Today I had the honor of speaking with Amlan Mitra. Amlan currently resides and hosts in Hattiesburg Mississippi which has a population of about 50k. Amlan has only been hosting for about 6 months but has impressively scaled up to over 7 properties all of which he has been able to Buy, Rehab, Rent, Refinance, and Repeat.
Even though Amlan is in a small town, he has been able to maintain 81-88% occupancy.
Amlan shares his BRRRR Method strategy and how it has been able to help him expand as quickly as he did.
Video Transcript
00:00:00
People are so focused on pay. What do I do? How do I optimize my business? How do I get fast drying sheets? So I can lower my time that I spent with cleaners, reducing my cost. That’s all important. When I started this business, I didn’t know all that stuff, but I was still fully booked. What’s more important is what you give to the customer, what you give to the guests. How did they feel when they speak to you? Are you genuine? Are you trying to just get the most revenue per available night or are you trying to really give them what they,
00:00:28
This is episode number 11 of short-term rental success stories. Welcome back to short term rental success stories. I’m your host, Julian Sage. This is show where I talk to hosts about their journeys and starting and growing their 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. Since we are new show reviews would greatly help us grow. So please go on over to iTunes, Spotify, Stitcher, Google play, YouTube, Facebook, or wherever you’re actively listening. And please leave us a nice review and we’ll give you a review or rental a shout out in the next episode today, I have the pleasure of speaking with almond Mitra online, currently resides in hosts and Hattiesburg, Mississippi, which has a population of about 50,000 I’m. Lynn has only been hosting for about six months, but is impressively scaled up to over seven properties, all of what she’s been able to buy, renovate refinance rent, and then repeat, even though I’m Lynn is in a small town, he’s been able to maintain about 81 to 88% occupancy.
00:01:24
In this episode, almond shares his secret, which is the bear method and how it’s been able to help them scale as quickly as he did, if you haven’t done so already going over to our Facebook group, short-run mental success secrets to talk with almond and other successful hosts who are just killing it. If you like my show notes for this episode, go to Short Term Sage dot com backslash EAP 11, or if you’d like my show notes sent directly to your inbox every week and go to Short Term Sage dot com backslash show notes with all that being said onto this week’s conversation. Welcome back hosts that I have the special honor of speaking with almond Metra. Please let the audience know a little bit about who you are and what inspired you to get into short-term rentals.
00:02:04
Hey everyone, how you guys doing my name’s Ireland? So, you know, I’m from a small town in Mississippi, Hattiesburg, Mississippi, and, you know, we moved to the states when I was pretty young and my family came here not, not wanting to do real estate, but we kind of indirectly started doing real estate, doing some long-term rentals, like, you know, just lower income family homes like this in section eight homes. And I was managing my mom and dad’s property from, you know, early, early on, I mean, pre Katrina. So kind of like have that feel, you know, how to deal with customers, how to deal with guests, how to deal with tenants, how to deal with people in general and get kind of gave, gave me the skillsets, I guess, to, to be able to be a good host. It’s like, you know, be friendly, be genuine and have something good to offer people.
00:02:55
And even when it comes to, you know, lower income families, you know, a lot of, a lot of times, you know, baby, I mean, everybody needs a nice place to stay. So being able to help them and give them something that’s above that the standard was something that our family was really into. Like you wanted to give them something better than what they were used to from the beginning. So on the morals that my dad and my mom really instilled in us, you know, how to be a good person like those really, I guess like we wanna, you know, present to the guests when we’re hosting. So we kind of indirectly came into the short term rental side of it. I had a, you know, I had a breakup anyways, but long story short, we had a big house, six, six bedroom house. We put that on the rental market and I moved into a smaller home.
00:03:45
And I was there, you know, probably just on the weekends, sometimes traveling, visiting with my parents. So when I wasn’t there, I just kind of placed it on Airbnb. One of my friends suggested it and then sure enough, overnight the thing took off and, you know, I never thought, you know, and had it’s Mississippi, which would be, you know, not the, I guess like tourists spot hotspot, that’s something like Airbnb would be so successful. So, you know, if I, one piece of advice is don’t go with just the flow with everybody, you know, like just think outside the box, you know, and you never know where your success may come from and it’s just, you know, the world will kind of open up doors for you and you have to just take them as you go. And you never know which door will lead you to the most success in your life.
00:04:34
And sometimes, you know, when you have things that like, you know, really affect you negatively, you know, you might be thinking, oh man, like, you know, just went through a breakup, a divorce, blah, blah, blah. You know, I’m down. But like, don’t let that get to you, you know, just think positively and, you know, stay positive and keep going strong. And so by, by having that mindset and taking an opportunity that kind of was given to me, you know, on accident, I was able to see that there was a big need in short-term rentals, especially Airbnb, which is a tried and tested platform, even in a city like Hattiesburg, Mississippi. So the, just the, just the direct results from the first second week of having the Airbnb on, you know, live showed me that November, December was fully booked. And I was like, oh my God, there’s definitely a need for this.
00:05:31
So I took a couple other properties that I had and, you know, got it ready. It’s a front-loaded business. So you have to kind of invest in the front end, really get the, the properties up to par with not your, you don’t want to be the best in your city. You want to be the best of a nation. Cause a lot of people that are coming to travel is they’re not going to compare you. You too, you know, your S you know, Harrisburg’s Airbnb, of course, you mean you don’t want to be the best one, not only in your local market, but in the nation, because you’re competing on a national level. So by having a really nice place with granddad or nice furniture, a feeling that’s cohesive and really marketing it that way, you know, each property having a good theme, it’ll really help drive your success, but that’s a whole nother thing.
00:06:21
But so I was able to take one property, you know, and then turn to three more properties online and quickly ramp that up to six within a short amount of time and be limited by how many mites were available. So I was hitting occupancy rate limits, like right off the bat, I would open up a property and it would be fully booked, fully booked. So I knew that there was a lot, a lot bigger markets. So my focus was on opening up as many properties as quickly as possible to ramp up my business. And, you know, in March we had a really good month. It was our biggest month. So, yeah, so that’s kinda how we, how we started indirectly. And now it’s our primary focus.
