STRSS 65 – From 0 to 21 Airbnb Cohosted Properties in 7 Months w/ Anthony Keen

Video Transcript

 

00:00:00

People hearing that we running, we are running a good Rental, good revenue for owner. Like with us, Dave started finding us additional properties.

  

00:00:23

This is episode number six, five, the short term rental success stories podcast. Are you an investor that’s looking to have your home professionally managed, go to cohost it.com for more information, welcome back to short term rental success stories. I’m your host, Julian Sage. This is a show where I talk to hosts about their journeys and starting and growing the short term rental business. My goal is that you’ll be able to walk away with practical information. That’ll help you become a better host and learn how to scale your business. Like any exceptional host. We all strive for five star reviews. So please going on over to iTunes and let us know what you enjoy is it really helps support the show if you haven’t done so already going over to our Facebook group, the host nation to connect with the community.

  

00:01:03

Hey, what is going on? Host nation. I’m super excited to be bank again with you this week. So two really exciting announcements from this week. One is that we are moving operations and expanding into the Pensacola Florida area for our management company. Cohost that moving into a new market can be very intimidating, but it’s also a way for us to be able to start stretching and growing outside of our comfort. But once you have the right people in place and you already have a good foothold in that market, it’s gonna be a lot easier for us to be able to grow our operations and expand business in that market and diving into a new market also means for us looking at what are the available rentals. So from a master lease perspective, for those of you that don’t know cohost, that offers an investor program where we find properties that we can master lease and offer turnkey rentals with management to our investors, master leasing, I believe is a really affordable way for people to be able to get into short Rental investing.

  

00:01:55

It has really good returns and the risk is very nominal. So this past week spent a lot of market research, running numbers and calling a lot of people, getting a lot of those and a few yeses, but this is just the start for us. And I’m really excited to be able to share this journey with you. All. The other exciting announcement is that we are also starting another podcast. So a lot of the listeners of the show I’m sure are into other forms of investing. So a new podcast that we are also starting officially as of yesterday is the multi-family success stories podcast. As you can tell, I am very creative with the naming standards of these shows, but, but honestly the show has really changed my life in that because being exposed to short-term Rental operators and just being in the space, talking to professionals has really opened up my mind to help inspire and spark new ideas and new businesses.

  

00:02:46

If it wasn’t for just talking with other professionals in the space and constantly thinking and learning more, I never would’ve started a management business or an education business or this platform to help other people grow their own management businesses or their investment portfolios. One of the logical moves from a management or master lease perspective is the economies a scale that it comes with in the multi-family space. So starting a multi-family podcast is strategic for us to be able to best position ourselves in front of the right people. But also because this is a move that we’d personally want to move into anyways, being in front of people that are making really large deals have a lot of units. It opens up a whole new world of opportunity, which is why John and I are gonna be cohosting this podcast together. So if you’d like to follow us as we interview professionals in the multifamily space, then go to multi F success.com or you can subscribe to our podcast there.

  

00:03:38

Of course, we’re gonna be doing video and audio, same as we are doing with this show. Or if you’d like to subscribe to those show notes, you can go to multi F success.com/show notes. Don’t worry. I’m not gonna be going anywhere though, because this show’s not gonna be changing or ending anytime soon, I’ve just got more work cut out from me. I’d like to introduce our guest because in this episode I had the special honor of speaking with someone from Western Cape, South Africa, and that is Anthony keen. Anthony started his short Rental property management business seven months ago and has scaled up to 21 co-hosted properties. In this episode, I talk with Anthony about how important it is to really build the foundation of a management business. We talk about how he’s been able to scale so quickly, as well as how he was able to get to 21 properties, all through referrals and word of mouth.

  

00:04:27

This is a great episode for those of you that are interested in growing your cohosted properties. If you like my show notes for this episode, go to Short Term Sage dot com slash SDR six five. Or if you like my show sent directly to your inbox every week, then go to Short Term Sage dot com slash show notes with all that being said onto this week’s conversation. Hey, welcome back, host nation to another episode of short term rental success stories. In this episode, I have these special honor of speaking with Anthony keen. Anthony, would you please introduce yourself to the host nation and let them know who you are and what inspired you to get into short term rental?

  

00:04:59

Hi, host nation. My name is Anthony keen. I’m staying in a beautiful little place in South Africa called parents. They issues in issues health some developed they and the, in the last year or two. So my wife and I volunteering. And so we’d Airbnb Rental. If other owners like my parents, didn’t really like the tech and the whole managing of it, whether they’d be more like them who would properties. And so that’s how we started.

