STRSS 01 – Financial independence through Airbnb in 8 months w/ Brianna Beets

Video Transcript

00:00:00

You should always ask the question, not who wants to clean or who is a cleaner, you should ask. Does anyone have recommendations because you definitely want someone who’s been recommended by someone else and not recommended by themselves.

00:00:14

This is episode number one of Airbnb success stories. Welcome back to Airbnb success stories. I’m your host, Julian Miyata. This is a show where I talk to hosts about their journeys and starting and growing a short-term rental business. My goal is that you’ll be able to walk away with practical information that will help you become a better host and learn how to scale your business. Since we are new podcast reviews would greatly help us grow. So please go on over to iTunes, Stitcher, YouTube, wherever you’re actively listening. And please leave us an honest review and we’ll feature it on the next step. Sowed, whether it’s positive or constructive today, I had the pleasure of speaking with Brianna beets who worked in HR prior to becoming a full time Airbnb host in less than eight months of starting on the platform, Brianna, with the support of her husband and two toddlers, Lucas and Allie currently run four single family homes and help manage three others.

00:01:02

All located in McComb. Michigan, Brianna has built up a team of three cleaners along with having a handyman and plumber on hand. This was an amazing one-on-one with Brianna because she dropped so many knowledge bombs from working with project managers all the way up to starting and scaling a rental arbitrage business. So if you want my show notes and you want to just look and see what I was talking about in this interview, go on over to Airbnb S s.com. That’s Airbnb Sierra sierra.com. And you can see my summary of the notes that I got from the show. But anyways, onto the interview, let the audience know a little bit about who you are and what inspired you to get into short-term rental.

00:01:44

Yeah, absolutely. So my name is Brianna. We actually had our first property. We lived in Georgia. My husband took a job transfer. We were moving to Michigan and we had built this gorgeous custom home. And both of our babies came home from the hospital in the home. So it was very sentimental, probably not very realistically smart, but I just couldn’t bring myself to sell this home. And so we had a friend who was Airbnb in their basement and they were making enough to pay their entire mortgage payment plus some. And so we started doing some research. We looked at our area, what kind of things would draw people? And we said, okay, we think that this is a good property that we can Airbnb. So we just went all in and decided to go for it. We hired a property management company cause we were moving to Michigan.

00:02:27

So we knew that we couldn’t take care of it. And the property did very well. And we really enjoyed it. Now. It was definitely a hands-off approach because the property manager was dealing with kind of the day-to-day grind. So when we got to Michigan, we said, okay, let’s we have two small kids. We said, let’s not do this anymore. I don’t want to go back to work. My husband said, okay, well, if you want to stay home, you have to contribute financially. So you’re going to have to do something. And so he said, well, do you want more Airbnbs? And we decided that was a great idea. It worked for our family. And so we started looking and we went out and we got our first Airbnb here and it’s been fabulous because I get to take my kids with me. They get to stay home with me. I get to spend time with them. We don’t have a nanny anymore. They’re not in daycare all day. So it’s really allowed us to do more as a family as well.

00:03:14

Well, so that’s you heard from someone that was a friend that was renting out their basement and they were able to pay for their mortgage. And on top of that have a little bit extra and you just said, let’s, let’s do this. Let’s let’s just rent out our whole home, even though we’re moving all the way across the state, you know, all the way across the U S to Michigan from Georgia. And you’re just gonna, you’re gonna wing it. Did you have any experience, like, did you know like how to set up your house rules or like how, how, how did you find the pro like that’s, that’s, that’s a big undertaking to just kind of like leave that and move. How did you, how did you start? Like

00:03:52

Surely we found the property management company. So that was our first, we knew there was no way we could manage it. So we needed someone who was experienced. So we found a property management company, my husband, he actually interviewed several of them and he found one where they said, okay, these are our rules. And they’re standard for every property. If you have something specific, you’d like to add, we can. But they kind of went through like what they did, how they managed everything. And we were like, okay, this is it. This is we’re going to go with them. And then they gave me a list and they said, these are the things your property has to have. You know, there’s some extras you can have. There’s some things you definitely can’t have. And here you go. And so we went through and, you know, we were adding to the property as we were also moving personal items out.