00:07:07
You know, I, I, I just want to, to clarify for the listeners, Hattiesburg, Mississippi, how many people would you say are in Harrisburg?
00:07:15
I think in our actual city is probably close to 60, 50, 60,000, but outside of our city, you know, the surrounding areas probably close to 75 to 85,000, you know,
00:07:27
And I just, I just pulled a Harrisburg up on the map and there’s, there’s really not much out there. It’s not, there’s no, there’s no beaches. It’s, it’s not, you know, what’s, what’s the closest, like major, like more metropolitan city.
00:07:41
New Orleans is pretty, it’s about an hour and 10 minutes away. It’s Southwest from us. We have Biloxi, which is below us, about 65, 70 miles. And then we have mobile, which is about 80 miles Southeast. So, you know, if you think about it, we’re kind of like the hub city and actually that’s what we’re called. So being the hub of major cities around us, we have a lot of people traveling through how to spurred. We have people going from Texas to Florida, from Atlanta to Texas, you know, Nashville down to new Orleans. So we have a lot of people. I mean, I’ve had people from China lie down to see their, you know, their son, daughter graduate. We have one medical school, two nursing program, but three nursing programs, two universities and three colleges. So that in itself is a big market, is graduations, friends, and family coming to visit students who go here.
00:08:40
So there’s, there’s different. There’s to kind of break it up. We have people coming through town one night, two nights, days. Then we have people visiting their family members. We have weddings as the big wedding destination. I mean, I guess I don’t know what it is, but I mean, I know from my other company, which I have a media company, but I know that there’s a big photography wedding, photography, wedding, videography kind of market here. So there’s lots of weddings happening. So they use my place for, I mean, I have a larger property that can be subdivided in two units. So we have a lot of brides and brides and grooms, they separately, and they have like a cool little fire pit area. They can, you know, hang out in. So a lot of weddings come through just like all kinds of people, you know, there’s people who come in for work. You know, if they’re working for like two weeks, they’ll stay, they’ll ask them requests now ahead of time, because they know it books up so quickly. My properties do that. They, you know, they can get them there, you know, stay here for work. So,
00:09:39
You know, what I think is, is, is really, really interesting and pretty amazing. You know, you you’ve been, we’ve only been really active in the short term rental space since November, 2018. So about six months now you’ve scaled up to six properties. You’re taking on two more, you’ve got an 81 to 88% occupancy and you’re in Hattiesburg, Mississippi with a little, little town with 50,000 people. You know how you know, that, that that’s, that’s pretty, that’s pretty amazing. How, how did you kind of figure out like this was a, like an untapped market? Like how, how are, how have you been able to fill such a high occupancy in such a, a low populated area?
01:10:22
Well, that’s a great question. You know, I don’t, so I can tell you what I am doing, because I’ve had that occupancy pretty much from day one. So I don’t know anything different, but I can tell you what I do to, to have that happen. Really. You just have to be connected to your neighborhood. You have to know the people, the amenities that your city can offer, because that’s going to translate to a good hosting experience for the guests. When they come here, they don’t want to just have a holiday and experience. They don’t want to have a Hilton. They don’t even have, I mean, even the Marriott. I mean, we w we are even better than that. We’re better than that. We are providing them a unique staying experience. And so when they come, even when they travel to a city like Harrisburg, they’re here.
01:11:14
So they want to enjoy their time. They didn’t think about tourism when they came here, but they want to, we want to make sure they leave with a good, you know, experience, a unique experience. So being able to, you know, know what to offer, like, you know, we have, you know, a couple of breweries here. We have a great downtown area. Our S our mayor is amazing. We’re doing some really cool things, stimulating local businesses here. So you want to have like a connection with the local businesses, and you want to really reach out to them, let them know, Hey, I have Airbnbs in the area. You know, I want to do some type of partnership with you guys. So being able to give back to the community that way, there’s a, there’s a great thing. Also, you know, as a host yourself, you know, this is you’re in the hospitality game.
01:12:02
This is not a rental market anymore. This is not even, I mean, it’s even more than a hospitality thing, because, you know, when they come here, I write a personal note on a card. I keep it there. Well, I don’t, but my cleaning crew does. So they’re now part of the Airbnb team where you can go through the app and actually assign a team. So they get bookings, just like I do. As soon as somebody books, my cleaning crew also sees it. They see how many people, the name on the reservation. So they have hand, hand, drawn hand, handwritten note it’s that they leave for them. So like little things like that really makes them feel special. Like, they’re not just another guest, like, so you want to always onboard them with, you know, so I have automated messages that I have in my app, as soon as they book, I send out and it still feels like a natural message. So those little things that you do over and over and over again, the quality and the consistency is really, really key. So having that in place really did help keep a high occupancy rate even through the slow months.
01:13:16
You know, I think, I think that’s really, really unique about you Ireland is that, is that, you know, you’ve, you’ve taken like a small, a small town that isn’t, isn’t looked at it. Like I live in the DC area. So people come here because they, they want to see the monuments. They want to, you know, experience the food, the culture, and they want to travel and see destinations. So it’s a different type of experience from someone that’s staying at. Like, let’s say my unit or someone else’s then compared to yours. But I think that’s, what’s really unique that you’ve been able to understand your market, understand the local businesses and create an experience for someone like, if I’m traveling to new Orleans and I need to stop somewhere, I don’t want to spend a lot of money at a crazy expensive hotel. Maybe I’ll stay in Hattiesburg, but if I’m going there, it’s like, what, what, what, how can I make this an experience? Everybody wants an experience. So you’re offering that by creating an experience for people. And I think, I think that’s, that’s brilliant.
01:14:15
Absolutely. I mean, that’s what, that’s what the future of this business is going towards this, as you know, is Airbnb has a whole experience hosting element to it. So what that means eventually, you know, as this business gets more like solidified and, you know, I mean, I’m still new. I wanna, I wanna have this thing going. I don’t want to put my energy and focus to, to laterally yet, but that will come to where say if we’re only an hour and a half from new Orleans, could you imagine then coming here letting me take them out to a tour? Cause I know new Orleans, like the back of my hand, like, I mean, I love that city. It’s my second city. So I can give them a tour. I’m a photographer, so I can go around, show them the different areas, you know, have a photo shoot in different like cool locations.