  

00:05:40

So you, you said you were managing a property listening on Airbnb for your, your mom about three years ago, like three years later. Did you realize that you would be managing now 21 properties and these 21 properties, you, you didn’t really start scaling this until really quite recently, right?

  

00:05:57

Yes, that’s and we, you know, let run Rental were short term rental at that going from there, from there, they started recommending us to their friends and kinda groups. So that’s how we started.

  

00:06:40

Wow. And, and just to kinda recap, you, you’re, you’re managing now 21 properties that you’re all cohosting, you really started picking up the business at around seven months ago, but I wanna hit back when you first started. So for three years you were managing your, your, your mom’s Rental and you were, you were making some income off of that. When, when did it click though that it was like, Hey, like, this is a really good scalable business. And it’s, it’s able to, you know, you said it’s short term rentals in, you know, the Western Cape Uhlenberg bay. It’s making about a hundred percent more than long Rental, which is still really good, but when did it click? It was like, okay. I, I need to really maybe get a little bit more serious.

  

00:07:32

We were. And so when we decided to move it, that we try to find and target.

  

00:08:10

And so you identified that like, Hey, you know, I can do this. Remotely are all the properties that you’re managing now, are those all still remote or are you pretty local to everything now?

  

00:08:19

So we’ve got 15 of the properties in the town and six of them are town the, about about from where we’re, that’s our on listings. And we say to the owners, even if they’re, we set them up self check in with a lockbox checkins for the, for the guests, they, they might never meet us sometimes they’ll there’s. So that really happens or feel we, but generally we run it like,

  

00:09:06

And I mean, you you’re, you’re doing something right. To be able to run it, you know, you’re, you’re running it like a machine being able to scale it to 21 properties in seven months is, you know, not, you know, I don’t wanna say that’s an easy feat. A lot of people get stuck at a certain amount, but what, what about is it just like the, are just like, there’re not a lot of people inlet that are shortterm renting or is there just, how did you, how are able so quickly

  

00:09:34

Are quite a few managing agents in our area, but their model is very different. So what they the, for Sage so that’s the status quo. So when we approach pitch different, we fee incentivized the, so you’re gonna have on the property, the cleaning property and do what he says. So this way around, they, they had no risk, it was take a risk on us. If we don’t get bookings, you, it doesn’t cost you. And so that worked for us.

  

01:11:18

So, so you identified that there was a need in the market because, you know, and that’s a, that’s a really interesting thing about cohosting is that like, in the, in different areas, they have different ways that they manage properties. And what you’re saying is, is where you’re located, where all the management companies are using these Vacation homes, they’re doing a fixed rate on top of a commission. And basically you came in and you said, well, I’m gonna do more the traditional cohost model where it’s not, you know, I’m not, you’re not just like another property that’s, you know, add in revenue. It’s like, I’m only profiting if you’re profiting. How, how are you finding these properties though?

  

01:11:56

So what have we done is we’ve used Facebook. We, we started doing our Instagram and, and we two or approached which, and chatting to owners, getting their contacts, phoning them yet. I said with another property manager pitch approached running his own. That was my one I got board. And then from there again, it’s that good Rental owner to, to guys guys. these to speak know, you I’ve, know I you’ve got an appointment. This is what they’re doing for me. So we found that by getting, getting some really good owners that, that like working with us, they started finding us additional properties.

  

01:13:23

So, so after the first around four properties and you were using things like Facebook, you were doing a little bit of a little, little bit more manual labor, but after around those first four properties is, is when you were able to majority just being through referrals

  

01:13:45

That we’ve actually found ourselves. And then we’ve a few approach just that in bookings for, for them yet, which was just, they enjoyed the way we worked with them and setting up the listing and investing in it. Because often when, when you start the listing too, you put a lot of energy. Yeah. So basically we, we invest in the property with the owner. In other words, we, we invest time. It might be a few weeks that it takes to actually the listing ready, make it amenities, put the, and we’ll benefit down. The, the listing gets

  

01:14:40

A lot of people think it’s just managing a property. And that, if you just, if you’re able to make the money that it’s going to be able to, you know, that you’ll get a bunch of referrals, but what you’re saying though, is even before you get the listing up and running, just that client acquisition process can really, you know, allow for, you know, a good experience. And you said, you know, just before they even got their listing live, just because they had a really good, you know, transaction with you, that they decided to start referring you to others. What exactly are you doing in that, you know, acquisition that is making it such a good experience?

