Property Management Blog

[STR PODCAST WITH REBECCA TAYLOR

Summary
This video features an in-depth interview with Rebecca Taylor, Head of Short Term Rentals at Red Door Property Management, along with Mike, the broker-owner. They discuss the nuances of managing short-term versus long-term rentals, highlighting the hospitality aspect of short-term rentals. They explore key differences, including the need for faster maintenance responses and more frequent turnovers. The video also covers staging, décor, and amenities that can enhance guest experiences, such as fully stocked kitchens and child-friendly items. They also dive into the importance of tech items like smart locks and cameras for security and efficiency. The team underscores the significance of dynamic pricing and guest feedback in optimizing rental performance. The discussion touches on dealing with challenges like damages, guest parties, and emergencies. They also offer insights into market trends, emphasizing the importance of professional management to maximize ROI. The video provides valuable tips for current and prospective short-term rental investors. Introduction and Welcome [00:00:00] Chris Knight: All right. Welcome back Red Door family and friends. We are joined today for a highly anticipated video interview with our head of short term rental, Rebecca Taylor. Rebecca, how are you today? Good. [00:00:13] Rebecca Taylor: Thanks. How are you guys? [00:00:15] Chris Knight: I'm very well, Mike. Everyone knows Mike. He's the broker owner here at Red Door Property Management joins me on 90 percent of the video content that we put out. [00:00:23] Chris Knight: Mike, how are you doing? [00:00:25] Mike Taylor: Excellent. Rebecca, may I just say you look beautiful and extra thin today. You look amazing. [00:00:29] Chris Knight: All right. You're fired. You're fired. This is awesome. Everyone is always asking for more information on our short term rental management as well as insights into the short term rental Markets every investor who considers themselves an investor is looking at the short term rental side. [00:00:48] Chris Knight: What are the trends? What are we going to get into? We're going to provide as much information as we can on both of those points so if everybody's ready, we'll go ahead and jump in we'll jump into the first question and we'll see where this ride takes us Is everybody ready? Let's go. Let's do it. [00:01:03] Chris Knight: All right. All right. Here we go. Understanding Short Term vs Long Term Rentals [00:01:04] Chris Knight: The most surface level question I think we could probably ask is there any insight into the key differences between managing a short term rental and a long term rental? And let me also highlight as we get into some of these questions Some of the market information is going to be provided by myself and mike We are the market experts as everyone knows because everyone here isn't in tune with our market reports And then rebecca is going to give us some insight on the management side in what's red doors processes She's an expert in decorating providing suggestions on what needs to be provided for short term rental So that's the insight we're relying on Rebecca today. [00:01:38] Chris Knight: But we knew that this was a high demand video. So we're jumping into it here today. So what are the key differences from managing a short term rental against a long term rental, Mike, any insight, Rebecca, any insight? [00:01:51] Rebecca Taylor: I would say for me, it's completely 100 percent different and I wouldn't even compare them. [00:01:56] Rebecca Taylor: That's just my perspective of it. [00:01:59] Chris Knight: Yeah, everyone knows they are absolutely completely different beasts. The type of involvement on the long term side is heavy, right? If you want to maximize your ROI, your involvement on the long term side is so much more than any, certainly a new investor is probably going to anticipate. [00:02:16] Chris Knight: There's so much you have to educate a new investor. It's awesome when you get an experienced investor that calls in and has some experience in the industry. But compared to the short term rental side, you're absolutely right. It's completely different. It's so much more hands on. It's completely different from day one, all the way to actually generating a return. [00:02:34] Chris Knight: Mike, any other additional insight on any key differences? [00:02:37] Mike Taylor: I have tons of thoughts on this though. It's, it is a different, almost a different industry. I tell people who are thinking about getting into it is that you are now in the hospitality industry. Like we are landlord tenants here on, on the long term side. [00:02:51] Mike Taylor: But when we start talking about short term, you are in the hospitality industry. You are like a hotel and you need to think about it like that. The timeframes are completely different. Like for example, if we have, A hot water heater that's out in a long term a long term rental that is urgent, but it's not an emergency. [00:03:06] Mike Taylor: So we need to get to that very quickly. But if it takes 24 hours or 48 hours, or if it's the weekend, it's not necessarily technically an emergency. We may push that until Monday until we can get somebody out there. So we don't have to pay overtime rates. If that happens at a short term rental, that needs to happen. [00:03:21] Mike Taylor: That needs to get fixed instantaneously. If there's somebody staying there for two days. And for 24 of the 48 hours, they don't have any hot water or no air or whatever the problem is. That's not going to work. That does, those timeframes don't work. So everything is accelerated in terms of timeframes, in terms of expectations of the guests. [00:03:39] Mike Taylor: And then in addition to, there's just so much more for example, on, on long term rentals. We may do one move in a year, maybe two, if something crazy happened on a short term rental, we may have 70, 80 or 90 check ins, checkouts. So that's, you have to clean it. You have to inspect it. [00:03:59] Mike Taylor: You have to do all the things. It's like between 70 and a hundred times per year. Yeah. You have to treat [00:04:03] Rebecca Taylor: it like a move in, move out. You have to document damage. You have to document what needs fixed from just wear and tear. You have to document supplies, all those things. And it happens over, like Mike said, 60, 70 times a year. [00:04:15] Rebecca Taylor: So it's. [00:04:17] Mike Taylor: You're doing like a mini turn every three days. If something happens to get fixed, if you need to order something, it's a lot more intense. [00:04:23] Chris Knight: And we're going to double dip into a lot of information here, but it's, I would be remiss if I didn't mention that's also why the fee structure is so much different, right? [00:04:32] Chris Knight: Because all of those things require so much more manpower, so much more management in the vendor relationships, trusted, reliable vendor relationships. Yeah, that's. That's definitely surface level on what the differences are between a short term rental and a long term rental, but that is absolutely some of the biggest differences in a long term rental and a short term rental. [00:04:51] Chris Knight: And [00:04:51] Rebecca