00:04:33

So it was kind of a fun time trying to sort through all of that, but we got the property ready and we really just kind of handed it over to them. And thank God we had amazing neighbors who, when things went south or, you know, there was an issue where super nice. And instead of calling the police, they sent us a text or called us and said, Hey, you might want to check on this. And so then we would get the property management company involved. So part of it was probably luck, but definitely having someone who knew what they were doing helped us in the beginning, because we were at the mercy of them. We couldn’t just, you know, it’s like a four hour plane ride to get back there.

00:05:12

So with, with the property manager that you’re working with, because there’s so many Airbnbs out there, how were you able to, were you able to make income off of that? Or how, how, how was that?

00:05:25

Yeah, so we actually, our area that we were in, again, we did a lot of research on the area, Airbnbs, what was available, you know, what made, what could stand out, what would make our Airbnb make someone want to book that versus another place and the area that we were in didn’t have a lot of new builds. So most of the homes were outdated. Housing prices are still very, very high. And so we had this brand new house, it was a custom house. It was gorgeous. And so we said, okay, we think that if people were to come to this area, they would want to stay in our house because it’s nice. But then we were still left with, okay, what are people coming to this area for? And so we started looking up, you know, different events, like just trying to get a handle on why people were coming.

00:06:10

We talked to our friend who had guests a lot. We asked them, you know what, when people come to stay at your house, why are they here? And we actually found out we, our house was about 20 minutes from where the walking dead was filmed. So I’m sure most people know that TV show and Hollywood has actually moved a ton of their filming to a movie studio about 10 minutes from our house there. And so, you know, living there, it doesn’t really impact us. We never got to meet anyone famous. So we didn’t think about it. And then when our friends said that, we were like, oh my gosh, there’s people coming in all the time to work on these films. Marvel does all of their filming there. All of star wars was filmed there. So we were like, this is a perfect location. We’re going to do this. And so we did, and we like our very first guests were, I think it was like five guys. They’re filming a movie and they booked our house for like 35 days.

00:07:02

Wow. 35 days. And so you did your market research, found out why people would want to stay at your place. And you quickly found out through that research that the walking dead was shot right there. And that was attracting a lot of tourists. So now a lot of the people that were staying at your place were just tourists that wanted to film or be near the walking dead because that’s a really popular TV show. 

00:07:24

Yeah. We did have some tourists, but mostly it was people who were actually like involved in the filming. And so it didn’t make sense for them to have a house there because they film, you know, for two months a year and then they’re done. And there weren’t a lot of hotels in that area, there wasn’t room to build more houses. Right. So then they started having these influx of directors and different people who were trying to move in and there was nowhere for them to live. And so then we started getting people who were moving here to work at the studio, but they needed a place to stay until they could find permanent housing or, you know, a rental came available. And so then we started getting bookings like that. So a lot of our bookings were actually longer bookings. Like I think our average was like two and a half weeks

00:08:09

Because people were filming and they needed a place to stay with their whole crew.

00:08:12

Exactly.

00:08:14

Okay. Now working with the property manager, I think that it’s something that maybe a lot of people might be interested in because like for you, you’re moving your out of state people that are out of state, they can’t manage their properties. Is, is working with a property manager, as easy as just calling one up. And then, then they start like, you know, you start making money or how does that process work when you are finding a property manager and trying to have a hands-off approach, but still trying to optimize your, your, your, your,

00:08:43

Yeah, absolutely. So definitely it was a lot of work. It was, you know, my husband, we joked that he had a second job babysitting the property manager. You can do as much research. I mean, you can research all day and it’s still you, you’re never 100% sure how it’s going to turn out. Right. I would say definitely if you’re looking for a property management company for us, the biggest thing that we were missing was local people boots on the ground. So this property management company worked all over the us and they weren’t a bad company, but they didn’t have local people. So they were hiring cleaning companies just strictly over the phone. They’d never met them. There was no one to come in and double check on that and say, okay, yeah, this property is clean correctly. So I would say definitely you can research, but the best way to find a good property management company is to talk to other people, right?