  

01:15:16

I think it’s are hard, the reservations to amenities. So anything that’s techy, they sort shy away from don’t. So we, and, and

  

01:16:23

You said that a lot of these people, that they are older and I’m looking at, you know, I was looking at some of your listings and they’re really well designed. They look really good. Are the listings that you’re picking up? Are they pre like, you know, pre-staged or are you going in there and putting in the work and getting them up and running as well?

  

01:16:41

Some of are, and of them have needed us to even buy, you know, beds, bedrooms, Bell decorating’s designs fee for what we feel that listing will be able to produce. So it’s stilling the there’s one. We,

  

01:17:39

So when you’re, when you’re taken on these, these clients, are you lit, are you literally taking them away from the other management companies that are with this older model? Or are these people are fresh to the shorter Rental space?

  

01:17:52

Yes, haven’t on the, so they feel, they feel super involved. They’re getting the same excitement that we, when we a booking, they’re getting the same thing. So I’m on the team with us

  

01:18:57

And, and the people that are transitioning from this older, from this older way of managing they’re, that, that they’re just really kind of transitioning over from those referrals. So the people that you’re working with are saying, Hey, you know, I’m, I’m working with, I’m working with Anthony and he’s, he’s a rockstar. And these people that are with this older model, they, they just didn’t feel like they were getting enough. So that’s move over

  

01:19:28

Attention. And that’s what we put focus. So at all, when everyone has that’s, that’s a it’s for, for us.

  

02:20:03

And, and what are you doing specifically that allows you to differentiate? Because one of the things with cohosting, it’s like, you know, you’re, you’re competing with everybody else, you know, you’re, you know, fortunately you’re doing something that is, you know, disrupting the, the model in that area, which is really unique, but, you know, you still have to manage the property better than, than, than everybody else. Or you have to have a better customer experience. You have, have to have a better offer. So what, what are you doing to be able to differentiate even just like the pricing and the optimization compared to what everybody else has been doing?

  

02:20:40

No, that’s a great question. I think that in this area, many of the management do more manually. They’re not using tools. So we, we come in, when we started with our, before we had our listing, we into channel management software, we made sure we were, we were end our accounting, although we couldn’t really in putting, coming we’re when we that’s, that’s the part we did well a in place before we listing fantastic. We, there were three things we wanted, we wanted a manager, we wanted to able to communicate companies, contract easily. And we over to Airbnb, that’s a, whereas as you know, labs are managed pricing, you, you know, that are gonna the price and you gonna adjust you. And so that’s the, and I, that’s the difference.

  

02:22:58

What has been the most challenging part of starting this business? I mean, you had a little bit of experience when you were managing your, your mom’s property, but, you know, to just managing a single property to scaling to 21 and seven months, you know, that that’s a, that’s a big difference,

 

02:23:13

I think, challenging on top of the business. The, so I think that’s, that’s what we’re still trying to do. So we, we haven’t got it right yet, as I say, but that’s, that’s the goal. The goal is to constantly make sure we getting sucked in, but every time we identify something that we come and I think to find the right, it they’re, that’s the biggest challenge. And you also identify, they have grown beyond what their capabilities. And so you need to another, another key company. So it’s just managing the people. I think that’s the biggest,

  

02:24:56

And you know, a lot of people maybe don’t realize that, you know, with the cohost model, you’re, you know, you’re, you’re managing, but a big part of that, that process is that onboarding, like you were talking about how many, how many people have you had to do like a property analysis for, and you, you know, you said you’re spending around two weeks, sometimes, you know, walking a cus you know, a potential client through that acquisition process. How many people did you have to go through in order to get to 21?

  

02:25:24

That’s, that’s a question there’s, we’ve, there’s, we’ve, it might really short term part of a property where owner there, but we’ve made that’ve, we’ve eventually doesn’t we, we get approached by others and they say, please manage, manage my doesn’t really work for us. We kinda, we kinda like the, the full control of a whole property with our owners. Not there we do that better. We just,

  

02:26:31

And what, what are you doing to be able to set your units apart from, from everybody else? I, I know that you said that there’s these management companies that are just, you know, taking a commission and, you know, probably just operating these Vacation homes that have been sitting there, but you’re going in and you’re putting a lot more work into these. Are you doing something different than what these other companies are doing?

  

02:27:18

Efforts time allows, and we starting that’s and reviewing it as an income stream for the owner and really working for owner too. So that’s how, yeah. That’s of our, our process.