Taylor: if I could just add one more thing long term rental is a Monday through Friday, unless, like Mike said, something catastrophe happens, we don't have air or whatever. But a short term rental is a 24 hour, 7 day a week, you have to be available. It doesn't matter what you're doing, where you are. [00:05:05] Rebecca Taylor: If somebody can't get into a home, that is a disaster. Completely unacceptable. You have to be there to walk them through. Maybe the lock battery died or, maybe it's offline some things that you can't avoid on your own, but you have to be available and you have to be ready at all times. [00:05:18] Chris Knight: Yeah, exactly. I'm glad you mentioned that before we move on to question two, because that is, yeah, that's That may be the biggest difference. It's a 24 hour. You need to be available because that's going to correlate to your reviews. And everyone who's even thought about an Airbnb knows that the reviews absolutely have an impact on your overall return. [00:05:39] Chris Knight: It will make or break you. It will make or break you. Yeah. All right. Staging and Decorating Tips [00:05:42] Chris Knight: Let's jump into let's try not to spend too much time and I'll do my best not to ramble on as I sometimes do, but let's jump into staging and decorating the unit. Now, we'll try to put this in chronological order from as if we acquired the units and now we're thinking about staging and decorating it. [00:05:57] Chris Knight: What are, and I have some thoughts on this as well, and Mike, I know that you will too, but what are some quick wins in terms of staging or decor that would make a short term rental stand out against maybe someone else, another short term rental down the street? [00:06:10] Rebecca Taylor: Definitely pictures. If you look online right now, nine out of 10 Airbnbs look cheap, unfurnished, cold. [00:06:16] Rebecca Taylor: So I would say definitely pictures, knickknacks, as silly as they are like fake plants, rugs just things to really warm it up and make it like feel homey. You're definitely trying to achieve like a nicer home than what most people have so that they do feel like they're like on a vacation or they're doing something special. [00:06:31] Rebecca Taylor: They're spending all this money and maybe their home isn't, nobody's home is great. But the Airbnb needs to look 100%. It needs to look like you can Instagram it. You can take pictures. It needs to be beautiful basically. So I would say definitely decor. [00:06:43] Chris Knight: That's that's stellar. That's stellar advice. [00:06:46] Chris Knight: And I'm going to steal that on my next call. It's yeah, you want to feel like a vacation. What better explanation can you give someone for not using their grandma's couch that they inherited? That's got holes all in it. That the dog's been. Rummaging in for 20 years because you want them to feel like they're on some motivated vacation, even if they're in the Midwest here in the middle of Indianapolis. [00:07:09] Chris Knight: Yeah. Because they are. [00:07:10] Rebecca Taylor: And that's only fair to them that, they're trying, they're paying for an experience. Yes, they're paying for, housing and all that stuff, but we want to make it nice. We want to make it why people want to give you a five star review. It's got to be that wow factor. [00:07:21] Chris Knight: Yeah. So is there a downside if I were to put real plants in my short term rental? [00:07:25] Rebecca Taylor: Yes. I'm not going to water them. [00:07:28] Chris Knight: Okay. All right. All right. No, there [00:07:30] Rebecca Taylor: are, there are some people that like that. And there are some, special exceptions that have been made in the past and it was a mistake. [00:07:35] Rebecca Taylor: I feel like the recipe for a good Airbnb or short term rental is going to be consistency and what you can do. Picture online and then what they're going to see when they walk in because there's nothing more disappointing than they see this big lush, tree or whatever it is, and then they come in and there's nothing there because it has died or somebody, didn't take care of it. [00:07:51] Rebecca Taylor: And it's just like the expectation of. You can't have it all. And so to have a representation of a plant that's not real, that's okay too. [00:08:00] Chris Knight: Yeah. Yeah. This is an investment, low maintenance means lower costs. So [00:08:05] Rebecca Taylor: yeah, [00:08:06] Chris Knight: nobody's gonna, you don't want to send somebody out once a week to water your plants. [00:08:09] Rebecca Taylor: Exactly. [00:08:10] Chris Knight: So it just jumped into the next question a little bit and we probably already covered it, but here I am going to ask you, what common decor mistakes? Is there any obvious mistake you walked in? And you're like, Oh my gosh, there is, I'm not going to mention an example cause I don't want to offend anybody, but I want you to do that. [00:08:25] Chris Knight: You be the offensive one. What have you noticed that is Oh my God, that's got to go today. [00:08:30] Rebecca Taylor: Okay. I will tell you 100 percent it's your old furniture. I know. And I've done it and I've been a victim to it. When we started our first Airbnb, I was like, I want a new couch. I want a new bed. Take this, do that, put it there. [00:08:43] Rebecca Taylor: And it's an excuse to buy new things. But you really, if this is going to be an investment in a business, it can't be personal. It has to be new furniture. It has to be timely furniture. It has to be clean and unsmelly. And your couch, because it was good enough for you, doesn't necessarily make it good enough for an Airbnb. [00:09:01] Rebecca Taylor: And I think we see this in like long term, like even in real estate, it was good enough when I lived there and you put your house on the market. No, you fix it. You fix the cabinet door that's been hanging off for 20 years. All those things. You're not going to give your old ratty pillows your bedding. [00:09:15] Rebecca Taylor: That's all mismatched. Just anybody's old stuff. That's really actually old and like need to go. That's my biggest mistake. It's my biggest pet peeve. It's very [00:09:23] Chris Knight: frustrating. Your decor decision should be based on education. You've obtained that results in a higher return on your investment. That's exactly what we're trying to provide. [00:09:31] Chris Knight: Everyone who's watching this right now. So listen up. This is going to make a difference in your overall return, which hopefully that's why you're getting into the Airbnb business is because you're trying to generate one. So I would [00:09:41] Rebecca Taylor: say this, I would say it is a lot less expensive than you think. [00:09:45] Rebecca Taylor: There are certain key pieces that you should put your money into, but it's really not. Unaffordable. It's not unattainable to do a whole entire home with new stuff. [00:09:53] Chris Knight: Okay. All right. I don't want to go, I don't want to get into that yet. We'll get into price just a little bit. Cause that part I'm looking forward to. [00:10:00] Chris Knight: All right, here we go. We're gonna jump out of the staging and decoration. I think we get it. It's important to make decisions that and I think you put it beautifully that make