Last updated on July 16th, 2022
Welcome back to another episode of Into The Airbnb, where we talk with Airbnb hosts about their short-term rental experience.
Today’s guest is Sheila Rasak, an ex Airbnb host who decided to leave Airbnb in order to continue her career as a property manager and an Airbnb Host Consultant. Today, she’ll share with us about her experience and journey and some really useful tips on how to make the most out of your listing despite the current situation of your market.
This episode is sponsored by Airbtics, the only one analytics dashboard for short-term rental investors and managers, where you can find precise Airbnb data such as occupancy rate, revenue, average daily rate and so on. So, without further ado, let’s get into it!
Into The Airbnb S2 EP 19: Learn the secrets for a successful listing with an Airbnb Host Consultant and Property manager – CA
You can also listen to this Into The Airbnb Podcast Episode on Otter.
Delia:
So can you tell us when you were an Airbnb host, how did you get started on Airbnb or with short-term rentals?
Sheila Rasak:
Well, it’s interesting. The backstory on how I got started was in 2015, I moved from the state of California to Texas to be closer to my adult daughter. I had never heard of Airbnb before and I was trying to figure out, you know, whether I wanted to get back into real estate, on the residential sales side or management or, you know, whatever, I was looking for various opportunities. A friend of mine happened to mention Airbnb and I was actually in 2015, completely clueless. I just said, “what is that?” and she described the business to me. She said, “you know, with the layout of your condo, it sounds like you would be the, you know, it would be a perfect situation where you could bring somebody in, you know, various guests through Airbnb, you’ve got a guest suite with its own private bath” and, you know, she explained a little bit of the process. So basically, I hung up from that conversation and immediately started googling and learning everything I could about the business. I want to say, not even a week went by and I was up and running and hosting my first guest.
Delia:
Oh! And did you stay with that one particular listing throughout all your years being a host?
Sheila Rasak:
I did, I did. I had toyed around with the idea of possibly managing others. But I didn’t know whether or not I truly wanted to stay in the state of Texas. And once COVID hit, I thought, well, you know what, “I can pretty much do this anywhere, why not go back to my home state in California that I love and I’m very familiar with the geography and whatnot”. At that point in time, when COVID hit, I had worked with so many house and so I knew the ins and outs of the business even better. So I thought, “you know what, I think I’m gonna go back home”. So I absolutely made a decision, I believe it was September 3rd or 4th, I made the decision to leave Texas and by September 11th, I was on the road with a lot of my belongings placed in storage and I thought, I’m going to figure out where I want to live next on the coast of California. And so, you know, I moved in that was, oh gosh, that was September of 2020 and I’ve actually been on the road ever since. The goal for me, quite honestly, is to relocate now to the Central Coast. I love the area up there, there’s beaches, there’s vineyards, it’s so guest friendly. And I thought this would be the perfect opportunity to open up my own agency and start managing for others. So by the end of the year, I’m hoping to open up at least 10 doors and continue on with my career.
Delia:
Well, that’s a great story! And can you tell me like when COVID hit all the way in Texas where you were managing, did that make you like change your mind?
Sheila Rasak:
You know, I met the challenge with, you know, obviously a little bit of that worry of what how am I going to manage this because at a particular time, I was hosting in a home share situation and I was hosting medical students. So not only was I inviting, you know, guests in during COVID, in a situation where we really didn’t know a lot about the virus, but on top of that, I was putting myself at extreme risk with the guests that I tended to attract, which were the medical students or travelling nurses. I decided at one point, once I decided or started thinking that I wanted to leave Texas, I thought, “you know what, maybe now is the time to go ahead and reinvent myself” and it’s interesting in that because I was doing consultations for other Airbnb hosts. I pretty much applied the principles that I engaged with other hosts where I would stay. This is about reinventing yourself, we’re in a time in our lives where we are completely, you know, floored by this virus, we have to change, you know, protocols, and whatnot. And I would always ask them, you know, how do you see yourself surviving this? What are you going to do to change, to adapt to the current climate? And so I asked myself those questions and realise, okay, in order to pack everything up and whatnot and have that goal of being out of Texas by September, I knew I had to start making some changes and decisions, where I wouldn’t be able to host at that particular time. So I probably hosted my last medical intern, probably, I want to say it was June of 2020 and then that’s when I decided, “okay, I’m going to now do some hard thinking and decide how I want to go moving forward and surviving the pandemic”. That’s when little by little, you know, I just started seeing various opportunities for myself to continue being a Airbnb host, but in a different state.