  

02:28:07

Hey, this is Julian. And I wanted to be able to give you our newest book. Airbnb secrets revealed how to build a fortune on Airbnb without owning property. In this book, we talk about the concepts of Rental arbitrage investing, as well as cohosting and how you can build a business, leveraging other people’s properties. This book is perfect for the new short term rental investor. And it’s something that I wish that I had when I first started as it would’ve saved me a lot of trouble. And help me to understand how to be able to leverage the power of short term rental investing in your own real estate portfolio. If you like to get our newest book completely for free go to Short Term Sage dot com slash freebook. Now back to the show, where, where do you, where do you feel that you’re spending most, most of your time at the moment, you know, because with the cohost model and when you’re, when you’re doing a full management business, just managing other people’s properties, you know, like we were saying, you know, a customer acquisition is a whole process operations as a whole process and, and everything in between there. Where, where do you feel that you spend the majority of your time at the moment?

  

02:29:07

At the moment? I think majority is going into operations. We, we need to transition quite they partner with us, but we can handle more responsibility to it. And it’s just our biggest challenge right now is to hand over that responsibility and giving. So,

  

03:30:19

You know, just hearing what you said, just made me, you know, reminded me of, you know, the, the way of, you know, because you’re, you’re scaling at a really good rate. And, you know, if you, if you kept that rate up, I mean, you could be, you could be in the hundreds, but really like, have you noticed a transition from, you know, operating your first few units to where you’re operating 21 units now? I mean, within a seven month time period, has everything stayed the same? Or how, how has that transition been?

  

03:30:48

I think we, to that, if you don’t make a change to the structure, you podcast on you, structural changes for it to work. So tweaking it, the model has to keep changing. If you

  

03:31:37

Have, have you noticed from the other management companies that, that are in the area that, you know, do have this, this older model, are they doing things that, that you can implement? Like, you know, like right now you’re saying the cleaners is, is a, is something that you’re trying to get the cleaners more involved. Have you noticed with the other management companies that they are putting a lot more on the cleaners or are they doing things that, that you’re trying to model?

  

03:32:02

So model we’ve quite amazing. So really it’s just my wife and I running 21 listings. So the way we’ve done that is we we’ve tried it at all costs and make we contracting everything’s of lot a put really effort, effort into selecting the companies. And I think that’s, at the same time, we don’t have the same access to team that they do because they they’ve got them full-time employee. So that’s a challenge with the way we structured it.

  

03:33:10

Where do you see the next evolution? Where, where you are now, are you at a, are you at kind of your tipping point right now to where things need to seriously change or what’s the next step for you?

  

03:33:21

I right. And I think we that’s is when you bring in number 20, it’s a Bell, which one, which owner currently easy, doesn’t up those as we, the, I think that’s where we’re, we’re not gonna try and just keep scaling up at amazing rate, but rather get the systems and, and optimize the current listings to the most before we,

  

03:35:05

That, that that’s beautiful. You know, we, we, we just had an episode with, with a previous guest and they, they were saying, you know, one that one listing can take up, you know, the 80% of your energy, and it’s only making for you like 20% of your, of your income. So, you know, the, the protos principle is you wanna focus your attention on what is working rather than what’s not on when you’re scaling, you’re picking up just basically anything, cuz you’re like you said, you’re trying to hit your number. You’re trying to get to that number where it’s like, okay, you know, I feel good now. And you said 15 to 20 now, now you’re in a good place. What, what types of people are you looking for though? Because like what, what is in your mind is like the person that, you know, if in your portfolio you can even use someone in your portfolio. Like what type of person is that? That is sucking up all your time and what are the types of people that you’re trying to find now?

  

03:35:57

So you’ve got revenue, but if something happens with this property, they don’t really wanna to sort also they’re not proactive in replacing on, whereas we’ve them of one is is, is you probably, I know that’s go for it. Go. Those are the owners you wanna deal with because you don’t wanna hold up the service down to a guest because an owner is not giving you the support you need.

  

03:37:22

Have you noticed that if you’re marketing or trying to find a certain type of client, like the one that you said we we’ll call the, the, you know, the, the, the troublesome client is, is if you’re trying to market a certain way, do you end up finding those types of clients versus your ideal clients? Like, how do you find the ideal ones?

  

03:37:42

I think the ideal ones often come to existing. So if I think of there, there’s one that we first, she had the listing losing that, you know, knows socially the same, they’re move the same circles. And cause we got her of confidence. She’s our best. And she’s, she’s messaging us and saying, Hey, I’m working on friend of mine, she’s got beautiful place the beach. And I’m sure I’m gonna get her for you. We’re like, Hey, you don’t get it. Thanks.

  

03:38:48

What are you doing it? Are you like, are you, are you incentivizing them? Are you, are you, are you doing anything to, you know, generate these leads? Or is it just all from generosity?