the guests feel like they're on vacation So it can't be grandma's ratty old couch. Okay. Essential Furnishings and Amenities [00:10:14] Chris Knight: All right furnishing and amenities What are some must have furnishings for a successful short term rental? [00:10:20] Chris Knight: And what might get overlooked? And this can go from anything in the living room to, I know some big items is provide reading material, provide books, and maybe I'm stealing what your explanation here. So I'm, and I'm really good at that. Michael will tell you, but and what kind of items might need to be provided in the kitchen? [00:10:35] Chris Knight: And I'll let you take it from there. [00:10:36] Rebecca Taylor: Okay. So for me, I'm a full on Everything needs to be there kind of person so I like to cook a lot of people don't like to cook But when you are renting an Airbnb and you're renting like this larger home for a reason usually that's usually because you're going to prepare dinner Or you're having people over So I feel like the biggest mistakes people make and the key things are a full working kitchen meaning not your old kitchen Cuisinart that is all scratched up that you threw in the under the counter because that is gross. [00:11:03] Rebecca Taylor: These people are cooking. They're looking for an experience. They're looking to have fun, let go. Maybe they're there for Thanksgiving. Maybe they're there for a tournament, whatever it is, and you're going to grill out. Make sure your grill is clean. Make sure you have grilling tools. Make sure you have pots and pans and enough plates for however many people stay in your home. [00:11:20] Rebecca Taylor: In addition to that, I would say seating is incredibly important because people are there to gather, to get together. Of course your beds and stuff are important. That's give me, but for me it's are there enough places for people to sit? Are there enough places for people to get cozy? Are there some throw blankets? [00:11:35] Rebecca Taylor: Are they clean? Are they not disgusting? Are the throw pillows nice? Do you not feel like cringy when you sit down? I think those are the biggest things to make somebody feel comfortable in luxury is the word I like to use, like luxurious Oh my gosh, I'm in some of these beautiful space and I'm like, I'm having a great time. [00:11:50] Rebecca Taylor: Does that make sense? [00:11:51] Chris Knight: Yeah, absolutely. So those are some kitchen items. Is there any other item? And before we jump out of the kitchen, I'm going to ask this and then we'll go into other areas of the house. But one thing that I've seen on several Airbnb reviews is when you provide seasonings for the kitchen. [00:12:07] Rebecca Taylor: Oh, okay. Yes. So my biggest thing too, I also, if we're going to talk about those types of amenities I want everything to be fully stocked and easy so that you're not coming into the house and you're like, Oh, I have to go to the grocery store. I have to get this. I have to get that. So what we include, and I would say number one is the silliest thing that people love are snacks. [00:12:25] Rebecca Taylor: So you get out the road, you get into the house, the kids are running around, you're trying to pick rooms and there's a big bowl of Doritos and rice crispy treats and popcorn and all the things that you just like you can shove in your face, get your kids to be quiet. That we get the best out of. [00:12:39] Rebecca Taylor: Responses on that we get the best reviews on that. And then second to that, we provide coffee, laundry pods, dishwasher pods, paper towels. It's stuff that like you would think on the surface it would add up and it costs so much, but it doesn't, it really doesn't. And it affords this feeling in this Oh, like kind of relief for the guests that we hear that all the time. [00:12:58] Rebecca Taylor: Oh my gosh, it had everything you could imagine. It had all these amenities and had things that we didn't have to go to the store for coffee, creamer, sugar, splendor, all the things. And they're just. They don't get used. They don't get taken. Like people always say, Oh, someone's going to steal all my laundry detergent. [00:13:11] Rebecca Taylor: It doesn't happen. I've been doing this for three years and it's never not once been cleared out. So I think those type of amenities are so impactful. [00:13:19] Chris Knight: Okay. That's good. Oh, and I have to mention this. And I'm sure most of the people that are watching this can relate. Snacks are the key to my heart. [00:13:27] Chris Knight: If you want me to rebook your unit, one sure way you can do that is leave me a Rice Krispie Treat sitting right there on the counter. I'm guaranteed to rebook. I love that. That's great advice. All right, any other rooms any other things that, I don't know, nothing really even jumps out at me. [00:13:43] Chris Knight: Kitchen is like the one area when I'm a new owner. Yeah, that you really need to make sure. Is stock throat you mentioned throw blankets and things like that, which is probably one that's that could easily be overlooked So I love that idea, too Everything else in the rest of the house to my amateur my amateur understanding is probably pretty standard. [00:14:01] Chris Knight: Yeah. [00:14:02] Rebecca Taylor: It isn't, if you, the way I set it up is if I'm going to be laying in the bed and there's a charger sitting right there, how cool is that? Like you don't have to worry about it. So you get a lamp that has like a charger and it's a cord and yeah, somebody's going to take your cord every now and then, but what are they? [00:14:14] Rebecca Taylor: 10 cents. It's like those little type of things, or, like their shampoo and conditioner and the. The bathroom, there's some, we use like, cot swabs, q tips, all that is just sitting there. And it's yes, it's easy to overlook, but it's also so nice when it's there. A couple of little amenities that we use that are, blow people's minds, we always have children's dishes, children's cups, sippy cups, and then we have a couple of pull ups, or we have a crib, little things like that's oh man, as parents, we've all been. [00:14:39] Rebecca Taylor: At a hotel or something. And we forgot a diaper for kind of like the older, that three to five year old where maybe they just pee the bed every now and then, but you have that there and it's Oh my gosh, one, it saves your bed, saves your linens, it saves your mattress, but two, it like provides this like concierge feeling for the guests. [00:14:54] Rebecca Taylor: We get that. [00:14:55] Chris Knight: Do you find any owners that currently work with red door or otherwise that have been resistant to providing that is trying to explain is because I really want to use this content for education purposes, obviously for our own owner base. Have you found them resistant? Are they, are you, have you been able to convince them? [00:15:12] Chris Knight: Because to me, it seems like a no brainer, but I've been in this business for 20 years. Yeah. If you're traveling, you will, you want to consider the things that you often forget when you're traveling. Damn it. I left my cord at home. I'd give anything for a truck. Oh my God, there's a charger. You're in love with this place already. [00:15:27] Chris Knight: So it makes your life