00:09:39

If they have reviews like cyber stock, whoever left the review and ask them what their personal experience was, because it was, it was a mini job in itself, just kind of babysitting them. And then we were also with the property management company at the same time that Airbnb switched away from the co-hosting, payout’s going to the cohost. So then that was fun because our property management company was scrambling, trying to figure out how to pay all of their clients. And so we had like a month period where we were still paying the bills, paying the mortgage, and we weren’t seeing any payouts. And so it was like a daily, okay. Where are you guys at with this? You know, you owe us X amount. Now this guest has left. Now you us X amount. And we even got to the point where the cleaners weren’t getting paid. And so the cleaners were calling us saying, Hey, we’d like to be paid. And we were like, we don’t know you, we’ve never interacted with you that the property management company handles this. So I would definitely just recommend do your research, but also when you’re looking for a property management company, like now I know I would, the first thing I would ask is who do you have local, what are your procedures for finding someone local? Do you have boots on the ground? In my area.

01:10:50

Awesome. Great, great tips. And where, where did you find your property manager? Did you have a friend or, or how did you find them?

01:10:57

You don’t, my husband found them and I don’t know for sure, but I want to say it was probably Google. Like I, I remember him telling me they had like the best, better business bureau rating. So I think that he just found them online because there weren’t a lot of Airbnbs in our area. And of course being new to this, we didn’t know, like we, weren’t a part of different groups online or different chat forums where we could talk to other hosts. So we were just kind of winging it. Right.

01:11:27

And this property manager that, that your husband found, was it like a Airbnb specific or was it general rentals?

01:11:33

No, it was specific to short-term rentals.

01:11:36

Okay. So they, they handled all the messages between the customers. They handled the cleaners, they handled the handyman, they handle the payouts and, and you were still how much, and you were still able to make an income off of that property.

01:11:49

Yeah. So they actually took 20%. They had different tiers that you could pay. Like you could pay 10% and get, you know, these features are 12% get these features and their top tier was 20%. And so we went with that and we were still cash flowing after all expenses, anywhere between like 500 and a thousand dollars a month.

01:12:11

Completely, completely passive. Yup.

01:12:13

While babysitting the property manager a little bit, but mostly passive. Yup.

01:12:17

And did, did you have to fire a property manager before? Or how many property managers did it take you to find the one that you were able to keep working with?

01:12:25

They were our first property manager, actually that property we no longer have, again, this goes back to finding, you know, boots on the ground, in your area. There were some issues going on with the property that they weren’t aware of. And of course we weren’t aware of. And so we had a homeowners association, but we had looked through all of the rules before we started our Airbnb. And it did say that you couldn’t do business out of your home, but we went and spoke to a lawyer who said, well, you know, you could probably fight it. Why don’t you give it a shot and see what happens? And if they push back, then this is what it is. So after a couple of issues with the property manager, not being quite what we had hoped for what we had expected, we did get some notices from the HOA. And they finally said, you need to take your listing down. And so rather than try to go to court and fight it, we loved all of our neighbors. We could see that this could potentially impact them, and we didn’t want to sever those relationships or burn those bridges. So we ended up parting ways with the property management company and we sold that house.

01:13:27

Wow. So you moved all the way up to Michigan, just so that you could keep on doing Airbnb because you didn’t want to be in an HOA environment anymore.

01:13:35

Bought our house here. I mean, we moved here for my husband’s job, but when we were looking for houses, we said, there’s no way that we’re going to purchase a home in an HOA. So w which was kind of hard cause we have small kids. So I really wanted a subdivision where they could have friends close by, you know, ride bikes. We got lucky in our current house has, it’s a large subdivision. It’s like five subdivisions mashed together. And there are two streets that the HOA lapsed. And so the owners like several years ago and the owners never reinstated it. So we have one of the like 15 houses that doesn’t have an HOA in this entire neighborhood. So as soon as we heard that, we were like, we’re done, we’re taking that one.