01:15:07
And then they bring them back to their house here in Harrisburg. Like, so like that could be an experience that’s like once in a lifetime, you know, you know, we have a great, like a, a tour, like a, like a, not a wine tour, but like a beer tour, like, so we can take them to these different breweries and do like a beer tasting. And then we can go see some nightlife. You know, I have a lot of friends that are musicians here, you know, so I can let them know what who’s playing, you know, what time where, so like I can offer that to them. So even though it’s one night, maybe on a Wednesday night and Mississippi, but they’re like, Hey man, that band was really cool. And we went to that downtown place and really had a great time. You know, that brewery was amazing.
01:15:50
So those things that you want to attach to the state, so it’s not really about, you know, what type of sheets you have on your bed. That’s important, you know, people are so focused on, Hey, what do I do? How do I optimize my business? How do I get frat fast drying sheets? So I can lower my, you know, my time that I spent with cleaners, you know, reduce my costs. That’s all important. But you know, when I started this business, I didn’t know all that stuff. I mean, but I was still fully booked. Like what’s more important is what you give to the customer, what you give to the guests. How did they feel when they speak to you? Like, are you genuine? Are you trying to just get the most revenue for available night? Or like, are you trying to really, you know, give them what they deserve?
01:16:36
So once you flip that in your head and really focus on those elements, I really think that your business will skyrocket. And you know, I, you know, I didn’t know what I was going to do in life. Like, you know, I have these different ideas and, you know, different talents or different like things that I want to do, but it’s so like, so different, each thing is so different. So sometimes I’ll feel like, am I going to really find what I’m good at? Like where am I going to really do something impactful? Like, so I finally feel like this with Airbnb is what I was kind of made to do because of all the different skillsets that I’ve acquired throughout my life and the values that my family has taught me and you know, how to, how to treat people. And so now I’m really passionate about this and, you know, I just want to kinda help other people be successful. So,
01:17:31
No, I, I, I definitely, I definitely resonate with that. And I think a lot of the listeners can definitely resonate when you’re passionate about something like people that listen to this podcast and other podcasts, they binge, they just one, one episode after the next, after the next, because they can’t get enough. You love it. It’s you just, it’s in your bones. And you’re like, I have to do, I have to learn and know more because you’re a different type of person. You’re a person that your poor, your energy into something and people automatically, they understand that. So you’re pouring your energy into your units and sure, you, you want to optimize it. You want to make sure that, you know, you’re getting the most bang for your buck, but you’re not going to, you’re not going to sacrifice that quality for the, you know, the, the service that you can provide, but that kind of comes naturally to you.
01:18:16
Absolutely. I think as long as you think about the customer, the customer, the guest, the person who you’re serving, you’re a servant, you have to think about yourself as a service. You can’t, you know, you’re not, yeah, of course you own the home, but you know, if you can think of yourself as giving to people, you know, the universe will give back tenfold. So
01:18:37
Not very nice. And what has been the most challenging part of starting your short-term rental business?
01:18:42
Well, you know, it’s challenging because, you know, you’re putting in this money in the front end of the business, it’s a very front loaded business. So, you know, getting that off, off the ground, buying more property, you know, you have a note now you have, you know, your bottom line, your bottom line keeps increasing and you’re hoping that your, you know, your revenue will also do the same. It will mirror it well, at least, you know, grow even more. Right? So those, you know, moments of not knowing, and especially because when, when I’m built fine, let me property, I’m also doing a complete renovation to that property. And so it’s not, I don’t buy it turnkey. So along with, you know, keeping this business, going, the Airbnb business, keeping the, you know, all the ratings high and like the guests happy on the side. I’m also, I also have a construction business pretty much.
01:19:37
I mean, I’m not a contractor, but I’m in there every single day, making sure my crew is working and getting things done on the next property that we’re going to open up. So it’s a full line sets a full-time job. It’s a lot of stress because you have, I don’t have a big loan. So all the revenue that I’m getting is going straight back into the company to fix up, you know, the, the towel, the backsplash, putting the granite in, putting the floors in putting the lighting stuff, you know, like, I mean the decorations like this, and like you, you have to put in the money in the front end and you have to also make sure, like, all your workers are getting paid. All the cleaners are getting paid. I mean, you have 11 properties. You have to make sure the, you know, the lights are paid.
02:20:26
You have to. So it’s a lot of little rescue responsibilities that you don’t think about on top of being a good host. And so that is the hardest thing is scaling and retaining your quality. So if you can do those two things and you know, it gets easier because you have to know which elevator you want to get off of. Like, this thing is scalable to your dreams, like where you want to go is where this business can take you. And also you have to know that you can’t put all your eggs in one basket. So you can’t go all in on one, one type of like funnel, which is Airbnb is a funnel. So you need to diversify as well. So creating a brand along with creating your properties, like is very crucial. So you can side load. Some of these repeat customers onto another platform that you can build yourself will definitely lower your risk.
02:21:25
And you know, this diversification, you know, so you’re lowering your risk because you’re not, you know, limiting yourself by Airbnb telling you what your revenue is going to be in the future. Or if something happens to the Airbnb platform, you’re not completely screwed because you have, sideloaded a lot of these guests onto your own platform. So, so those are things we need to think of as we grow our business is how to, you know, lower our risks, because you don’t want to go all in on one, one thing. So think about, you know, you own all these properties. If the market collapses or something happens, you have to pay for all your, you know, notes. So you have to pay for your mortgage that you have to pay for all the debt that you have. So is it good to have 20 mortgages and all be relied on short-term rentals? I don’t think so. We should go do some more rental arbitrage stuff, you know, which I’m not sure if a lot of the listeners probably know what it is, but we want to increase our revenue and have revenues coming from multiple sources. That way we can, even through the hard times we can pay for our, for our mortgage and everything. So,
02:22:35
So, so what made you want to dive into the, the owning and flipping? Because that is a lot of work, you know, I D I did renovations on my basement and dealing with the contractor and it’s, it’s a lot of work, you know, you have to manage, it’s like you have employees, even though, you know, you don’t technically think of them like employees, they are, they are employees. So how, Y you know, how did you, or why did you go the purchase and renovate model for, for your six properties?