so much easier. Yeah, [00:15:30] Rebecca Taylor: there's a lot of people out there that are really they're more focused on the bottom line versus the experience. Yeah. And the better the experience, the more you're going to make. We've had owners that say, you leave out two dishwasher tabs, you leave out two laundry things and two trash bags. [00:15:43] Rebecca Taylor: And it's what are you saving? You're just annoying people. They're going to have to go to the grocery store. They're going to spend an extra 12 and you're making their experience difficult. You're making it work versus you walk into, let's use a hotel. That's pretty much who we're comparing ourselves to and there's a coffee maker and there's, some K cups and stuff and you can get as many as you want. [00:16:00] Rebecca Taylor: It's not like they're going to use 72 dishwasher tabs. And they're also not going to take them, but it's this feeling of abundance versus this feeling of, Oh gosh, how many paper towels do we have left? And how many paper towel rolls are in the house or toilet paper rolls? Like that's where you're, it's more of a hospitality than it is a service like long term rental. [00:16:20] Rebecca Taylor: It's a service. This is more like you're hosting somebody. I think the art of hosting is really where it comes in. How do you want to make your guests [00:16:26] Mike Taylor: feel? Yeah, I was going to, I was going to say that you feel more welcome when you have all that stuff versus you open up the thing and it's Okay I have two trash bags and two dishwasher tabs. [00:16:35] Mike Taylor: Gosh, I hope I better be real conservative about how much stuff I use. You just feel unwelcome. [00:16:40] Rebecca Taylor: And so you feel like what's it called? When people like take your money from you, what's it called? What's the matter with me? Like nickel and dime, that's the word. You don't want to do nickel and dime. [00:16:48] Rebecca Taylor: Like you're spending this money regardless of how much it is. And you don't want to feel like, okay, now I have to go spend another 50 at the grocery store. So we have Aluminum foil saran wrap, like every, like you said, spices. We include those in every home. We have a little bucket that says this and that, where there's like ketchup packets and mayonnaise and mustards and just little stuff that you. [00:17:06] Rebecca Taylor: Maybe don't, like you said, you don't realize that you want that come up. And I feel like people, you can go overboard and some of our houses, we have razors and toothbrushes and just like the disposable ones, just a couple of those we lay out. And if the people like when they need it and they use it, you'll see it in your reviews. [00:17:19] Rebecca Taylor: It's pretty cool. [00:17:20] Chris Knight: Yeah. If you can avoid a guest having to consider some of what we all have to consider in our daily hassle of our lives, changing the trash bag or, Oh my gosh, I only have one left. I better be conservative. You can eliminate those small considerations. I would imagine that has a big impact on their safety. [00:17:36] Chris Knight: And I will [00:17:36] Rebecca Taylor: say this, I will also include when you do leave those type of things, you have a much cleaner home and you have a much it's more tidy. If you have, two dishwasher tabs, they're not going to run the dishwasher if they're, maybe they're there for Thanksgiving. They're going to go get them. [00:17:48] Rebecca Taylor: But if they're not there, you're just gonna have dirty dishes or if you don't include like your, Lysol wipes or, all the cleaning supplies, then you're just not going to have a clean counter. People will tend to pick up after themselves, sweep up, but if that stuff isn't available, then they're not going to go out and, make an effort for it, which they shouldn't have to, [00:18:03] Chris Knight: yeah, we've spent a lot of time on this question, but I have to mention two other ones that I know are super important. [00:18:09] Chris Knight: I think and you'll tell me if I'm wrong is how about reading material games, other amenities like that. It's important to provide those. And does that change your I don't know your exposure on Airbnb, VRBO, any of those, right? [00:18:21] Rebecca Taylor: As I say, I don't really, Hear too much people using them. It's rare that I'll hear, Oh, the games are great, whatever, but it doesn't change your exposure because what you want to do on Airbnb or Vrbo, any of those. [00:18:34] Rebecca Taylor: outlets is you want to be able to click your amenities and the more amenities you have the higher up you'll rank. So the way we do it, games are actually shockingly expensive to be cost effective. We go to Goodwill and we get, 20 games at 1. 99, 2. 99 and you can also use them as decor too. [00:18:50] Rebecca Taylor: We do that a lot. You like, You put, put them in your shelves. It looks bright. It looks fun. And then you can say we have games. And then people sometimes use them, but mostly they don't. And I think especially with reading material. But we have, again, Goodwill go there. We have kids, so we just pull our, our children's books out. [00:19:04] Rebecca Taylor: And just, you just line some shelves up with them. You have them there. I don't know how much they get used, but they're there. [00:19:10] Chris Knight: Yeah. Yeah. Okay. All right. You know what? I do. I have to add a couple more before we move on. All right. How about a grill or a fire pit? Absolutely. These are just common questions I see. [00:19:19] Chris Knight: I can't, I wouldn't feel right if I moved on without addressing some of these other ones that I know people are gonna be curious about. Okay, so go. A grill? A fire pit? [00:19:27] Rebecca Taylor: Fire pit. Fire pit's probably gonna be more hassle than it's worth because are you providing the wood again? All that stuff? [00:19:33] Rebecca Taylor: Are they gonna have to go to the grocery store and find some wood and blah, blah, blah. If you obtain a house, like we have a house that has a fire pit because it was there when we bought it. So we do have some Adirondack chairs around there and we have, a little bit of wood there. [00:19:43] Rebecca Taylor: We don't use that as oh, hey, rent this house because of the fire pit, but outdoor seating in an outdoor grill. Absolute must. And I don't know if it's the Midwest. And we cater to, like people that come for games or family reunions or weddings. And so they do have people over and they grill out and all those things. [00:19:58] Rebecca Taylor: 100%. A must. [00:20:00] Mike Taylor: Yeah. I will say we have, we manage or managed one or two without a grill and we would get the question all the time. We would get complaints all the time that they didn't have a grill. Super disappointing. And or we didn't get the booking because they didn't have a grill. So I would say yes, must have as a grill. [00:20:15] Rebecca Taylor: And especially if they forget to see if there's a grill and they get there. Oh my gosh. [00:20:19] Mike Taylor: People just expect it. Really. People expect it. And with that, [00:20:22] Rebecca Taylor: you're going to have more than one propane tank. So know that as well. [00:20:25] Chris Knight: Yeah. Okay. Yeah. And the purpose for that, just so people understand is what