Security cameras for your short term rentals

Security cameras are important aspect of your short term rentals because they help you in many ways. Using a security camera can help you better support your business. 

In this episode of Vacation Rental Machine, Jon Bell and Julian Sage talk about which security camera professionals are using in their short term rental listings. 

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Full Interview Transcript

Julian Sage:                         00:00                     In this episode we’re talking all about smart locks and which one is the best for you. So stay tuned.

Julian Sage:                         00:08                     Vacation rental machine helps hosts just like you learn how to start, grow and scale your short term rental business. The show is all about creating systems that help you automate your business, give any more time and money freedom. If you’re ready to start living the vacation rental life that subscribed to this podcast today, come and join us on our Facebook group, the Host Nation, where we’ll be talking about starting automating and scaling a short term rental business. Now onto the show.

Julian Sage:                         00:33                     Hey, welcome back host nation to another episode of vacation rental machine. In this episode, we are talking all about smart locks. Smart locks, these are things that everybody is always talking about, which is the best smart lock. Well, lucky for you, we have the answer. So smart locks is one of those things that you should be putting in all of your units. Now, I know there’s a lot of debate on WiFi going out and not being able to access the home or having to change the guests codes. Or people are always saying, Oh, you should just use the old fashioned, hide the key underneath the little rock or put it into the little combo thing and then your cleaning staff might be able to change the codes for you. And also apartment complexes, apartment complexes, they might not allow you to be able to put in smart locks.

Julian Sage:                         01:16                     And that was something that we talked about before in one of the previous episodes where we’re talking about what you’re looking for when you go into an apartment complex, if you are going to be doing rental arbitrage, but smart locks are a very important part of your vacation rental machine because they help you to be able to manage keys. They help you to be able to allow people into property that only should be, and keep people from coming in that shouldn’t be. So Jon, lots of debate over smart locks, but I think you have found one of the best smart locks. Can you explain why you think that this smart lock is so good for this type of business?

Jon Bell:                               01:52                     Smart locks are just so important for this business. We have a lot of turning that we’re doing. We’ve got people checking in, we’ve got people checking out. We’ve got cleaners coming in. If we had keys to handoff doing each one of these scenarios, beyond a doubt, it will get lost doing somebody’s step. And then what happens?

Jon Bell:                               02:11                     If you have a key and the guest loses the key or takes it with them and they’re on the plane, you’re messaging them. What are you going to end up doing? You’re going to end up either giving them spare key or copy, but how do you know that guests left? How do you know they’re not planning on coming back and you’ve got another guest in there. Now, you have a safety issue. Smart locks prevents things like that. Why do you need a smart lock? It’s because one it makes the guest experience a lot easier.

Jon Bell:                               02:36                     You don’t have to go in and meet them. If they’re saying, “Hey, I land at 10 o’clock,” but they actually don’t get to the property at one o’clock. Are you going to sit there and wait until they get there? I hope not, but if you are, that’s on you. If you’ve got a smart lock in place, they can check in at any time. You could look at the access log and find exactly when they went in and when they went out. Now, which one do I prefer? Right now, I am using August locks. I find that it’s easier for me to go ahead and link my listings directly to Airbnb and it automatically generates those codes for me. I don’t have to go into the backend to generate those codes or anything that way. Right. It’s just done. As soon as it books, they get an email.

Jon Bell:                               03:16                     If they don’t get an email, all they gotta do is connect the app to Airbnb and therefore they’re in. Of course, there is some little inconvenience. They either have to download the app to get in, but I provide at least two modes of access for my guests. That could either be the app or a key pad or a physical key. In some scenarios in my rental arbitrage units where I’m in the big place and I don’t want people to know that my unit is just different from theirs. I allow my guests to check in remotely via the app, so they initially opened the door with the app. Once they get in, they have the choice whether they want to use the physical key that’s hanging on the wall or continue to use the app. And the majority of all my other places, I use keypads and apps. It’s only those two. There is no physical keys. I actually am very bad with keys and to think if I was going to be walking around with all these keys to all these units, I’d look like a janitor and that’s not what I, yeah, I mean who wants to really organize all these keys?