02:23:01
Well, how I acquire properties is very unique and this market where I’m at allows me to do that. So you have to think, okay, how does brick, Mississippi? Right? It’s a, it’s a small town, but the market price for properties here is amazing. Like, I can come here and spend, you know, 30 to 50,000 on a property, and I’m talking about a three, two or a four to like four bedrooms, two bathrooms, like nice 20 like 1800 square foot, 1500 square foot home, and be able to put in another 30 to 40,000 and get a property. That’s first of all, now we have great manage equity in it. So we can take that equity out and put it into another property. So, by doing that, I’ve been able to scale this business a lot quicker. Of course, my family is a big, big portion of this, like my dad and my mom.
02:24:01
I mean, they’ve been doing real estate for, as you know, since I was a kid. So I’ve learned a lot from my mother, a lot, a lot from my father about how to do this, how to, how to scale this business and how to take, you know, a lot of the stuff that I take for granted, people have to learn. And I don’t know that, you know, when I’m telling my story, cause I feel, I feel like most people know how to do that, but you know, you buy a property and then you put it, you put money in it and hopefully you’ll have equity. So it’s worth more than what you had in it. And that difference, sometimes the bank will allow you to take out and use that as a down payment on another property. So by doing that, I’ve been able to kind of scale this.
02:24:43
And another whole side of this is like, think about it. Like you’re building this from the bottom, like internally out, like if I were to buy a turnkey property, it’s not going to have the character that I’ll want in it. Like when I do a renovation, I’m talking about, this has been gutted. Like this, the walls are off the, I mean, all it is is a frame and the outside, we paint it, we put it up, we compare, we take walls down, we open it up. Like we have, we know what we’re going to do from the very beginning. We don’t buy the property unless we know it’s going to be ready for it. It’s Airbnb ready. So once we do that, I think we have a better product. We’re able to give the customer something that’s ours and we’re passionate about it. So that’s like, actually I prefer to do it that way, but you don’t want to again, buy all these properties and have all this debt. So it’s great on the revenue’s coming. It’s amazing. But you want to also have some rental arbitrage to kind of supplement it. And I’m working with some local landlords that I trust. And I know them very well to kind of renovate their, their homes and do a profit share between me and I, me and them. So, so I think that would be a good way to do it as well. There’s some rental arbitrage to kind of mix up the balance a little bit. And what,
02:26:05
W what would you say would be the preferred model for someone let’s say they don’t have a 30, 40,000 to put into a home to be able to renovate and make it their own? W what, what would you say to the types of people that do want to get into the Airbnb space and, and have property, but like, can’t afford that.
02:26:22
What I would recommend is if they can purchase one home. Okay. So start off with one home and also look at, if you already have a home yourself, if you already have a home yourself, see, get up, get appraisal on it, see what the price is for. There’s two ways to do an appraisal. You can do a subject to appraisal, which means subject to the upgrades. They’ll give you a value and the bank will give you 80 to 90% of that value to you. And you can do what you want with that cash. You can make the renovations for cheaper and take that money out to put it down on another property. Or if this is your first home, this is I’m only talking about buying how homes, right? So if you don’t have that 30 to 40,000 to renovate the home, find a home that’s way below, don’t look for a hundred thousand dollar house, $80,000 house.
02:27:11
Look for something that, that needs a lot of work. It’s scary. If you don’t feel comfortable doing that, I would just try to find a house that’s a turnkey house, and just go into that. But if you feel like you can do it, and you, you have that experience of renovating homes and flipping homes or whatever, I would look for that first home that has a good bit of built in equity from the beginning, or find a house that’s 40, 50, 60,000. And you tell the bank, Hey, look, this is the list of renovations I’m going to do. Can I do a subject to appraisal? So w w when you do that, that allows you to, they’re gonna say, okay, based on all these upgrades, there are $60,000 purchase price. Home will be valued at 110,000. Okay, great. So the bank will give you 80 to 90% of that as a loan.
02:28:02
Okay. So then we’ll think about this while you still have to pay that 80 to $90,000 note. So you have to think about affordability. Okay. So when you take that out and you take that money, put it back in. So you’re using the bank’s money to renovate the house. So when you fix up that house, think about what the guests want. Keep a little bit of that budget for furniture or TV or appliances for, you know, kitchen, kitchen stuff like pots and pans. And so once you’ve done that, then you have something that you can take pictures with on your iPhone, you know, work with the lights a little bit, make it nice. If you can afford a photographer to come in and do some wide angle pictures, do that probably gonna cost you about 200, 2 50 bucks, 250 bucks to do that, and then take those pictures, put it on your listings and choose a really nice clean image that tells the best gives you the best, first impression on your home.
02:29:02
So whatever the features features that you’re proud of, doesn’t have to be the outside of the home. It could be the kitchen, it could be the large king size bed. So take that picture, use that as the featured image, and then have it every image after that, something completely different. So you don’t want like big image, different angle, a different angle, different angle of the same room, because you’re going to the customer has to scroll through those, those pictures. So you want to have something completely different for each one of those first 10 images, but then also your title has to be very, very catchy. Very, you don’t want to say clean or like quiet neighborhood. You want to describe the property as a brand. So when they think about it, they’ll know, oh, that’s that house. And then the description you want to use as much characters as possible.