for exchanging in between guests. [00:20:30] Chris Knight: Yeah, exactly. [00:20:31] Rebecca Taylor: You have an extra one. Exactly. [00:20:33] Mike Taylor: You really need three to be ideal. Cause you can't have the guests run out and then they have to exchange it. Our maintenance staff stays on top of it, but there's gotta be some wiggle room there, [00:20:41] Rebecca Taylor: yeah. You have to have the extra, imagine you, you buy 400 of meat and you're out there grilling and you have no propane. [00:20:45] Rebecca Taylor: Yeah. How mad would you be? [00:20:48] Chris Knight: Oh, no, I'd be pissed. Yeah, curious. No, that's no bueno for sure. Okay. All right. All right. Here we go We're moving on. This is going to be a big one This is going to be something a lot of people are going to be curious about What kind of budget are we expecting now? [00:21:01] Chris Knight: Look i've laid out for a three bedroom two bath just to keep this Somewhat of a concise conversation, but what kind of budget should an owner expect? They just acquired a property They've done whatever maintenance might be necessary. They've touched up paint. They've replaced floorings You But as far as furnishing from the ground up, what kind of budget are we looking for? [00:21:18] Chris Knight: Three bedroom, two bath, 1600 square foot, [00:21:20] Rebecca Taylor: 1600 square foot. You could do it anywhere between 15 and 30, depending on your market. It's not an, it's not an exact science and there's definitely times that you need to splurge and there's so many more though that you can actually save money on. If I acquired a. [00:21:35] Rebecca Taylor: Say a million dollar house, downtown Indy, same square footage. I'm going to put a little bit more money into it versus a home. You let's say you're in Carmel or Zinesville, somewhere like that, where you can probably get away with a little bit less than your budget. I think everything right now that was just. [00:21:50] Rebecca Taylor: It's so much more affordable than people think because of your Amazons, your Wayfares, your dupes, all those things. And it's I feel like all of us, when we built our first home or moved into our first home, we like, we thought, Oh, a couch was like 6, 000 and we just had this like expectation. [00:22:04] Rebecca Taylor: It's going to be so expensive. And it's really shockingly not. You can get a really nice couch for, 600. You can get rugs for 100. You can get artwork. You go to your home goods or whatever. It does take a little more work to like find the deals, but it's definitely can be done affordably. [00:22:20] Rebecca Taylor: So I would say anywhere between 15 and 30, depending on your taste in [00:22:25] Chris Knight: It's good to hear if there's anything and I appreciate you, you mentioning that there's anything that's sure to spark debate in the comment section here is that you mentioned things are affordable because all I hear is things are so much more expensive than they were the prior year. [00:22:39] Chris Knight: So here, you hear it here from Rebecca, the expert in the industry. Things are affordable. You can find the deals out there. If you know how, if you know how to look for them, if you don't know how to look for them. You can hire us. We'll put you in contact with somebody who does know how to look for those deals and can set you up the way that you should be moving right along. [00:22:59] Chris Knight: What kind of, now we talked about furnishings and stuff. Tech Essentials for Short Term Rentals [00:23:01] Chris Knight: What we didn't really cover yet is what kind of tech items. And I know this is huge for me. And I know this is big for Mike too. What kind of tech items We have a couple requirements that Red Door must have in order for us to manage your property. [00:23:14] Chris Knight: Whether it be because they're the least glitchy, but primarily so that the service we're providing is streamlined so that when there's when a guest has trouble getting access to the front door, our team needs to know exactly what kind of lock is there, what type of troubleshooting issues. Because we can't be searching online for troubleshooting issues when someone's outside the door at 9 30 at night trying to get access because you have a different brand. [00:23:37] Chris Knight: So that would be the reasons we have requirements for some of the things when I have conversations with owners. But what kind of tech items would you suggest? What type of tech items would you insist on having in your Airbnb? [00:23:51] Rebecca Taylor: I will, I'll touch on this lightly because I know this is Mike's hot button, but I will say, I know as an owner, I get it's frustrating when let's say you have a nest or a ring camera or whatever your brand is and we use something else I can see the frustration, but it is imperative. [00:24:06] Rebecca Taylor: Like I have to be able to pick up my phone. Open my app and unlock your door. And it just is, this is the cost of doing business. I know we say that a lot, but we just have to have that access to your camera right away or to your garage door. And so I think that for me would be the consistency across. [00:24:22] Rebecca Taylor: And then of course, blazing fast wifi. I'll turn it over to Mike because this is his baby. [00:24:27] Mike Taylor: Yeah. And I guess this is maybe a little bit of a two part question of if red door is managing it and, or if you're managing it yourself just to, echo. Rebecca's point that if we are managing it for you, it's about having a consistent product for us and for having our team to be able to quickly resolve any problems. [00:24:46] Mike Taylor: And if we have to like, Oh, I got to remember so and so's Google password to get in there to do that. Unfortunately, it just doesn't work for us. So we need to have. Systems that are easy for us to use to allow us to manage the guest more effectively. But in general, you have to have a super easy to use front door lock. [00:25:03] Mike Taylor: That's probably number one. You cannot have people struggling to get into the home with your front door. It needs to be super easy to use, super reliable, worst case scenario, you could pull it up on your phone and unlock it, at the drop of a hat. We use the Schlegg on code for that. [00:25:17] Mike Taylor: That's the brand that we use. We found that to be the easiest, the least sort of glitchy. And our software supports it and you can pull up, it has an app. So overall, that's been a really good product for us. camera. We're not [00:25:31] Chris Knight: even being paid for that, by the way. No, no [00:25:34] Mike Taylor: link. No, nothing. [00:25:35] Chris Knight: Yes. Maybe we should have our team reach out to slide before we should put that out there. [00:25:39] Chris Knight: But sorry to interrupt. That is not a paid at. [00:25:43] Mike Taylor: We should. The other thing is cameras. And if you're managing it yourself, of course you can use whatever the brand that we use is Arlo. It's a good combination of value and good product again, easy to use software, all of that really matters quite a bit. [00:25:56] Mike Taylor: I would say at the very minimum, you need one, depending on how big your home is and the location of your home, but you need to have very one at the front door. One at the