The Short Term Rental Authority Podcast The Short Term Rental Authority

STRA Episode 20: What we Did Right and Wrong in 2022 in our Short-Term Rental Business [00:00:00]
[00:00:05] Hey everyone. Welcome back to the podcast. We are John and Wendy Williams here with the short-term Rental Authority, your authority on all things short-term rental related to help make you the best operator ever. And since this is a new year. We thought that we would take us some time and reflect on last year some things that we did well, some things that we may need to improve on, and what our goals are going to be in the new year.
[00:00:39] And so Happy New Year. Happy New Year. Happy New Year. Yeah. Happy 2023. 2023. You know what's funny? As I used to every year, when the year changed, I would think to myself, okay, I gotta remember to write 2023 on my checks. On your checks. You don't write checks, but I don't write checks anymore. I don't even think I have any.
[00:00:58] Yeah, if I do, they don't even have my right address on them anymore, but I write checks. Some of our places only take checks. That's right. We do write some rent checks. Some rent checks. , they're still old school in that regard. Right. So I did have to remember to write 2023. Okay. Well, you had to remember.
[00:01:18] Yes, I did. I had to remember. So anyway, last year, it's a new year. 2022. What did it look like? What did 20, well, one big thing that we did was we got some new units, well, we doubled up on units. Yeah. Yep. We expanded quite a bit, so we decided to expand and we actually did it in a wholly, totally different market.
[00:01:45] Yeah. So instead of a Charlotte that's, ended up being in Greensboro, which is about an hour and a half away from us. Yeah. It's about an hour and a half north of Charlotte. Yeah. Yeah. So it, it's not like it's a, it's a hop, skip and a jump , like it is over to Charlotte. Right. [00:02:00] Yeah. You have to plan to go there.
[00:02:01] Yeah. These, these units are, I mean, it takes some time to get there. Right. So we had to be sure that we had. Infrastructure in place. There are boots on the ground so that we weren't the ones driving an hour and a half up there. Right, right. And that that took some time. It, so it did take some time. Success was, hey, they will give us as many as this, this is an apartment building.
[00:02:23] they're basically like, Hey, take as many as you want. Right. And we were actively looking for, and we were for units. So we're, and that's one thing that we already knew, was you're always looking for more units and you're always looking for more money. . Right. Right. Th those to those things are, are always happening.
[00:02:41] Yes. So you, you ended up finding this building through another operator actually. Yeah. Right. Who was already in that building. Right. And they were looking for, we were looking for two bedroom units, cuz that's who our client is. They were looking for one bedroom unit. So that worked out well cause we weren't stepping on each other's toes as far as what was available.
[00:02:58] So that was a win. And that was a good thing. It was, it was good that we did that. Where we went wrong was that second half you said we were looking for the units. We weren't fully funded Right. For everything. Right. And we, we ended up picking up five of them, but I think we signed leases for like eight.
[00:03:17] Yes. Seven or eight. Yes, that's true. And realized that oh yeah. We're not gonna have enough money to get all of these units. We're not gonna, we're not gonna be able to furnish all these. Yeah. And so we, we got, we kind of backed out of a few of 'em and ended up with just the five. But even then, that was a big mistake we made.
[00:03:35] Yep. In 2022 was we. , I wanna say two of those. Two or three? No. Was it just two or three that were kind of sitting for a while? Two. It was just two. It was just two. Yeah. Yeah. And they sat there for a while and the, and the catch 22 we were in was, well, we had to pay rent on them, but we had no fu

Episode 19: Pricing Your Short Term Rental 101 and John is Officially a Lord [00:00:00]
[00:00:05] Hey everyone. Welcome back to the podcast. I am Wendy Williams, along with my husband, John Williams , the man, the myth, the legend. I am now a Lord. Oh, that's right. So I got an early Christmas present . Because it came in the mail and you can't hide it. Right, right. In a big envelope. It came in a big, giant envelope and you're the one in charge of getting the mail.