02:29:59
Like you don’t want to just put like bullet points. You want to tell a story. So you want to tell a story about when they get here, what their experience is going to be. You know, that’s where you can describe the quiet neighborhood. You don’t want that to be your title. Like your top, your title is going to be your brand, the description, we’ll tell the story, which will give you key features that are selling points of your home. And then you can re repeat some good amenities that nobody else has, and, you know, in your listing, and then just have clear, sharp, high definition pictures, and, you know, just kind of test the market to see, you know, where your average nightly price should be. And then kind of, you know, if you’re automatically getting a a hundred percent book occupancy, you wanna increase your, your nightly. Right, right, right. You want to kind of be around 80%. That’s I think to me, the sweet spot of the most revenue per available night is about 80% occupancy because, you know, you’re at that sweet spot of nightly price, nightly rate and occupancy. So we can make the most revenue that letter,
03:31:09
You know, I, I think, I think that they’re all very real, really good tips and advice. I really liked that one. That, that one thing that you said about doing the subject to appraisal, I don’t know if you’re familiar with like bigger pockets and they have this thing, Brandon Turner who calls the, the burn method, which is by, by remodel refinance, repeat, I believe is what it’s called. And, but yours is kind of like the complete bear, you know, it’s like buy, we’re not a refinance re and then re you know, furnish it and then repeat it, you know, because you’re, you’re not, you’re not just, you know, taking the equity out once, once it’s all fixed, but you’re also making money off of that, because you also included in your subject to appraisal the cost of, you know, furnishing, which is, can be expensive. You know, it could be, you know, for a four bedroom could be, you know, well over five, five grand. So, I mean, yeah.
03:32:01
And also look into your, like, this is also, you know, how well do you know your, you know, your town? So I’m friends with a furniture stores owner. I mean, it’s not just a furniture store, it’s a salvage place, you know? So about a lot of my furniture from there, like literally they know us by name. Like, they, we, they tell us what they have and we go in there and we’re like, okay, we need, you know, bunk beds. We need three king size beds to like four Queens we need, you know, so we just tell them what we need. They have everything ready. So when we go there, we’re looking at it and we’re like, okay, we just put a sticker on each one of these things. Now we go like, but we know that we can, we don’t have to haggle. We don’t have to hassle.
03:32:43
We don’t have to, you know, we know that this is a salvage place where we can, it’s like smoke damage furniture, but you can’t tell at all, like it’s brand name, like just for insurance states, they had to like liquidate that, you know, that store. So all this furniture comes into the salvage places go and find those deals. You don’t have to go and spend, you know, $1,500 on a couch. You don’t have to spend, like, I mean, couches that are biased, like 200 bucks, 300 bucks, you know, like a bed, like a king size bed, a whole, the whole like set, like the dresser drawer, everything with the mirror and the side might tables and the, like the bed and the mattress for like 1500 bucks. So like, you gotta go out there and find those deals because you want to decrease your bottom dollar so you can have that revenue, you know? So, but yeah, I mean, that’s the buy second give.
03:33:41
And what do you, what do you do to set your units apart? Are there a lot of other people competing in the Hattiesburg area that have kind of, you know, realize that it’s kind of like a, you know, a good market to be in, how have you been able to compete against the hotels and the other competition?
03:34:01
So I think that your competition is not necessarily other Airbnbs, because you want to tell everybody about Airbnb. You want to let other people know that Airbnb is our thing. So you just have more opportunity for like, if it’s known more and more known that this is a thing you’re indirectly going to get more revenue, that’s my view on it. And if you help help others with this business, you know, the universe will give it back. Cause that may sound like, oh, you’re just optimistic, but know it really well. Like you will make connection and you’ll make friends in this industry. If they’re fully occupied, they’re going to refer you. So you have a network of people. Like if I’m fully booked, I give, I get my, you know, my guests over to Mike, one of my best friends. He’s the one who told me about Airbnb.
03:34:44
He’s the guy who was like, Hey, you know what? Check out, Airbnb, put your house on Airbnb, see how it does. He told me about it. And so now, I mean, I’m successful, but you know, what if I didn’t know about it. So could you imagine like lot more people having like, cause you have to always be the best of, of the competition. So you, well, if you’re scared of that, you shouldn’t be in this business because you should be proud to say that I have the best properties. So it doesn’t matter if you have more competition around it’ll, if you’re the best that who cares. Right. So just have that mindset, you know, indirectly you’ll, you’re going to get more business by spreading the word about Airbnb. So don’t think, oh, I have to keep this a secret. No, your competition is the hotel game at the hotel businesses.
03:35:30
So that’s what you’re competing at. Yes. We want to give our guests and unique experience. You know, how do you set yourself apart by like knowing your city, knowing the assets of your, of your, of your city, knowing that Hey, Midtown area is really cool. They have loud music, they have great bars, great restaurants. Like you can offer that. Like, even though like, you know, when they go stay at a hotel, they’re not going to give them all that information. You have to go to the front desk and ask them. But over here, it’s like a unique thing because they arrive with a handwritten note. You have any questions, you see a little guidebook that tells you about the city. You have any questions or recommendations. You can call the owner of the house, which is me. And I can even give them a tour of the city. Like, so it’s, they can’t have that at a hotel. So that’s what want to do is we want to give that experience to the guests. Okay.
03:36:27
No, I that’s. That’s a, that’s that’s a really, really key is like competition. You know, definitely you want to stand out, you want to stand out amongst the crowd, you know, against other, you know, the other people that are listing their properties. But you know, you’re, you’re really trying to make yourself stand out and being an individual because you’re offering a different service than what the hotel companies can offer. And you’re, you’re able to do that through finding these unique, unique propositions, you know, allowing people to contact you, if they have any questions, giving them that guidebook, that recommends places that you’ve personally been to and, and that you have good relationships with and maybe discounts and stuff like that. So, yeah,
03:37:08
Absolutely. I think that’s a great, great, you know, I’m glad you see that because you know, a lot of people don’t realize that when they get here, they don’t know about your city. They don’t know the Hattiesburg has all these different things. They just know, Hey, it’s a stop for me, between my route from Texas to Florida. But you know, when they leave, they’ll have that unique experience, know that, you know, that city Harrisburg, it’s pretty cool. You know, it’s small, it’s not Houston. It’s not Atlanta, it’s not DC, but you know, they have everything you want in a small place. And it’s more convenient that way. You know, I don’t have to fight one hour of rush hour traffic to get from one side of the city to the other, like it’s right here. It’s great. So that’s the experience you want to leave your customer as well.