01:14:15

So you’re, you’re also renting out the house that you live in as well.

01:14:18

We’re not currently the one that we live in. We’re not, but we just knew based on our previous experience, like we want the potential to, to be able to have that as an option, if we want to. Right. We didn’t ever want to have to deal with a homeowner’s association and you know, the Airbnb or business or whatever issues could arise. We were like, we’re done. We’re just, we’ll never have one again.

01:14:39

Oh, you’ve, you’ve had quite the journey all the way from Georgia to Michigan. That’s that sounds like a lot. So what was the most challenging part of growing your Airbnb business? And when we spoke previously, before the recording, you, you told me that you currently have four units, four single-family homes that you’re doing rental arbitrage out of. So you sold your first unit in Georgia, which was, which was your home. And then you moved to Michigan and you purchased your home that you currently have a mortgage on, but you’re also renting out single family homes, doing the rental arbitrage approach. What was the most challenging part of, of this whole process?

01:15:18

For me, it was definitely delegating and building a team because I know not everyone has this personality, but I was so terrified. Like what if the cleaner messes up this one thing? And then the guest gives us a terrible review and we can never get rid of that review. And then no one will want to stay with us. And my mind just like constantly skipped ahead to all of these what ifs. And so my husband kept saying, you need a team, you need a good cleaner, that’s reliable that you can trust. And part of it was, you know, we had to go through a few before we found, you know, the right team. And it was a completely new area. I’ve never lived in Michigan, never been to Michigan. So that was hard because I didn’t know anyone. It wasn’t like I could, you know, call my best friend and say, Hey, do you know anyone or ask my coworkers at work? Do you know anyone who cleans Airbnbs or might be interested? So finding that team was, I would say the biggest growing pain that we had.

01:16:14

And how, how did you create that team? Because I know that that’s intimidating for a lot of people like myself, I’m currently renovating my basement and you know, I work full-time, my wife works full time. So we’re, we’re, we’re thinking like, should we get a property manager? You know, should we just use Google? Like, you know, the services that find you, the cleaning people, how, how did you create a team that you could take and scale up so that when you started getting more, more units that you were able to, to delegate that?

01:16:42

Yeah. So we actually, our team has come from different various avenues. I had a couple of cleaners that I found because I just got on local Facebook groups and said, Hey, does anyone know anyone or anyone want to clean? And they were people who said, yeah, I want to clean. I clean. And so they came and I learned through that. You should always ask the question, not who wants to clean or who is a cleaner, you should ask. Does anyone have recommendations because you definitely want someone who’s been recommended by someone else and not recommended by themselves. So that was kind of how we found the first one or the first couple that didn’t work out. And then I actually did through Facebook as well. I found another cleaner who was an Airbnb host as well. She just had one property and she was going to be moving back into her property.

01:17:33

So taking it off of Airbnb while they looked for a new home. So she said, I’m looking to supplement my income. I can definitely clean. So I got on her listing. I found it, it was adorable. It was clean. She didn’t have any negative reviews about cleaning. I was like, okay, perfect. You can clean my house. Thank you so much. So I found her and then we started adding more units and I realized I needed more. And so I actually started going to Rio meetings. So for those of you who don’t know, those are real estate investor meetings, pretty much every area has one. I’m sure there’s one within an hour of you locally. And as Airbnb gets bigger and it gains more traction, they start, and these investor groups, they start to kind of recognize Airbnb and people start going to them, these meetups.

01:18:19

And so my husband and I were going to those and I ended up finding some other people, just, you know, talking through them that said, Hey, this is how I advertise. Or, you know, I know someone. And so through those meetups, I was able to get referrals for some more. And then I also had someone at one of those meetings who said, I found my cleaners on an app and I, I think it’s called turnover, BNB. And so I was like, okay, well I can download an app. So I downloaded the app and I had found my third cleaner. And I was like, oh my gosh, she was perfect. She does a great job. She cleans for several people. And so I said, okay. And then brought her on board. And now she is one of my regular cleaners.