  

03:39:29

The that’s why, why they’re promoting. So I it’s good. Old

  

03:39:37

Is, is there anything that you include in all of your Rental to help make the process more automated or to make it easier on you? That, that maybe saves you time or money?

  

03:39:49

I just calms everything down. So, but you’ve gotta learn from them so that you don’t. So I think little automated, we need reminders, things like owner put certain and then they do it and he’s, and so that’s yeah, it’s just, it’s just to be on those small things.

  

04:41:34

And is there, is there anything that you do specifically with your guests that helps them leave positive reviews?

  

04:41:40

I think it’s the, the auto messaging has been really good that, that communication with them, they’re like, they’re like, say, Hey, this is not right. You’ve we’ve.

  

04:42:22

And is there one rule that you’ve started including that, that has saved you before?

  

04:42:49

They’re pretty, you know, we try and we try and make sure that we trust that

  

04:43:08

Would you differently if do you would what what, and you, differently if you had to start from scratch?

  

04:43:13

I think, I think the Bell actually work, but I think more in the planning to make the listing the thinking about how to getting more and more coming into that. That’s, I’m, I’m things, things the on my, that things that I do well, so is to that team quicker in them. So that that’s little.

  

04:44:21

And what are the things that you’re doing now to be able to find those right team members?

  

04:44:27

Now, now, as things come up, we, we, we, we document anyone that, that worked for us. That that was good. So we review them, we electrician we’ve this, you to make them wanted the team. So that’s, I’m them to do something on a, they jump cause they know they’re paid.

  

04:45:31

And if you could give one piece of advice to someone who’s trying to start a cohosting management business, what would that be?

  

04:45:39

The first, the be your business as if you’ve the, and that’s for, and we can add more and more tasks to them and you can remunerate them in different ways. And we exploring that now, realizing they, they they’re the ones that are gonna properties the most, they, your and ears use them.

  

04:46:56

Where, where do you see short term rental going in the future in, in your market, in the, the Western Cape, South Africa area?

  

04:47:05

I think there’s still a lot of potential. We haven’t even tapped it’s there’s so Airbnb, Airbnb, they do it wrong and they say, ah, Airbnb rubbish in this area. So you, you just gotta slowly ecosystem going and just keep bringing the moment Rental it’s, you know, you need, you need, you need competition to make sure that you shop. So there’s lot of potential there’s Airbnb strong is the limit.

  

04:48:07

Yeah. I think, I think people forget that, you know, that there, there is a learning curve to this business, but once you, once you you’ve been in it once you know how to be able to operate it, you know, you’ll that your skillset will be able to differentiate yourself from, from everybody else. That just thinks that I can just come in here. It’s not, it’s not like a traditional long-term Rental Rental property. We’re just picking a property up and then finding a tenant, like to be able to really maximize your income, be able to have a well-oiled, you know, Vacation Rental machine. Like you’re saying it, it all comes down to, you know, your, your, your skill and your ability and, and your willingness and passion to, to learn more. And with that, what, what’s a question that, that you would ask the next professional host, maybe someone that is in a similar place than you, or maybe that next level,

  

04:48:51

What management doesn’t really integrate. Account’s host companies where they’ve got lots of listings. How, how did accounting management? So that’s

  

04:49:42

On. right. All right. Just And just, just, just to wrap up, what, what is, what has short-term renting allowed you to do in your life? Is this something that you plan on, on continuing to scale more? Are you satisfied with the 15 to 21 listings or where’s Anthony at

  

04:49:56

I growing, because I see that once you, the machine and, and you’ve made it really scalable, you’d not, and that’s where we are at. We’re saying, yeah, we’ll bring them in, but we’ll bring them in a lot, a lot slower and more thorough. And, and we’ll Bell be more the way we do it now. Cause we understand, we understand in the past. So I think that’s where we we’ll maybe, but, and keep the team gets a

  

05:50:45

Anthony. Well, you know, it’s been such a pleasure. I, I wanna get you back on the show. When, when you know you have worked out your systems a little bit more and you have some more properties under your belt, I’m sure that things are gonna be changing and you know, would be happy to have you back on the show.

  

05:50:59

Thank you very much, Julian. It’s a privilege to the I’ve really enjoyed even listening to the podcast and I’ve learned a lot from, from those that you’ve interviewed. So it’s been great.

  

05:51:10

Thank you. I’m I’m I’m, I’m learning a lot from you too, Anthony. That’s why I keep doing this, but until next time, host nation, keep on hosting. Hope you host benefit from the show. If you found value, please going over to iTunes, leave us a review and let us know what you enjoy about the show. If you’d like to talk to hosts that have been featured in these episodes, as well as the community, going over to our Facebook group, the host nation.