back door. If you have a big house or a big driveway, definitely you want us to be able to see the driveway, see how many cars are parked in your driveway. [00:26:11] Mike Taylor: So have good visibility. You don't need to see absolutely everything, but at least front door and back door. We also do Arlo doorbells, which adds another camera base, basically what it is just another kind of less expensive camera up for the front like Rebecca said, the fastest internet that you could possibly get is what you need, you can get gigabit. [00:26:31] Mike Taylor: We also use we use a noise prevention monitor, which actually the newest version is really slick. It monitors the noise at the Airbnb. So it sits in there. It looks like a little smoke detector. But it measures the decibels coming from the house. So if somebody's having to get together, You're going to get an alert or we're going to get an alert once it exceeds whatever the decibel level is that you set. [00:26:54] Mike Taylor: The newest one also tracks how many cell phones are in the area and on your Wi Fi. And it also has a smoke detector in it as well and a vape detector. So if somebody is smoking in your home you will get notified of that, in real time instead of, after they after they check out. [00:27:10] Mike Taylor: Be clear on that [00:27:11] Rebecca Taylor: one though. Let me just go back to that one. There's absolutely no recording. There's absolutely no way to hear what's going on in there. So we get that a lot from guests if they see it, they read down to the details and it's you're going to record me. There's Absolutely no cameras in the house, anywhere that looks into the house. [00:27:25] Rebecca Taylor: There's no recording of it. It's just simply decibels. If it ratchets up, then they can have a music playing it. We don't even know what it is. It'll just tell us, Hey, there's some loud noise going on. So there's no breach of security there. That's no breach of privacy on that. [00:27:37] Chris Knight: And which I would imagine would then spark the the attention of anyone who's able to pull up those cameras. [00:27:44] Chris Knight: Okay. We've got a high decibel level. What's the next course of action? Let's pull up the cameras. Let's see what's going on. Are there 20 cars out front? If so, then you escalated to the next level. We'll get into a red doors processes, but I at least wanted to highlight that's the advantage, right? [00:27:57] Chris Knight: It's not. It's not just that you're alerted. Oh I guess there's loud stuff, but what happens because you're alerted? So yeah, mike any others you want to finish up on just [00:28:06] Mike Taylor: two quick ones, a smart thermostat which allows you to control the the thermostat from afar you would be Shocked at how many people can't figure out how to work a thermostat, even though they're very easy. [00:28:20] Mike Taylor: But sometimes you can take a call and they say, Oh, it's 70 degrees in here. You can just change it from, they had it on heat. You put it on cool and boom you're done. So you can solve a lot of problems by being able to do that. But do not [00:28:29] Rebecca Taylor: lock your thermostat. Do not lock your thermostat. That is so [00:28:33] Mike Taylor: annoying. [00:28:33] Mike Taylor: Yeah. [00:28:34] Rebecca Taylor: We have owners who say I only want it to be go, be able to go between 70 and 72 during the summer and 68 and 70 during the winter. We are not there to babysit them. They are there to enjoy the home. We don't lock thermostats. [00:28:47] Mike Taylor: That's in the same lines with the the two dishwasher pods, the same feeling, right? [00:28:50] Mike Taylor: You just feel frustrated that you can't have it at 68. If you want it at 68. Lastly for me is a sound simple, but a a wireless garage door keypad, just another point of entry. Again, that you want to do everything you can to avoid a guest being locked out for whatever reason, a power failure or whatever. [00:29:07] Mike Taylor: So it's just another point of entry. So a wireless wireless keypad for the garage door. [00:29:13] Rebecca Taylor: Which I would add to that if you don't mind, Chris, because it's the exact opposite of tech, but you absolutely didn't have physical keys on property that the guest access last night. Yes, this happened last night to me. [00:29:24] Rebecca Taylor: I got a call about seven 30. Hey the key lock's not working. So I go on my app. It says it's offline. I can direct her to, our. Our little boxes that we have, we put them on the AC, that's where we put them as our company, and they can say, hey, go to the side of the house. It's not ideal, clearly, but they got in within three minutes versus sending a locksmith or trying to figure out the Wi Fi. [00:29:44] Rebecca Taylor: So you. Anti tech protect your tech with actual physical keys on property. [00:29:48] Chris Knight: Yep, man So much valuable information in this little segment that to us. It's like it's On repeat because it's things that we know are important but there's these and the investors out there even Experienced investors have no idea about the items that we've just quickly run through so it's So valuable. [00:30:07] Chris Knight: And just to go back to your thermostat, we're at travel tournaments all the time, so we're staying in a hotel or even an Airbnb, but when we're at the hotel I'm always cranking down the AC. I want to snuggle in my comforter. I can't imagine if that son of a gun was locked and I couldn't adjust that thing down overnight. [00:30:25] Chris Knight: Oh, I would freak. I would freak. [00:30:26] Rebecca Taylor: That's the, some of the owner arguments we've had Oh, they want it at 65. Like we had an owner that was. On her phone turning it back up [00:30:34] So they would turn it to [00:30:35] Rebecca Taylor: 65 and she would turn it to 70 And it just created this drama and the guests were calling us saying like the ac is not working And so now we're trying to send out an ac tech. [00:30:45] Rebecca Taylor: We reach out to the owner Say hey, we need to send an ac tech and she goes. Oh, no, it's me. I'm the one turning it back up It's like [00:30:50] Chris Knight: Yeah, and it's important for the owners to understand that we're managing so it's our reputation that's on the line as well When they interject like that and start adjusting things, especially when we're not even aware of it. [00:31:02] Chris Knight: So yeah, a big no don't do that. Mr. And Mrs. Owner. All all right. That's look, we've covered the furnishing and amenities. There's probably a couple additional ones. If you're watching this and you have a great idea, I would love to hear about it. Throw it down in the comments. I would love to know more. [00:31:18] Chris Knight: I would love to research a new tech products. So let us know. And and we're going to move on. All right. Marketing, So we'll just lightly touch based on some of these. Mike, I know you'll probably have some insight into this at least. All right. Is there anything special that we do to handle any off season for short term rentals? [00:31:36] Chris Knight: So we all know the winter time could be somewhat considered the off season. Is there anything that can be done, should be done in order to keep some cash flow coming in during those off