01:19:01

And you would actually recommend using one of these apps that are usually advertised to Airbnb hosts.

01:19:06

If I got lucky or she was the only person that I spoke to several people, and she was the only one that I could finally come out of my comfort zone and say, okay. And definitely what I would recommend if you go that route, I did not give her a code. If you have an electronic lock or a key or whatever, I did not let her into the property herself. I met her there and her first two cleans, I was there with her so that I could not only teach her, but also you just don’t want to invite a stranger into your, you know, your home or your business. And so I did that and then the next couple of cleans, I would come in and check after she was done and make sure that things were good and she has been fabulous. So I would definitely just say, be careful if you use those apps. I think they can be a great resource, but you shouldn’t just trust anyone, you meet off of an app or Facebook or anywhere.

02:20:01

Okay. And then you mentioned the Facebook groups where you going to Airbnb specific local groups, or how, how are you finding them through the,

02:20:08

I actually got on Facebook, you know, you can get, there’s like a search bar and I just searched Airbnb and then went to the groups. And I think I just went through and added like every single group short-term rental university has been my favorite by far. I, there was a one local group which someone had started. And so I joined that group as well, and they ended up having a meetup and I went for lunch with them and met them partially because it’s great to know other hosts in your area. Like we have all helped each other and it’s been fabulous. And partially because I’m so new to the area, like I just needed recommendations for everything. Like who’s a good plumber. Who’s a good pest control person. Right. Can come and clean out my dryer vents. I had no idea who to trust or who to call. So

02:20:54

No, that’s, that’s a really good tip. And we actually just started, we’re actually just starting our first meetup group for Airbnb hosts in the DC, Maryland area. So I think it’s a really good idea to meet with other people that are in the Airbnb space, because then you can get those referrals. People might be able to share with you that the people that they’ve used the cleaners, the handyman, because that’s a lot building a team of handymen and stuff like that. You know, we have a handyman right now and, and you know, we we’re, we, we had to test and see like if it was going to work and that can be expensive and it can be stressful. So that’s a really good tip to go to whatever your local REIA meetups or if you don’t have an Airbnb group, maybe make one so that you can get that, that personal connection. Are there, are there any specific things that you do to set your properties apart?

02:21:44

I don’t know. So I guess in the beginning I thought that I was really unique because I offered like a goodie basket and you know, if they’re coming in for a specific event, I’ll try to leave something nice. And then I realized that pretty much every hubs does that. So it’s not super unique. But one thing that I do is all of my properties. I try to have a theme for them. So that really sets them apart because you can look at, you know, five listings in an area and they could all have really nice furniture. But if there’s not something that catches your eye or it makes you think I really want to stay there, it’s going to boil down to price. If they’re all available, they’re in the same area. You know, if all of these other factors are the same, it’s going to come down to price.

02:22:25

And I didn’t want to be the person who was, I didn’t want to be the host that people booked with because I had the lowest price. And so I like, I have one that has a total farmhouse theme. It’s super cute. I have another one that is all travel themes. So one bedroom is all Paris. One is London. One is New York, my husband and I love to travel around the world. We, we try to hit a new country every year. So I went through our house and gathered different knickknacks that we had brought home from Greece and Italy and Costa Rica and, and all of these places. And I put them in that Airbnb too. So I get a lot of comments that people say like, it’s so fun. I love these things, you know, where can I get on? And then my, I have another property that I it’s my most recent one.