Julian Sage:                         04:21                     Now what Jon said with that one, the service that August does do, which is to be able to automatically change the code. I’ve actually heard some stories of people that didn’t change the code because it is very kind of cumbersome. I use the Schloss right now for one of my basement units and I have to actually go in and I have to go into the smart things hub and I have to do everything on the back end to change the code and then I have to change the code in the welcome message. And it really just kind of is a pain that I honestly, I don’t like changing the code and I don’t change it as often as I should just because it’s another step that I have to take. So what’s nice about the August is that you can automatically change that code. It just does it through the Airbnb app, saves you a lot of headache. But one of the other things that keeps people from wanting to get smart locks is the fear of like wifi going out. So Jon, if the wifi goes out, are people gonna be able to get into the home even if they do have that keypad?

Jon Bell:                               05:15                     All right. I don’t know how technical you want me to get here, but if anybody is familiar with RSA keys or just any type of encryption keys in general, you have a way around wifi not being there. If I grant a guest access from my phone to their phone, I then give them a key that the lock can recognize to allow them entry. This can happen with the power outage, with a wifi outage. Any type of thing can go down and my guests can still get in, so that was also very important and the reason why I went with the type of lock that I did. There are other smart locks that are still very good. There’s still nest, but nest did not connect to Airbnb. There’s also a smart things that ties into Alexa and all those other things. Well, they don’t automate the codes or anything through Airbnb, so that’s why I chose August. My guests can still get in with the wifi out or whatever. One of the other keys that I didn’t bring up is if somebody cancels a reservation same day where they did have access, well August, will go in and cancel their access before I can even go in and cancel it, so that’s important to me. I want to make sure that if you canceled, you don’t have access or you’re just not going to be in the room.

Julian Sage:                         06:30                     Now one thing that Jon did mention that I want to bring up again that is very important is that when you use a smart lock, it tells you exactly when people are coming and going into the unit and you can track who that person is. Now this is important because when let’s say someone is coming in and out of the property and it seems maybe strange, maybe you get a notification or maybe you can look at the history. If you pair this with a ring camera or some type of security camera and you can see maybe notifications of people coming in now and then you can check the door lock. This is also proof that there might be a party going on or that there is some type of strange behavior that really is not normal. You can also check when people are coming in at odd times, like maybe someone is coming into the property when they shouldn’t be. These are all things that really make a smart lock really stand out and help you to be able to operate your business professionally rather than opposed to just the little dial combo with the key inside.

Jon Bell:                               07:30                     Yeah. Julian, you said it best. We’re able to track many different things, right? We’re able to track enter and exit. I’m able to put together things or clues on what exactly is going on. I can’t have cameras inside of the unit, but like you said, I could have one externally. In the rare case that I don’t have one on the outside of the unit, I could couple my entry access along with the door open and closing along with my NoiseAware along with maybe even the thermostat turning on and off just by somebody walking right beside it. I used nest there. So when you’re there, it automatically can just turn on. I can piece all of this stuff together to kind of get a better clue at what’s going on inside the unit. So if there’s a party, if I see the door opening and closing at super late hours, and I see the NoiseAware go up, that tells me there’s something really going on here and I really either need to get on top of it right now.

Jon Bell:                               08:26                     All right hosts, today’s question of the day. How are you allowing people to check into your place? Are you using smart locks or not? Leave your comments down below.

Julian Sage:                         08:39                     And until next time, host nation, keep on hosting. Hope you hosts found value in this episode. If you did, please go on over to iTunes and leave us a review that would greatly support the show. If you’d like to connect with Jon the community, and I, then go on over to our Facebook group, the host nation,

Julian Sage:                         08:55                     Talk to you hosts in the next episode. Keep on hosting.

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