[00:00:28] Yeah. So I, I watch a lot of YouTube videos and I feel like I should be plugging this and I should have an affiliate link, but I don't . Right, right. I don't . But when you went to established titles and I now have a certificate, Proclaiming me as a Lord. I'm not calling you Lord. I'm just not. I am, I can now officially change my credit cards to Lord John Williams.
[00:00:55] Oh my God. I hope you do that. Yes, that would be so, yeah. So if you don't know, it's you can, you can buy these, they're called souvenir titles, but you actually have. souvenir rights to, oh, whatever that means, a one by one plot of land in Scotland. , right? . And you get the deed to it. And then because you're now a landowner in Scotland, you are a Lord.
[00:01:20] You are technically a Lord. So you now can refer to me as Lord. No. No. Well, not John Williams. But well you, that means you get to be a lady. Oh, well now, now that changes things. We can be like Lord and Lady, that changes everything. Yes, . It does. So you're gonna call me Lord, my my Lord, . Aha. Only if you call me my lady, my lady
[00:01:45] All right, my lady. I feel like you should be kissing my hand when you do that, my lady. Well, I'm the Lord . Oh Lord. Well, I believe that I have created a monster. Yeah, but it [00:02:00] was one of those fun novelty gifts. That's cool. I'll put it right over top of my diploma. . I'm no longer John Williams. Oh. Graduate of Appalachian State University.
[00:02:12] I am now Lord John Williams. Landowner in Scotland. , right? Oh wow. So . But anyway, there you go. There you go. So today on the podcast, the Short Term Rental Authority Podcast, we are here to help make you the best operator ever. So let's get down to the real business. This is pricing 1 0 1. This is the very basics of pricing.
[00:02:46] So we are going to be talking about the pricing tool that we use, which we have mentioned before. What type of pricing we use, the numbers that you need to know and why you need to know them. So let's get started, shall we? This is something that we get asked a lot about by just about everybody because.
[00:03:11] Pricing, I feel like is one of the hardest things to do in the short term rental space. Don't you think? It is. It's, it's one of the, the harder things because there, it's, it's not an exact science. Yeah. A lot of it, sometimes it's, it's a little bit of an art to it. Mm-hmm. and then there are different strategies.
[00:03:30] Right. that go along with, well, how do I price? Right, right. And how do I, well, let's talk about the basic strategy. So that's, that's where we should start, is just the basics. We should, yeah. And I, I think that really starts with knowing your numbers. Okay. And when I say knowing your numbers, we talked about this before, but bear's repeating.
[00:03:52] You need to know what is your baseline? Like, what does a night cost you? We call that your break even. [00:04:00] That's what we call that. Well, it's not in quotes. It really is your breakeven . Well, I'm, I'm saying that's what we call it. Well, that's what you call it in business, I think break even is your, but yeah, it's your breakeven number, right?
[00:04:10] Yeah. But it's your breakeven number and it's basically, if no one stayed there, if you had this house, you had this apartment, you had this, whatever, you got your, yeah. Treat helps. What does, what does that thing cost? on a monthly basis to just have and operate, then that could be either whether yo

STRA Episode 18: How to Manage the Holidays With Your Short-Term Rental [00:00:00]
[00:00:05] Hey everyone. Welcome back to the podcast. We are John and Wendy Williams with the Short-Term Rental Authority, your authority on all things short-term rental related to help make you the best operator. Ever. And it's the holiday season.
[00:00:22] The holiday season. Mm-hmm. , I dunno, the lyrics after that. . . Why do you think I'm wearing this fancy hat? , right? So if you're listening on audio again Last time Wendy had her beautiful Christmas ugly llama sweater on, who You call it ugly. Well, they're they're called that, aren't they like ugly Christmas sweaters?
[00:00:43] You have on your ugly Christmas sweater this year? I do. It's, it's, so if you're listed the audio, you'll have to come to the YouTube channel and see the. Wonderful Christmas sweatshirt actually that I have on. It's doth Bader. It says your lack of cheer is disturbing. I find your lack of cheer. I find your lack of cheer disturbing.
[00:01:03] Yes. So it's fabulous. Yes. And then if I put my hat up like this and then pull it down. . You look like a g Nome. I look like a gnome, a Nome for some reason. Wendy's into Nome. I really, they're everywhere. Oh, really? There's all these Christmas noms here. I'm a, I'm a big fan. Our Christmas tree topper is, is a Nome as well.