02:23:11

And I don’t know if any of you have seen, like the industrial pipe look is super popular right now. And I got on Pinterest and fell in love with it and wanted it in my house. And my husband said, absolutely not. I’m not paying for you to redecorate our house. So I said, well, then I’ll just get an Airbnb and do that. So not whole Airbnb kind of has that industrial revolution kind of feel to it. I’ve made several pieces by hand go Pinterest. And so I’ve actually all of my guests who have stayed there so far have said they love the decor. I’ve had several try to buy pieces from me. And I think that that really helps a lot because when people are going through, it’s not just, yeah, that’s a pretty place, you know, it’s got granite countertops, it looks clean. It’s oh my gosh, that would be so cool to stay in.

02:23:54

That is really cool that you’re able to take your passion and the things that interest you for the travels and stuff. And it’s funny that your, your husband says, no, we’re not doing the industrial team. It does, it doesn’t fit our home. You’re just like, well, I’m going to, I’m going to make my own Airbnb and I’ll make it exactly what I, how I want it. And that’s the, that’s the beautiful part about Airbnb is that you can make it, who, you know, that whatever represents you. And that’s really cool that you found that to be the unique, unique part that sets your properties apart. Now, you mentioned you don’t want to set the lowest price. Why don’t you want to have the lowest price place?

02:24:28

So we have played with price so much. I’m sure many other hosts have done the same thing, trying to figure out what the correct price point is, what happens when you go too low, too high. And we have found that nearly every single one of our major issues that we’ve had with guests has come when we’ve had discounted days. So those are typically for us in our area. They’re like Tuesday, Wednesday, sometimes Monday night, middle of the week. And so we would set them down to like 60 or $70 a night. And these are three bedroom, two bath homes. So you can fit eight to 10 people in them. I have one that sleeps 15, and we would literally put that down to 75 and like, see what happens. Right? And you just get a different clientele when every other house in your area is going for 200 a night and yours is at 75.

02:25:16

You’re going to end up with a different class of guests than you would at 200. So we no longer do that. We just have the mindset that, you know, what, if it stays empty, it stays empty. We have a certain price point that we don’t drop below. We will discount if it gets closer. Like I think next week I have like Tuesday, Wednesday open at one of my properties. So I just went in and lowered those prices, but I won’t go below a certain price, no matter what, I’ll just let it sit empty because it’s worth not having to deal with the headache of having to go over there at four o’clock in the afternoon when the guests were supposed to leave at 11 or going in and finding the place trashed. And what’s really helped to eliminate a lot of those issues.

02:25:58

So how are you able to get people to stay at your place if it’s more expensive than the other ones?

02:26:05

So we, I really believe that location is a huge part of it. We tried to pick locations that were central to any of the reasons that we thought would bring people to this area. In addition to that traffic in Detroit and, and even in the suburbs of Detroit is horrendous and drivers are a little crazy and sometimes mean. So we tried to pick places that were close to a main road so that they could easily get somewhere. They wouldn’t have to deal with off streets and getting lost. And we just try to put as much information as we can in our listing. So we tell them what’s close by. We give them an estimate of, you know, it takes eight minutes to get to the zoo. It takes 20 minutes to get to Detroit airport. And then we, another thing that we do is we have automated messages that go out to our guests and this doesn’t always attract the bookings, but once they book, I think it helps with our return guests, which we do get a lot of.

02:27:05

And we say, we’re here for you. No matter what, like we would love to help you. We’re just constantly interacting with the guests. And it’s nice because it’s just a message. So if they want to be left alone, they don’t have to read the message or they read it and they don’t have to respond. Right. But we do get a lot who asks questions, where they say, you know, we, we feel like burgers, where’s the best burger place to go. And so we’re constantly sharing information. And the nice thing about those being automated is that I can be camping with my family and, you know, hanging out at the lake with my kids and spending time with them. And I’m still a great host because I’m not actually touching my phone, but those messages are going out and guests are pleased. So I think that really makes a big difference.

02:27:45

And those automated messages are coming through the Airbnb platform.

02:27:49

I think Airbnb, I thought I read that they just set something up. You can do saved responses. And I don’t know if they can do automated yet, but we actually tried out some of the different platforms that integrate with Airbnb. And we finally settled on one that we use now. And they are able to send all of the automated messages for us. We set them all up and now they go out.