03:37:54
So, so going back to setting your, your, your units apart, how so the other, the other people that are listing their properties, what are you doing specifically to kind of make your property stand out amongst the rest?
03:38:08
Well, you have to have, you have to be able to catch their attention, like right off the bat. Like you want them to see your property and be like, okay, when they’re scrolling. Wow. That, that pops. So maybe, you know, don’t Photoshop your images to look better than they are, but make sure that you have good lighting. You have no gimmicks like putting, you know, asterix and asterix and exclamation marks and you know, no don’t do that. Just have a clean listing that has good angles. So the angles, you want to make sure that you have the top and at least two walls and a good wide angle and what that does. It sets the base of every image. Like, so it, it holds that image down. So when you’re looking for angles, you want to provide a good wide angle. Sometimes you might have to step away outside of the door to get into as long as you don’t see the doorframe, but guess why does you can tilt to see that whole, whole home, right?
03:39:07
You want to show them how large it is because the, a regular camera, it crops in a lot. So it, it actually looks a lot smaller than it really is. And also expectation versus reality. So the closer those two things are the more successful you’re going to be. So when they see your property from 600 miles away and they’re booking, they expect something. And so when they get here, if their reality is different, you’re going to have problems. You’re not going to have happy guests. You want that difference to be as close as possible. You want it to be, you know, my goodness, like it looks exactly like a lot of my comments, a lot of my reviews say that they’re like almond was a great host and his properties look exactly like the pictures. And so that is very crucial. And even down to that, the type of bedsheets now, now this is getting into optimization.
04:40:04
So how do you make sure that when they get there, they feel like it’s at home and they want to, it’s like when you go to McDonald’s right. You know exactly where the McDonald’s counter is, where the fraud machine is, you know, where the burgers come out, you want to shop more there because where you want to spend more money there because it’s natural. So the same thing. Well, that’s what I create. Every single month of my properties have the same exact gray color and this, the turquoise and this, these colors schemes that I have, it repeats through my, throughout all my properties. So, first of all, that lowers your costs because you don’t have to buy and keep up with all these different paints. You have the same exact paint palette. You have the same color structure. So when you’re out there shopping for furniture, you just, you know what you’re doing.
04:40:49
Like, so as, as you hone in on your look and you wanna, you wanna stand up, stand apart. Like we have a beach house on, in Biloxi. So every other beach house over there, there’s like, you know, the S the sheet, the seashells on the wall, but the mahi mahi, you know, the dolphin fish on the, you know, like, it’s like the same exact look it’s just played out. So on that one, I did something completely different. I went and super glam and like, like a posh kind of look. So I call it the, the, the glamour, the glamour posh beach house for the, and glam beach house. Sorry, that’s where it is. And so when you look at it, it’s like the silvers and it’s got the Chrome and the sounds gaudy, but it does really work though. It’s not gaudy at all because it’s cohesive.
04:41:35
Like, so has crystal chandelier coming into the bot into the view, one of the pictures. So it has like a really different look than every other property that’s down there. That’s a beach house. So you want to know your market and see how you can scale up. And by having a more luxury oriented property on the beach, you can raise your price a little bit higher. So I’m a little bit higher than all the other properties there, but guess what? That house is 90%, but 90% occupancy. And I’m okay with that because I don’t want to raise my revenue anymore on that one. I want to give an affordable, stay luxury affordable, stay right on the beach right next to the casinos. And I’m able to do that with the Alexi property, switching gears to Hattiesburg. Why don’t we go with more beachy, more like a resort look over here in Hattiesburg, because everything else over here is, you know, the standard cookie cutter Airbnb.
04:42:34
So over here, like one of my properties, I have the hanging Christmas lights kind of draped over in the courtyard. I have a fire pit, it’s a gas fire pit, and it just makes it look like a resort. So it allows somebody to be like, man, this, this looks really cool. Like it’s different, you know, like, so I’m passionate about exterior spaces as, as well as interior spaces, because your X, your space has to really pull people outside to, to have conversations and stimulate, you know, people meeting each other. So that’s a multiunit Airbnb. So I have three Airbnbs with a localized let’s, all the lights go from each Airbnb into one fire pit in the middle. So it allows people to come converge and talk and meet and greet each other. And it’s really cool. So I’ve been able to give that type of experience in a small city of Harrisburg and where everybody else is on the beach over there. I’ve been able to give a really glamorous and nice posh area, which is my beach house. So you have to kind of know the market and stand out.
04:43:40
Yeah. And I think, I think, you know, kind of, kind of the big key takeaway from, from what you’re saying is, you know, you, you, you want to be original. You want to spice it up when people are scrolling through the feeds and looking for properties, you know, if everybody’s just seeing cookie cutter, you know, same house, same house, same house, same house and bad quality image, bad pictures, bad pictures. You want to have the best pictures. You want to have a big open space because that’s truly what your place is. And then you also want to throw in there, you know, a property that is, you know, decorated very unique. You know, if everybody else is doing seashells, then you’re thrown in posh seat seashells, you know, it’s very, it’s very, very, very cool. Very cool. What, what would you do differently if you had to start from scratch?
04:44:26
Well, I would, I don’t think I would do anything differently, but I would be more careful on my bottom dollar and create scalable growth. So like in the beginning I was trying to save money or hire, hire some like clean myself, or as quickly you can ramp up the business to where it’s automated and it’s hands free and you can scale the better. The first couple of months, it happened so quickly. We were trying to survive and trying to keep this business like, you know, profitable and the quality control up to our standards. Right? So we weren’t even thinking about like optimization and how to, you know, make this automated and, and how you can leverage your time to really build a business if you have teams in place to handle other tasks. So those are the things that now that I know that I will start on day one.