[00:01:23] Well, no kidding. Everything's a freaking Nome down here. , but, okay. Either way. And they have names. I would, I'd like to tell you that , she's named. Oh, but that aside it's a holiday. Fun. This is our holiday holiday. The holiday episode. Holiday episode. So we are going to be talking about the, oh my god, there's a cat in a box.
[00:01:44] Okay. Yes. We also are wrapping presents. . Right. The boxes. And there's boxes. So every time a box gets delivered, a cat gets in the new box. Right. And on the wrapping paper. Yes. It's ridiculous. It's a zoo around here. Yes. So we're going to be talking. The holiday [00:02:00] season in your short-term rental. So we're going to be talking about the questions that we usually get asked around this time of year, such as should I put up decorations in my unit?
[00:02:14] Is there special pricing that I should do availability. How to make it so that guests can't check out on a holiday, for example Christmas Day. Because you don't want your cleaners to have to work on Christmas Day, right? Since we always clean on checkouts and those are the typical questions that we usually get asked this time of year.
[00:02:39] So let's start with. Hmm. What should we start with? Let's start with decorations. Got it. So, yeah. So there's, in the past, and actually this question comes not only from operators, but it comes from guests too. Yes. Mm-hmm. , because sometimes they will ask, Hey, we've had that. Either do you have a Christmas tree up, for example?
[00:03:05] Mm-hmm. . Mm-hmm. Or can we put one up? Can, can we decorate ourselves? Yes. Can we decorate ourselves? Mm-hmm. . Yep. And typically just as a general baseline, we don't decorate correct our places for the holidays, right? Because not everybody celebrates. Christmas. Right, right. Not everybody celebrates that holiday.
[00:03:23] Correct. So there's, there's that. So we don't, we don't decorate, but we will allow people to decorate if, if they would like to, as long as they take it down and they, if they're using a, a live Christmas tree, then. They have to use a stand . Well, they have, that's cleanup, right? Yes. Yeah. So there's a little more to it there, but we do often have, especially in the the houses that we have, a lot of times it's either right, someone coming to visit family, right.
[00:03:52] Or what, and having their celebration at the home, right? Yeah. They'll actually do it there because maybe they live in a smaller space, like a one bedroom apartment or [00:04:00] something. Right. And they want to have family, and so, house them there and then actually go there for

STRA Episode 17:  How to Deal With Slow Season [00:00:00]
[00:00:05] Hey everyone. Welcome back to the podcast. We are John n Wendy Williams with the Short-term Rental Authority, your authority on all things short-term rental related to help make you the best operator ever. And today we are going to be talking about how to deal with slow season. Yeah.
[00:00:27] I wanna feel like a a, the majority of us are probably dealing with slow season right now. Being the time of year it is. And being in the northern hemisphere, right? Yes. But his chili, hence the Christmas sweater. Yes. Which is hilarious, by the way. So if you're listening to this on the audio and you wanna see Wendy's, well, Christmas sweater, go check it out on YouTube.
[00:00:48] It's over there and you can see it. See it in, all of it's, it's fabulous. So, , there's that. . But yeah, so slow season. How do we deal with slow season? How do we deal with slow season? Well, so I think it would be important to talk about maybe what is slow season and. , if you are just getting started, how do you know when your slow season is?
[00:01:18] Right? So in this business it's rare that, well, it just never happens. You're not gonna make the same amount every month. It's not like long-term rentals. It's much more like a seasonal type business. And we say seasonal, we don't mean. Winter, spring, summer, and fall , right? We mean January, February, March, April, may, you have 12 seasons.
[00:01:40] Actually, it's seasonal by month. Every month is a little different. And for us, just as an example in, in the Charlotte market, June, July, August are our best month. So it's, it's summer. People are traveling, especially the customer type. We serve families with children and pet. [00:02:00] There's a lot more of those during the summer and then September for us, it kind of drops off a cliff a little bit, mainly because people go back to school.