Delia:
Yeah, that sounds great. It’s okay to ask yourself those kinds of questions, it’s okay to reinvent yourself, I totally agree. And do you find, I mean, you already had like experience in real estate, according to what you told me, right? Do you find the work you have right now, which is managing for property management company, easier or lighter or better than managing your own listing?
Sheila Rasak:
You know, I find it incredibly exciting to be able to offer help to rental owners and to do it right from the start, you know, instead of trial by error and learning and whatnot because throughout your time as a host, you learn this certain do’s and don’ts, what works, what doesn’t work. And I was able to bring that to the table when I started managing. I took a temporary job as I told you, for two weeks on the coast, where I managed 32 different units and pretty much, you know, realise that what I was bringing was decades of expertise in real estate. I’m a former realtor, I am a former commercial property manager and it’s all about that balance of keeping both guests and host happy when you are a property manager. I was able to do that commercially, where I was managing tenants like Barnes & Noble and Ben & Jerry’s ice cream and whatnot. So I applied those same skills to my work as a property manager for residential properties and more specifically, Airbnb short-term rentals, VRBO.
Delia:
I see. Can you tell us more about your host consultation business? Because you told me you were doing this even before you decided to leave Airbnb?
Sheila Rasak:
Yes, yes. Absolutely and more specifically, before I decided I was going to leave Texas. I was doing consultations individually and I still am with Airbnb VRBO hosts. So typically speaking, someone will book a consultation with me and they’ll want to address certain things within the body of their listing or their practices that they need fine tuning on. So they’ll come to me and they’ll schedule a consultation. I do this individually and specifically with what I perceive and what they’re perceiving as their problem areas. What I do is I do about 30 minutes prep before I engage with my client, so I get an overall good look at how they’re presenting themselves on the Airbnb platform or VRBO. Then, when we meet for a zoom consultation, we get a little deeper and we start talking about the types of guests that they host and what they perceive their problem areas are. Then also, I give them feedback on what I see not only as a marketer, but also as a consumer, when I look at their individual listing and we just take it from there. Every consultation is different, but yet with the same goals of “okay, this particular host and listing, for some reason isn’t getting the reservations that they want”, so my I dig in a little deeper and realise, “oh, here’s a problem spot, there’s a problem spot, this is why their listing might be stagnant” things like that. Then we talk about what changes they need to make on their end to boost that listing. So that listing that once had a really booked calendar, starts getting those reservations again.
Delia:
And do you think Airbnb consultation’s business is something that anyone could aspire to? Or is it more for people who already have like, a really good base, like experience on short-term rentals, Airbnb, real estate, like you?
Sheila Rasak:
You really do have to have the years of experience to you know, obviously, anyone can do this. We’re all teachable and this is a learning process that, you know, we never stop. We’re always improving. We’re always learning the right now, I mean, case in point. We survived that initial shutdown, we lost 1000s upon 1000s of dollars, we had to reinvent ourselves. I had one client who, you know, he had a seven bedroom, four bathroom property and it was it was a themed property. It was amazing. It was a very unique experience for guests, but boom, COVID hit and everything dried up. Then once we recognise that his particular city, which is Detroit, Michigan, was opening up to social distancing with groups of no more than 10. We thought, “okay, can we do some hosting of daytime events for his Airbnb?” and that way, he could still have some income coming in, even though he was not hosting overnights at that particular time. And it ended up working out really well for this particular client because we brainstormed, we recognise certain opportunities during that specific time period that allowed him to bring and generate more income that he lost in the initial shutdown.
Delia:
I understand and would you recommend for people who are having a really hard time with their listings to hire a consultant?
Sheila Rasak:
Say that again?
Delia:
Would you recommend for people who are having currently a really hard time with their listing to hire a consultant?
Sheila Rasak:
Oh, I absolutely, 100%! Because a consultant, no matter you know, if you hire me or you hire someone else, we dig deeper, we absolutely give that listing the attention that it needs and recognise certain things that your average Joe might not recognise. They’re new to the business, they thought it would be easier than what it was or they thought that all they had to do was A, B and C, but they forgot certain key aspects. An expert can go in there and say, “wait a minute, you know you’re offering this, but in your listing it says that” and so we kind of shed light on listings and help someone who’s new in the business recognise certain key points that we’ve found that are successful.