04:45:28
So if I can advise people to research, cleaning crew, how to find a cleaning crew, that’s, that’s willing to go in there and know that they’re not gonna, they’re gonna, they’re not gonna charge you a hundred bucks to clean. Tell them it’s going to be volume based, but we’re going to scale up. I want this to be a longterm partnership. Those are the keywords you want to use with these, with these people that they know that you’re not just going to hire them and drop them. Like this is a long-term thing. So they’ll consistently, as you add more and more properties, and as your business grows, do you have more and more occupancy? They’re going to have more cleanings coming. So in the beginning you might say, okay, so let’s do this. Let’s the first couple of properties will be a little bit more, cause we’re not going to have a higher volume, but as this volume thing picks up, let’s go from $75 per cleaning to $50 for cleaning.
04:46:22
And we’ll give you all the cleanings, we’ll sign a contract. We’re not going to do these cleanings. Even if it’s one you’ll, you guys will do it. So it’s a trust thing, right? And instead of waste to pay your partners without you having to give them cash or a check, like set up a Venmo account, set up the cash app, set up Stripe, w what Stripe you can do, automatic payments, set it up, like automate your business from the beginning. And then once the things like, so you can focus on the branding. So you can focus on the things that will get you more nightly bookings. You know? So you’re not over here cleaning, or you’re not over here trying to pay your crew. Like you can be in one spot and handle your business. And I think that is what I would change. I am that way now, but I mean, there’s always optimization, like, just like you’re optimizing your business, you have to optimize your processes and how you work. So I think as you automate your law, the whole process from start to finish, you can spend more time on growing your business
04:47:29
And going off of that. Is there any products or, or a tool that has saved you money in time that you couldn’t live without?
04:47:37
Yeah, so I was using properly as an app, but it’s got, I think it costs like $10 per listing, but now that Airbnb has the whole team functionality, I already, you guys know this, it’s amazing. Like, just go into, you have to have the desktop version up, then go into your settings and go to teams and you can actually assign team members and give them responsibilities. Like you can have how much they can be. Just like you just as a cohost with everything you do, they can do. Or you can like set limits to what they can do. And so what I do is I set up just the basic one, which is they can only see their schedule. Who’s, you know, the calendar like who’s booking how many people and the check-in check-out time. So that allows them to kind of plan like the cleaning company, like plan, how many sheets, extra, how many towels, extra, you know, what type of snacks to put out and what the note needs to be, the personalized message needs to be to who?
04:48:31
So all those things are automated. I don’t have to deal with it. So before I had to our screenshot of the first one, I started, I was screenshot in my phone and text messaging. My cleaner is, Hey, this is the person. This is what time they check in, but it wasn’t scalable. Could you imagine doing that screenshot and sending it out to people like LAN, if you missed it, it’s on you. Like, you didn’t want to drop the ball at all. So you want to train those individuals to be able to go and read, you know, the calendar, because now it’s, every time I get a booking, they get a notification instantly. So that’s one less thing you have to worry about. But yeah, I think that was your question. Right?
04:49:09
Right. And so from, from the team, the team view is, is that kind of eliminate the need for like apps like turnover, BNB?
04:49:17
Yes, absolutely. And I haven’t even used turnover, BNB. I’m G I’m sure it’s a great service, but this, I mean, I don’t want to lower my cost again. I don’t know if turnover, BNB has a monthly fee or not, but probably, and so you want to lower that, but you want to make it as instant as possible. And if you have less of the middleman, less likely, it’s going to, there’s going to be a technical issue. That’s gonna cause you to either have on queen property when they arrive or so it’s just less hassle, you know? So look for those shortcuts to where you can direct them, the shorter, the distance between a and B the less likely that you’re going to have, you know, a missed opportunity or something that happens that, you know, adversity affects your business. So, yeah. So that’s really what I do. I go everything through Airbnb.
05:50:06
Okay. Right on. Is there, is there anything that you do that has helped your guests leave positive reviews
05:50:14
Yourself and you know, what, what you do of course, but you know, as soon as they leave that asks you how to just do this guests do is so go ahead and review them. Right. Right. Then and there, because will give them a notification to also review that. Right. And so I’m also, I have an automated check-in process, like, so I saved my messages. Like, you know, you can save like a draft of different things that you’d like frequently asked questions. So I save all those responses. Let’s save responses. So as soon as I get a booking, I hit, thanks for booking, you know, my little script, you know, you’re going to get, you know, we, we value you as a guest and your experience is very important to us. You know, you’re going to get a door code, but they have the day of a date of arrival.
05:50:59
You have wifi, you know, all those, you know, just a canned message, right. At the very end of it. It says, you know, we look forward to earning your five star review. So you’re kind of programming them, you know, indirectly to, to leave you that five star review. I mean, of course you have to live up to that as a host, but now it’s holding both of you guys accountable. You want the five star review. So you’re going to do what you, what you, what you can to make that happen. That experience happened for the guests and the guests, 99% of the time, we’ll leave you that five star review.
05:51:30
So, so after, after they review, you just send them, you leave them a review right away, and just kind of hope that they review you back. Or is there anything that you do specifically?
05:51:40
I know there’s opportunities out there for third party software that reminds them to leave you a review and all that. But honestly, I haven’t had it have to do that. Like, it’s just a little bit more com complex. That’s adding complexity to your business. I just haven’t had a reason to do that so far. I mean, I have 90% of my, my customers leave me a review. And out of that, 90% of those people leave me a five star review. So yeah, I haven’t had a problem.
05:52:09
Okay. And is there any particular products that you use in your units that, that you, that you absolutely have to have, like maybe it’s a door lock or a particular type of, you know, that, that quick drawing sheet or something? Yeah.
05:52:21
Yes, yes, absolutely. So what I do, I put nest cams up on the outside of my house. So I make it very obvious. There is a camera looking at you when you walk in it, may people might say, oh, that’s weird. That’s going to make me feel weird. What, it’s not like I have that, you know, if you have to disclose that, you know, of course, no inside cameras, but on the outside you have to let them know what your cameras out. Right. So what that allows them to do, like, I even put in the listing, I have 24 7 video, you know, outside for your protection and for, you know, just general questions you may have, you can even communicate with me through the, through that. So, but allows me to check occupancy. Who’s coming in. If they’re like, cause I charge per person in my listings and they’re not having like 20 people walking in my door when they only had two people in the booking. So it allows me to see who’s check who’s coming in. That’s very, very crucial for me because after you scale this business, you want to be able to see like a snapshot of all your, so excuse me. I have, you know, right now I’m working with six properties opening up three more this year, opening up one next week. So being able to, you know, see a snapshot of everything is very, very, it’s like a peace of mind. So I definitely recommend the Nat scams.