[00:02:10] Right. That wasn't true during Covid, by the way. That's true. That's there was no school. That's true. So September wasn't actually a slow season for us. Yeah, during that time, but during normal times. September, it falls off October. It's not that great. November, it picks up a little bit because we have, you know, the Thanksgiving holiday and some holiday stuff going on in December.
[00:02:29] We have some holiday stuff going on, so it's a little better, but then again in January it drops off and in fact, January is probably our worst month every year. I would say that's true. For similar reasons. Everybody's now back from winter break and they've gone back to work and gone back to school and the holidays are over and they've spent all their money.
[00:02:47] Right? , so that's January. And then, you know, gradually as spring approaches, it gets a little better. And then we have this great summer, right? So we know what's coming because we've been in the market for a while. We know it's coming. Every January is gonna be the way it is. Every July is gonna be the way it is.
[00:03:04] And so we've had to adapt and deal with it. And this is just the story of how we've been able to do it. And by the way, it's not, it's, those aren't always the same months as you were alluding to. So we have people that we've coached then, for example, Phoenix, Arizona. Where it's exactly the opposite.
[00:03:22] Their slow season is summer because it's a thousand degrees there. Right. As hot as Hades. Right. And their, their high season is actually more winter. Right. Because that's where people go to escape from winter . Right, right. So they have like a snowbird season and all that. Right. So it, and depending on your market, your, your months might be reversed from us, might be different whatever.
[00:03:44] But it's important to realize where you currently. And what you're anticipating coming up in the next 12 months. Right? So how do you, how do you predict that if you are going into a new market? That would be a, a good questio

STRA Episode 16: What to do When your Guest is a Karen [00:00:00]
[00:00:05] Hey everyone. Welcome back to the podcast. We are John n Wendy Williams with the short term rental authority. Your authority on all things short term rental related to help make you the best operator ever. And today we are going to be talking about what to do when you have a Karen and we apologize to everyone.
[00:00:32] Named Karen. Yes, cuz I, I'm, it's, it's just a term, right? Yes. But I know some very nice Karens. Yes. In fact, your mother's named Karen. My mother's name is Karen. Yes. It's unfortunate, right? But it's basically what do you do with somebody who they, they tend to come in and they find every little thing that they could possibly find wrong.
[00:00:54] Right? And you're thinking, well, there shouldn't be anything wrong. . Nothing's perfect. No. Like if you, if you went through our house, the cleaners just came today at our house. Right. . And I guarantee you I could go around and find something. Yes. Right. For sure. If I wanted to say something. We have a visitor.
[00:01:12] Yes. Well, there's the culprit right there. Yes. Well, she's the one that makes things imperfect a lot times. With her shedding. With her shedding. But she's very sweet. She's very sweet. So what do you do? So let's, you wanna talk about like some of the. We're not recent. Well, we did have some recent Yeah, that's true.
[00:01:31] Goings on, right? We did have one lady. Well, which one you wanna talk about right? ? Because you, you, you will have a Karen, you, you will have someone who. Likes to complain about every little thing, every little leaf that they find on the back patio. Well, that's what this lady's thing was, right? Yes. Like a lot of times that starts with, I feel like it's something that [00:02:00] initially they didn't, they saw it could be anything really.
[00:02:07] There's always something that triggers it. Yes, I've noticed. And a lot of times it has something to do with the check in process or something like they couldn't get in the door. Like some, sometimes technology backfires or we forget to change it or, or something. Right. And they couldn't get in and it's, and it was that initial first experience.
[00:02:28] And then now they go through and take pictures of. Dust in the corner and hey, there's a mark on the wall over here. And how come there's leaves on the back patio? Well, cuz it's fall, right? and there are trees outside. Right? That's, that's lie . Right? And so it, and, and so it kind of becomes this thing like this, this, well this one particular lady, that's where it was, it was like there were leaves on the, this is a town home, has a patio.
[00:02:56] Yes, there are trees outside. It's November, October. In right, Charlotte, North Carolina leaves fall off trees no matter what you do, and she, and we have someone to come and do that. But we like to typically like to wait until all the leaves have fallen where the majority of the leaves have fallen off the trees.