seasons? [00:31:46] Rebecca Taylor: Yeah. I would say that we definitely see a dip, but it's not dramatic. Okay. That I noticed that is, it's not as much as in the summer and stuff, but we are in the Midwest, so we do get tons of family reunions. [00:31:57] Rebecca Taylor: We get tons of weddings. We get lots of opportunities to host people outside of, quote unquote vacation season. So with that being said, I would say that, we do. Maybe silly, but we offer like Christmas trees and if somebody asks like, oh, can I put up Christmas decorations? [00:32:11] Rebecca Taylor: Sure, no problem like we let them use the home a little bit more as like a Home versus, like I just as a place to stay for the weekend So little stuff like that I can say on my end that we do Mike probably has a lot more on the marketing end I know that we do lower the prices a little bit as well [00:32:26] Mike Taylor: Yeah, so we use, and maybe this is a follow up question, but we do use dynamic pricing, which does account for seasonality. [00:32:32] Mike Taylor: But I think maybe above and beyond that, it is being open to different different stays, different timeframes, different scenarios. That's, yeah, so like we, we were way more creative, I think, in the wintertime with our stays. And a little bit more flexible with guests and requests and insurance companies. [00:32:57] Mike Taylor: And you get all sorts of weird stuff that comes at you. And so if that's July and somebody wants to stay, for four days and they're asking for a 20 percent discount, absolutely not. There's no discounts in the July, in July. If it's oh hey, I'm going to stay for two months and I might need to stay a little bit longer because whatever I had a house fire. [00:33:14] Mike Taylor: I'm going to give them a better deal and work with them and be more flexible. One. Maybe they need whatever Christmas tree delivered or whatever it is, just being more receptive and more creative with the reservations. As the peak season dies out, you need to be [00:33:28] Rebecca Taylor: like, for example, are, we'd say are hard and fast rules, no parties, no events, but it's really not, it's really not hard and fast. [00:33:35] Rebecca Taylor: So I have somebody that's coming. They're actually going to stay a week over Thanksgiving, which is a longer stay for like the winter time. And they're going to host Thanksgiving at the home. And the reason they're renting the home is because they don't have enough room at like their grandma's house or whatever. [00:33:48] Rebecca Taylor: Ideally, no parties, no events, but hey, they're having 20 people over for shirky. And then, five people are staying the night at the house. We're going to make the exception. We're going to let that happen. Bridal showers or, stuff like that, that we would typically not allow, when it's slower and You're looking for some income and you bet the people out and that they have five star reviews and it's pretty reasonable ask. [00:34:05] Rebecca Taylor: It's fine that's no problem. You can have 20 people over for a couple hours and then everybody goes home. So like Mike said, being creative and bending a little bit. [00:34:12] Chris Knight: Awesome. Okay. A lot of good information there too. And yes, Mike, this is exactly where I was hoping dynamic pricing would come up. [00:34:18] Chris Knight: I figured that's our best strategy. So let's elaborate a little bit further than that. Also, it'll make a sweet title. We cut this into shorts. Let's talk about dynamic pricing for a second. What exactly, what is dynamic pricing? Go ahead. [00:34:31] Mike Taylor: So dynamic pricing is, It is an algorithm. It is a third party software that we use and it connects and talks directly with Airbnb and what it does is, it takes a look at the supply and the demand. [00:34:46] Mike Taylor: It takes a look if there's any events in the area. It takes a look at what other people are getting. It takes a look at the vacancy rates. And it takes, I don't know how many data points it takes to look at, but it takes a look at hotel data to see what they're getting, what their vacancy rates are. [00:35:00] Mike Taylor: There's, it's super, super sophisticated and dynamic. And it, then it also takes a look at your historic stuff. What's your what is your booking rate? How far is this out? It takes a look at so many different factors, but basically what it does is it, then it takes it, puts it into the algorithm and adjusts pricing on literally, I don't know how often it is, at least a daily basis, if not more often than that. [00:35:24] Mike Taylor: For example, if, we have Taylor Swift coming up, that's a big event for us in Indy here that's coming up in, I think, November. Yeah, so it will look at that and it will say, okay, hey, there's other Airbnbs are getting booked up. The prices are going through the roof and it's going to, it's going to dynamically adjust for that. [00:35:39] Mike Taylor: And without having to do too much, it's going to stay on top of all of that. And it allows you to get the most out of your Airbnb if there's something special, or also what it will do is it will say, Hey, you know what this is last minute. And it's a Tuesday. I'm going to provide a discount if somebody is going to book it for me on a Tuesday for the next day, because the odds that we're going to book this up are shrinking. [00:36:00] Mike Taylor: And so we're going to offer a discount now. So again, it just dynamically looks at those prices and tries to maximize the the occupancy based on a pricing fact. [00:36:09] Rebecca Taylor: And I would add to that to like Taylor Swift. It's a pretty big thing. Everybody knows she's coming, but things that like, we don't really pay attention to that. [00:36:16] Rebecca Taylor: You're maybe not interested in a car show or comic con or the fish and boating show or whatever those are like maybe we don't know about them, but the dynamic pricing does. And so all of a sudden you'll see like this spike and you're like, Oh, what's going on? I wonder why. And you're getting the 400 a night when typically you'd get 200. [00:36:31] Rebecca Taylor: Oh, it's the boat and travel show or something that you didn't even know it was going on. So that it really protects you on that. And which is, I can just add this in is why we don't also allow people to book six, eight, 10 months out because you'll miss those types of things. And that's why we keep it a shorter leash. [00:36:45] Rebecca Taylor: And so that, we had a property that just let anybody book. And so dynamic pricing didn't pick up that in a year it's going to be the Indianapolis 500 and you can get 600 a night. And so she rented it for 150 a night. So it's the stuff like that, that they can pick up and make sure that it doesn't, you get the best. [00:37:02] Chris Knight: That's huge. That's huge. And so you mentioned Taylor Swift. Sounds like y'all got tickets to go to Taylor Swift. I wish, [00:37:08] Rebecca Taylor: please. [00:37:09] Chris Knight: I heard, yes. Yeah, Mike, it's November 13th at 8 a. m. is when we gotta be there. [00:37:16] Rebecca Taylor: Nice. I will say we have a house downtown Indy that that Typically gets good rates, but it's getting I believe almost 2, 000 a night for Taylor Swift. [00:37:23] Rebecca Taylor: So it's [00:37:24] Chris