks or something like that. They ask respectfully and you turn them down, sometimes it’s obvious, but you’ve turned them down and and say, you know, this is not a good match and best of luck on your future searches. But this is a prop, you know, it wouldn’t work out for the property.
Delia:
Oh, it’s great that they understand! And do you usually get the same demographic of people in your listings?
Jennifer LeRoy:
I feel like I do get the same demographics. It’s to the area and it’s also to what I cater to. In my slower seasons, I tend to cater towards maybe visiting nurses, maybe contractors. They’re coming into town to work hard for a week, they’re out in the morning, at 5:30 in the morning, to work and they come home at 5:30 at night. Same with the visiting nurses, they sometimes leave at 10 o’clock at night, come back at, you know, seven in the morning. Now, I do also have shorter term guests, maybe 2,3,4 days at a time and those guests are generally alumni to the university, there are people in for interviews to something in the city of Providence where we live and it might be just people, tourists, people who want to travel on a budget and just see a place they’ve never been to. So I try to cater to the widest amount of people for the demographics.
Delia:
Okay, yeah, sounds great. Now, I’d like to ask you about the areas you’re hosting in Providence and Prudence Island, right?
Jennifer LeRoy:
Yes.
Delia:
Okay, so in those areas, how is the seasonality like?
Jennifer LeRoy:
In Providence, which is where our primary listings are, our high season is May. May provides us the opportunity to host people coming into town for five different graduations, everything in like, all of Rhode Island. They are booking for these graduations and staying at units close by. Through the summer, it’s just summer visitors for tourism, regular guests just trying to see the city. But after that my low season, it starts about just after Columbus Day, which is October and it goes right until about April 1 or around Eve Easter. Yep. The Prudence Island house is a little bit more challenging. During the summer, it is fully booked and these are very highly organised people. They come because they want to be secluded. They want to get away from everyday life and just be with their families cook on their own. It has one general store and one post office and people love the islands because it’s almost a throwback to the 1950s. There is a hunting season in October and February, but after that, it does slow down a lot. Yes. We handled that, we lower the rates down a little bit on our Prudence Island house. We lower it just enough where if someone’s somewhere else in Rhode Island and they just want to go away for the weekend, they probably would get it at almost half price or two thirds of the price, you know, just to get a little traffic into this house. The other locations though, I generally flip my demographics a little. I do cater to the travellers that are coming in town just to see the city. However, I also cater towards the visiting nurses and the contractors I was speaking of.
Delia:
Oh, okay. I see, that’s great. And how is your average occupancy rate like in the high seasons versus in the low seasons?
Jennifer LeRoy:
I always, at my highest in occupancy, it’s about 76 to 80%. I use an optimizer, it’s called. It’s just a guy that is in Shanghai, China. I pay him per listing and he optimises my listing to appear near the top of the page.
Delia:
Oh, I’ve never heard about that. Can you tell us a little bit more if it’s not too personal?
Jennifer LeRoy:
Oh, yeah, obviously! Daniel is an owner of, I want to say over 10 Airbnbs is in Shanghai and surrounding areas. And I just tell him, “hey, Daniel, I need help optimising my listing” and he will go ahead and he will act as a co-host for a very short time. He will add things like emojis and little things to catch people’s eye. I don’t exactly know what he does, but he works with the algorithm and I always end up on one of the first or second pages of Airbnb when people do searches for Providence. Yep.
Delia:
Oh, that sounds cool. It’s my first time hearing about it. I know that you can help algorithm with some specific things in your listing page. But I’ve never heard about something like this.
Jennifer LeRoy:
Yes, yes. He’s an expert with that and he’s got, I want to say many listings all over the world that he helps to optimise. He’s literally in China and I work with him on the hours, you know, on off hours. So as I am just getting up, he is winding down for bed.
Delia:
Oh and if you don’t mind sharing, how did you find about this person that does this kind of work?
Jennifer LeRoy:
Yes. I found out about Daniel through a website called Fiverr. It’s a freelance website and you can find services for practically everything. I looked on that website just to, I was trying to look for things that might help me boost my business and I ran across Daniel’s ad. At that time, I said, okay, I cautiously tried one listing and I saw the occupancy rate difference. He showed it to me and he was like, “here is your occupancy rate now” and after 30 days, he showed me my occupancy rate again and it went up by maybe 30%.
Delia:
Well, that’s a lot. Thank you for sharing that with us!
Jennifer LeRoy:
No problem!
Delia:
I bet it’s going to be very interesting because personally, it’s my first time hearing about it.
Jennifer LeRoy:
Oh, okay. I can send you links later to Daniel. He’s so easy and personable to work with. I asked him one year to add some Chinese characters into my listing to cater to more international travellers.
Delia:
Oh, great then. Now I like to go back to your listings’ question and if you don’t mind sharing, what is your pricing strategy like?
Jennifer LeRoy:
Okay, so my pricing strategy is very simple. I was trying to use websites like price labs and other types of websites to see, “hey, they may know something more than me” or I might use smart pricing through Airbnb. Sometimes I look at the recommendations through Airbnb of what they feel that I should be charging per week. I will normally, if I see the recommendation says a certain amount of money, then I will adjust it to within 5%. But I really truly feel I have to do my own homework, I have to go on as a traveller and say, “hey, I want to stay in a two bedroom or three bedroom in the Providence area and I have to check my competitor pricing”, I do this very frequently and from that, I adjust my pricing. My optimizer also will adjust pricing if I ask him to. But in my market, I know that, you know, he would not be aware of certain holidays and also certain big events like the March Madness basketball tournaments, Easter break, and the graduations I spoke of before. So I have to look and compare to my other colleagues. What price I should put down for my listing and I always go into it at least two times a week, no less than two times a week.