[00:03:19] Like mid-November is usually when that happens, right? So we have someone, you know, at least twice a year come and get up all the leaves and put down new mulch and make it look nice. But she, well, that was her initial thing. She want, she wanted it done. Right. I get it. I get it. Okay. It's fine. It's fine. We, and we, we did it.
[00:03:44] We, we got it taken care of. We did. And that's usually our response to anything, you know, if there's a, a complaint or a concern or whatever. In fact, we even, that's part of our messaging the first morning is to say, Hey, , you know, let us know if anything's not up to your standards, we'll make it right. That type of thing.
[00:03:59] [00:04:00] And this particular lady did not contact us until something like five or six days into her reservation. And she was supposed to stay a long time. Yeah, I wanna say about two months. Well, she was staying through Jan the end of January. Oh wow. Was it? Or ma

STRA Episode 15: The four main things about your listing that will get you booked [00:00:00]
[00:00:05] Hey guys. Welcome back to the podcast. We are John and Wendy Williams, the short-term rental authority, your authority on all things short-term rental related to help make you the best operator ever. And today, we are going to blow your mind with the four main things to consider to help get you booked.
[00:00:30] So let's get into it because it. Very it goes along with how we do a listing audit. We get a lot of people come, come to us and say, Hey, can you review my listing? So we thought that we would give you some tips on. How we actually review listings and do listing audits. So what's the first thing that we need to consider here?
[00:00:56] Well, I, I would say that you, you need to, Well, the first thing you need to consider is who's your target customer? So we, we've talked about that a million times, but it, it bears repeating because it's very important too, how you're going to develop the listing and who you're marketing to. Right? So in that context, You want to be using the listing to your advantage to attract the customer that you're actually trying to attract.
[00:01:24] Right. That makes sense. But a lot of times we see that that's not what's actually actually happening. So these, these kind of main areas that we're talking about are like the first things we go to. And what I like to think about is in the mind and in the shoes of the customer that you're trying to attract.
[00:01:43] You gotta realize what their process is in finding you. Mm. And here we're talking about the OTAs, we're talking about in context of, Hey, this is a listing on Airbnb, or this is a listing on vrbo. And the first thing I usually show people is, And it should be [00:02:00] obvious, but it is. Once you see it is the very first thing is you're going to show up in search.
[00:02:05] So you're going to show up in a list with a bunch of other properties, and the only thing really, people have to go on because remember, this listing is your sales and marketing. You're not there to talk to this person. They've just found you in search. I think that is really. Let's not just gloss over that.
[00:02:27] Okay. Because that, I don't think that a lot of people even have that realization or that mindset that, that your listing is actually. your marketing and your first touch, if you will, to the customer. Yeah. And, and all it's a sales process. Yeah. And that is really what it is. It's a sales process. Yeah. And it's a silent one because you're there on their computer looking at your listing.
[00:02:58] Right? Yes. But there is a a sequence of how that goes, Right. That you show up in search, How do you get 'em to click on your listing and not the one right next to it? Right. Right. How do you even get them to stop scrolling? In the search, and that's the very first thing you wanna look at is, and because we are humans and we're visual, we tend to be looking at the pictures, right?
[00:03:21] So as a consumer, you're scrolling through and you're looking at the pictures. Right? And I would say that it a, a lot of people, if you've ever gone to Airbnb or, or vrbo or any of those OTAs, And you're scrolling through those photos, what catches your eye? And that's just it. Yeah. Right. And that's, that's what you need to focus on is how do I catch my customer's eye?
[00:03:58] And as a [00:04:00] designer, , I would say, Color is a really big factor in that. It is. Yeah. And, and having, I don't know if I'm going too fast here, but, and if you were gonna cover this, but having a, a really colorful first photo is, that's what people that's go, that's what's going to make people stop scrolling. Yeah.
[00:04:27] And it bears, it bears saying that it's a photo. So it's that first. So you gotta think about what's my first photo? Is it attractive? Does it catch the eye? Is it it needs to be a statement, photo, right? Mm-hmm. . So oftentimes I