Delia:
Would you advice Airbnb hosts who are not 100% sure of staying in the industry to make themselves the same questions you ask yourself and go for the other options they have?
Sheila Rasak:
You know, quite honestly, you’re either hosting and you’re giving it your full commitment or you’re not. In the case that I just cited where we had that initial shutdown and we wanted to generate income, that was a way of being flexible and still staying in business and earning back some of those dollars that he had initially, you know, received and then lost as soon as we did the shutdowns. So you know, in terms of, you know, at this particular moment in time, once again, we’re at kind of a weird crossroads, I’m noticing a lot of hosts, whether they’re in my Facebook group or other Facebook groups, they’re talking about a reservation slump. My suggestion at that point in time is, first of all, it’s a perfect time to up your game, so to speak, where if you’ve got this just vanilla, very vanilla, very standard Airbnb listing, let’s say in a popular tourist spot, like Florida, okay, you’ve got this vanilla listing, it’s not anything spectacular. it’s a place to sleep this and that. That particular host would do well to sit and reflect on where they want to take that business. Do they want to just hopefully capture a reservation here and there? Or do they want it a viable Airbnb with constant turnovers? If the answer is they want a viable Airbnb with constant turnovers, then that particular host needs to take a good hard look at their hosting style. If it’s too plain, if it’s too vanilla, they’re not going to get those reservations, because right now, I think we’re in a time where, once again, we’re reinventing ourselves, we’re trying to improve our business models. So that when we are, you know, finding ourselves in a reservation slump, we come out of that even better because we’ve reflected on how we’ve been doing our business and why it’s faltering. You know, there’s a lot of ways to readapt and reinvent, whether it’s the initial shut down and we had to quickly determine, “hey, we can host a time of events, how do we reach that market? How do we reach that audience?” and we were able to do that for that particular client through social media. In this case, where you’re noticing you’ve got a reservation slump, you’re in a sea of very popular Airbnbs that have been established and have reached peak guests, that’s when you have to really do your research and understand that right now, I believe it’s about hosting with excellence. It’s about hosting with, you know, you’ve got a property, it’s a clean slate, get in there and find out why your guests are travelling to your particular destination. There’s a lot of factors involved in this business, a lot of nuances. Every Airbnb is not the same and so what can you do to improve your business model? I think is the key question at this particular time.
Delia:
So as an Airbnb host consultant, would you say that any market can be a good market with the right business model?
Sheila Rasak:
Pretty much, pretty much any market. Yes, absolutely. Because I’ve worked with hosts that, you know, are hosting a tree house experience all the way through to, you know, like I mentioned, a lot of themed Airbnbs. So, no matter where you are, sometimes you can make that particular listing, let’s say it’s not a popular tourist destination, you can make that particular piece of property into such an experience that you’re guests are gravitating and immediately just they’ve heard about it, they’ve read about it, they see it on social media and they say, hey, we’re going to like, a good case in point would be, there’s a really cool UFO experience in Joshua Tree. I don’t quite remember the name of that particular Airbnb, but it is a destination Airbnb, they’re not necessarily going there to enjoy Joshua Tree, they’re going there because of the actual property itself is based in a UFO and the pictures that are coming out of this particular property, show guests having an amazing time, guests are actually dressing up like aliens and, you know, people have gotten married there and whatnot. So yeah, to answer your question, that was the long version. Any Airbnb can do well depending upon, you know, all kinds of factors. It’s not just the geography that’s involved.
Delia:
So it will be more like selling a whole experience, instead of just a listing where you can just rest or like, yeah, just a resting place, it will be more like selling an experience with it.
Sheila Rasak:
Exactly. Exactly. And I can tell you, more and more people are getting on board with that, where they recognise that, you know, people want the experience as well as a place to just sleep. It’s not all business travel, some of it is the experience of going to a very unique property that has been designed with an experience in mind versus just a home to rent.
Delia:
Yeah, that’s very interesting to know. So that would be it for today and I hope we hear from you back when you’re ready with your own management company!
Sheila Rasak:
Sounds good!
Delia:
Yeah. Thank you for your time. Thank you for your tips.
Sheila Rasak:
Thank you!
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