Knight: a real thing. Yeah, that is insane Wow, that's crazy. All right. Awesome. Handling Discount Requests [00:37:28] Chris Knight: Awesome advice there I think we glossed over a potential hack for maybe the guest So tell me a little bit about how often we have people reach out and request A discount and does that work? Do, how often do we have that happen? [00:37:43] Chris Knight: And how much success do people have when they request discounts? [00:37:49] Rebecca Taylor: So a lot happens all the time. I would say probably conservatively about 40 to 50 percent of the time. Yeah. They'll say you're booking [00:37:58] Chris Knight: an Airbnb and you're not requesting this on the front end, you might be missing out on an opportunity. [00:38:03] Chris Knight: Sorry. I [00:38:05] Rebecca Taylor: know. And it's a. It's a touchy subject. It's because, at the end of the day, what you need is good reviews. That's just what you need to make it better. And so you start off your relationship with a no and I'm not going to work with you. It gets tricky. Like Mike said, we're pretty hard on, May through August. [00:38:20] Rebecca Taylor: No, we're not doing discounts. We don't need to. A lot of the times I'll get asked about a military discount. Me personally, I do like to give a military discount. People I don't do that across the board for other owners, I will ask their, opinion on it. But you get a lot of people just asking to ask, Hey, we're a 4 H club. [00:38:36] Rebecca Taylor: Can we get a discount? We're, whatever. Oh, this is a lot more than I wanted to spend. So can I get a discount? So you do see that quite a bit and it's basically depending on how you ask, are you nice? Is it a good reason? Is it a busy time of year? All those things. And that's what we do. [00:38:50] Rebecca Taylor: That's why you have to be ready. Basically, 24 7 to answer the calls. Answer. The first person to answer back is going to get booking. So you've got to make that decision. You've got to have your teammates that, we don't need, we have other team members. It's what if they have to wait four hours to get a response from the owner? [00:39:05] Rebecca Taylor: So we need to be able to make those calls, get them booked. And if it costs you 10%, 10%. [00:39:10] Chris Knight: I love it. I love it. That's that sounds great. I made several notes here. I'm expecting to get at least 10 percent off my next. All right. Got it. Sweet. That was great. That was primarily for me. No one else sees that. [00:39:23] Chris Knight: All right. We've covered this many times. I'm sure we're going to cover it again, because it's such a massive impact on your ROI. So just a quick question here. Importance of Guest Feedback [00:39:31] Chris Knight: What role does guest feedback play in marketing a short term rental? And I think we've mentioned several already, but any additional items you can elaborate on how you can improve guest feedback responsiveness, right? [00:39:44] Rebecca Taylor: Everything to me, guest feedback is everything to me. I want to know from if they don't like the smell of the, whatever, the air fresheners. I think that anything that somebody is going to provide you is something to think about. Now, there are a lot of Karen's out there. There are a lot of people that are just complain to complain. [00:40:00] Rebecca Taylor: They want money or whatever, but there's so much gold in that feedback. Like something that you didn't think about Oh, you know what? I didn't think that. orange, somebody could be allergic to this and maybe I'll take that out or I'll move this or that rug does need to be replaced. [00:40:13] Rebecca Taylor: I've walked over it 17 times. I've not really looked down at it, but there is a stain there. Any of those things you want somebody to tell you and then tell them, thank you for telling you that. And you'll get even better response. You'll get even better reviews because you're willing to listen. [00:40:27] Chris Knight: Love that. [00:40:28] Chris Knight: Yeah, because [00:40:28] Rebecca Taylor: you're taking critical feedback and it's hard. It's hard. It's, like my personal ones. I'm like, Hey, like it's everything's perfect. I do this for a living when it's not always perfect or the cleaner missed something or, just like to take ownership of it and say, Hey, thank you for letting me know. [00:40:41] Rebecca Taylor: I'll get that taken care of. It just happened last week. Really nice customer guests staying at a home. She was there for a longer time and she was just mentioned like, Oh, do you mind if I just wash this rug? And it was like, Oh, of course. No, actually, you know what I did? I instacarted a new rug and she wrote back, she gave us the most glorious five star review and she said, it just changed her day. [00:40:59] Rebecca Taylor: And it was like, Hey, we're willing to take responsibility. We're willing to take ownership on the things that we manage. [00:41:04] Chris Knight: That's awesome. And you instacarted it over there. As we go through this, there are so many tips and tricks to learn. And then, if you're an owner or investor rather, and you don't have the time to educate yourself on all these nuances, that go into an Airbnb, which kind of also are in tune to the, my original question, what separates a long term rental from a short term rental, then that's, having a management company that is this knowledgeable pays for that 20%. [00:41:29] Chris Knight: Just being able to be responsive and know, and already, Have an idea of what a guest's experience is going to require and it sounds like you have a great handle on that all right, let's move on here. Let's get into some performance in challenges So just a couple questions here just because I feel like you might have a story and if not, it's fine we can move on so Is there any specific success story? Success Stories in Staging [00:41:53] Chris Knight: Because I know that you've staged or participated in staging a lot of the Airbnbs that we manage. Is there any one in particular that you might want to share a success story when staging or providing the tech recommendations that led to a significant boost in the rental performance? I think you mentioned one downtown. [00:42:09] Chris Knight: Maybe that might be one. [00:42:10] Rebecca Taylor: Yeah, that's it. The one on Fletcher. [00:42:12] Chris Knight: Yeah. [00:42:12] Rebecca Taylor: We had a home on Fletcher that we took over and it was, that lived in a house and they moved out and left all their stuff there and turned it into an Airbnb. It was a hot mess. We talked to them, we worked out a budget. [00:42:23] Rebecca Taylor: They were definitely on a low budget and this was about a year and a half ago. So it might've come up a little bit, but I think we ended up spending about 2, 000 and we, Completely turn this house around. It got more bookings. 2, 000. That was it. That was it. It was it was a rug. It was a new couch. [00:42:43] Rebecca Taylor: It was white bedding versus all the different, leftover bedding that you have. You just turn everything white. It all of a sudden it elevates it. It makes it feel cleaner, crisper. It was just like little couple new throw pillows. And we turned that house around a couple thousand bucks and it really made a difference. [00:42:58] Reb