02:28:11

And what, what platform is that we’re

02:28:13

Now using Guesty so we’ve had good luck that there’s definitely a learning curve. It was pretty tough to figure out in the beginning just because it was so new, but once it all got set up, I mean, it’s just an well-oiled machine. Now. I really, I was just telling my husband the other day, I really don’t talk to guests that much anymore.

02:28:33

I think, I think that’s really nice part of your journey is that you’ve been trying to figure out how to be as hands-off as you can. You know, you have the property manager, the first one that had everything for you. And when you moved, you said, you know, we’re going to handle this, but we also want to be able to automate it so that we don’t have to be involved with the low quality guests or the guests that are really needy. Not that you don’t want to help them, but you want to be able to create systems that can make it easier on you because you have a life and you have things that you you want to do as well. So what, what would you do differently if you had to start from scratch?

02:29:08

If I had to start over, I think I would probably my very first property. I kind of, because I do the rental arbitrage, I had the mindset of, I just need one property owner to tell me, yes, it doesn’t matter what the property is, where it is, what kind of condition it is. I just need someone to tell me. Yes. And I think I should have had a little more faith than myself. And so like my first property is we call it our problem child. It’s in a great area and it’s not a terrible house. It’s pretty par for the course in that area. But there’s just constantly things like a lot of elbow grease goes into keeping that house running. And so again, that’s where having the lease is amazing because when my lease is up, I know that I’m not going to keep that property because it’s not worth the time it takes away from my family to be over there fixing things.

02:29:57

So I would definitely say just having a little more confidence and, you know, picking a better location would have been huge and also putting my team in place early on what have been so much easier. Because again, I had that mindset that, well, we can’t really afford to bring anyone on, or I can’t, I can’t let them do this because it’ll mess up my reviews if they mess up and then my business won’t go anywhere. And it’s just not the case. Right? So even if you’re making, you know, hundred dollars, let’s say in your first month, that’s your profit after everything, how involved were you to earn that a hundred dollars, right? If it was something where you weren’t over there cleaning after every guest and dealing with some of the less glamorous aspects, then to me, that’s great. A hundred dollars earned right now. Maybe you could have earned 500 if you spent all that time, but you have the cost of your time as well.

03:30:55

Really, really awesome advice with, with that. Are there, are there any tools that you use to manage your properties?

03:31:02

Excel? I’m a huge, I use Guesty of which has been amazing, but then Excel is also amazing because I put in there, I have like a whole spreadsheet that I keep track of all of my guests who are coming and going when they check in, when they check out and before I got guests to eat, it was so nice because I was just texting my cleaners and telling them when guests were checking in, when the property needs needed turned and the Excel spreadsheet, I would just, I could be anywhere and I would pull it up on my phone and I’d say, okay, you know, we’ve got one tomorrow to the next day. And so I don’t know how I could’ve done it without I tracked all of the financials, you know, recurring expenses that I had. And my whole business would have been just horrible if I hadn’t kept track of those things.

03:31:49

And did you manually enter everything into Excel or did you have that audit automatically populate 

03:31:53

No, I still haven’t figured out how to automate that. So I was manually putting it all in. There are, I did set up like formulas and calculations in there, but as far as the reservations, I was entering those by hand. Okay.

03:32:07

And is there any product you couldn’t live without in your rentals that has saved you time and money?

03:32:13

Definitely. The smart locks. I don’t know how anyone, I see these posts with hosts who say, oh, I lost my key or the guests left with my key. And now what do I do? There’s no way, especially for me because you know, my rentals, they’re, they’re local, but they’re still a 35 minute drive and I got four of them. And so I cannot be running around trying to chase after keys or help against. And so my automated locks have been a huge lifesaver.

03:32:42

And which, which brand did you do? I know that there’s a big debate, always all the time about which smart lock should I use the nest. Should I use the slosh? Which one have you found the most useful with your, with your business?