05:53:45
That’s good. That’s good. If you could give one piece of advice to someone who’s trying to start their Airbnb business, what would that be?
05:53:53
I would, I would know that this is a full-time commitment. Okay. So you have to tell yourself, okay, well it’s not the money sounds great. You know, you can get three times as much rent as you can out of a, just a regular tenant, but this is a long-term commitment for you and the guests because these guests are looking your property to have. I mean, it’s a piece of mindset, especially when you have instant book on, they’re going to instantly look your place and know that they’re going to get a quality that they feel like they deserve. And they’re used to with Airbnb, are you ready to provide that? Yeah. If you’re not, I wouldn’t do the business because I like doing that. Like I’m passionate about it. I want to give that to my guests and you really have to know that this isn’t something that you just get into and then you get out because you’ll have bookings. And if you decide to cancel and you don’t, you don’t want to do Airbnb anymore. Well, those bookings will be canceled and you’re going to, you know, you might ruin somebody as graduation. You might mean you don’t know like why they booked your place. And so you have to give it to your, to your guests. I mean, they deserve when they book your place to have that experience. And if you’re not ready to do it, then don’t do it.
05:55:03
No, that that’s great. Yeah. Lots of people, they, they, they, you know, they build their whole plans, their whole trip, their whole experience around your unit, your, your place that, that you’re offering. And then if you decide like, Hey, I’m not going to provide that quality service will, you know, maybe you just ruin someone’s whole trip, their graduation, or an experience. And that, you know, that that kind of rests on your hands. Is there, is there one house rule that has saved you before?
05:55:29
So one area of growth I should probably do is sign stricter house rules, but I kind of not, I haven’t had any problems except twice they had a family reunion and they had over 40, 50 people at my house. And it took me like two to three days to clean my property. Lost, lost a lot of revenue on that. But, you know, I would say the nest cam, when I added the nest cam and told them, Hey, like from the beginning, what’s your, the reason of your trip. And they only have one, so red flags, they live in your city, but they want to have a get together at your, your property in the same city. And they just booked it like today, the day of, or the night before it’s a red flag. Watch out for those red flags, make sure that it’s this legit and ask them, call them up when they book it for call on. Okay, I’m glad you booked, this is almond. Your Airbnb hosts. Can you tell me a little bit about what’s going on and the reason for your booking? And so when they tell you, you know, you have to be able to sniff out those, you know, party throwers or yeah. So just by experience, I would definitely watch out for those. Okay.
05:56:47
And where do you see short-term rentals in the future?
05:56:52
I think this is going to be widely adopted pretty quickly, just like Uber has been. And I think market share wise, we just surpassed all of Hilton in the United States. So we as Americans spend more money on Airbnb stays than we do at the Hilton. So that’s mind blowing to me and the, the ramp, the curve going upwards, it’s catching up to Marriott, which is number one right now. So I think the next year, two years will be the number one way to step, stay in travel. So I don’t think it’s going to go anywhere. I think you need to be careful about local bylaws and kind of work with them, go to the city and make sure that you guys can do that in your area because you don’t want to put all your eggs in one basket and then, then change a local bylaw to where you can do Airbnb in your market. So it’s better to have a place that already has those laws in place. And you’re working with the local laws. And as long as you’re doing that and you’re scaling and you’re automating the business, I think, you know where you want to get off, man. It’s like the sky, Scott’s your limit. And you don’t have, you know, think big dream and be able to scale this business to where you want it to be. And you can do anything you want to with Airbnb.
05:58:23
Well, I’m, I’m really excited to see where, where are you going to be going online? And, you know, I hope, I hope that I I’m sure that your units and your aspirations are going to take you a while outside of Harrisburg, but I think you’re doing great things in Harrisburg right now. Is there any way that people can reach you if they have any questions or want to about
05:58:38
Sure, absolutely. You can, you know, email me at Aman, a M L a N. That’s almond, my first name, a M L a N at maitre properties. So M I T R a Metra properties.com. That’s my email address. And pretty soon I’m going to have a website for your str.com. That’s going to be my future project of like consultation and doing some, helping people, optimizing their company, their Airbnb. So look forward to that.
05:59:10
Yeah. I’ll, I’ll put everything in the show notes. I’ll put the, put your site when it comes available. Just send me a, send me an email and I’ll include your email and also your listings guys, check out, check out almonds listings, let you know, look at, look at the quality of his properties. You know, just see the level that he’s able to provide and how he’s able to stand out. Because, you know, there’s, there’s a lot that you can learn from just looking at the properties of the hosts that are on the show and seeing what they’re doing, because they, they lay it all out there and it’s available for you. If you want to, you know, take bits and pieces here and there to kind of make your listing better. You know, that’s the beauty of Airbnb is it’s, it’s a open platform and, and, you know, we’re, we’re all here to help each other.
05:59:50
Brilliant. Yeah. Please feel free to link any of my properties or anything like that in the description. So people can, can see that, you know, it’s, I’m open book and any type of questions you have don’t feel, I mean, feel free to call me or text me.
06:00:04
Definitely I’ll do that. And so, yeah, it was, it was a great pleasure. Thank you so much, Alan, for taking the time out of your busy schedule to, to educate the listeners and, and help out the host nation until next time posts, keep on hosting, hope your hosts benefit from the show. If you found value, please go on over to iTunes or Stitcher, leave a review and let us know what you enjoy about the show. If you’d like to talk to the hosts that have been featured in these episodes, as well as the host nation, then going over to our Facebook group, short term rental success secrets, talk to your hosts and the next step sewed, keep on.