03:32:54

I’ll tell you. I’ve tried to, I’ve had issues with both and I’ve had success with both. So I currently have one property that has the remote lock on it, and then I have one or no at my other three properties have the igloo home locks and they both have pros and cons. So it’s, it’s kind of a toss up.

03:33:16

Okay. And which one have you found the has, has been the most convenient for you?

03:33:21

So the remote lock, what I really like about it is they have an app and I’m sure every host gets the guests wanting early check-in. And so that’s another thing that I really try to accommodate. I never promised. So that’s, if a guest asks ahead of time, I say I never make promises because I don’t know what I’m walking into when there’s a turn, but I’ll do my best and I’ll let you know, as soon as the cleaner’s done. And so it’s nice because with remote lock, if a guest wants to check in at two o’clock and I have the availability, I just get in the app, I open it up and I changed the check-in time because all of the codes activate at your set check in time. I changed it to two o’clock it’s done. The guests can get in. I don’t have to worry about anything with my gate, flew home locks. I have to create a whole new code. So it’s not a five second process. And then I have to send the code to the guest and say, okay, disregard the other code. This is now your code.

03:34:14

I can see, I could see where the remote lock has been. Been pretty helpful with that. Yes. Okay. Is there anything that you do that has helped your guests leave? Positive reviews?

03:34:24

I interaction. I hear all the time. I’ve even, we stay in Airbnbs a lot. And so it’s amazing to me, how hosts will just not say anything like we’ll check in and we’ll never hear from them ever again. So I definitely tried my best to, you know, those automated messages. And another thing we do is not many people you’d be surprised at how many people who book with Airbnb. Aren’t really savvy with the app, or they don’t have the app. They just have the, the website that they use. And so it’s hard because you put your Wi-Fi information in there. You put all this information about trash in there, and there’s a good chance. They’re never going to look at it and you don’t want to bombard them with 8,000 messages. So like I have plaques in the house that had the wifi name on there. I have house manuals with information. I have like a little wall hanging in each house that has different information. So I try to keep all of the information that they would need readily available to them. And I think that that has really helped a lot too, because they’re not frustrated and reaching out when they’re already annoyed that they can’t find what they want.

03:35:31

Awesome. Really, really cool. The idea with leaving the plaques, I’ve thought about that, about leaving things like, Hey, you know, don’t use the white towels to use your makeup or the wifi password is this, you know, you might have everything in your Airbnb app and in the house manual and the check-in guide, but not everybody will, will, will do that. And then they’ll start messaging you and asking you, Hey, what’s this blah, blah, blah. And I can take up a lot of time is if, if you could give one piece of advice to someone who is trying to start their Airbnb business, what, what would that be?

03:36:04

My biggest advice to anyone is always be sweet as apple pie to Airbnb when you are dealing with them and you have a guest who has trashed your place, or even if you’re not, it’s not a guest issue, it’s something with your listing. If you are rude to whoever you’re speaking to with Airbnb, they’re not going to give you the time of day. And they do record all of your calls too, because I’ve had several times, they said I could, you know, I’ve called, I’ve said, Hey, I spoke to so-and-so and this is what they told me. And they say, let me go pull the recording and see. So it’s not, you’re not always just starting fresh when you call in. Right? So I, no matter how upset I am, how wrong I think they are about something. I am always extremely nice to them

03:36:45

I say, thank you so much for your time. I appreciate everything you’ve done. Even though there are times I think to myself, you have not done anything to help me right now. I’m just more confused. And I will tell you, like I hear about these guests who can’t get a review taken down that they feel is unfair, or, you know, there’ve been judgements that they felt were unfair. I’ve had some pretty rough guests because not every guest is a hundred percent amazing, although most of them are, and I’ve never had a situation where Airbnb completely took a guest side and didn’t do what I felt was fair for me. And I really believe that that’s because I’m so nice to them and I try to be courteous and you don’t have to be fake, but just, you know, yelling at them because you’re upset. Isn’t going to get you anywhere because then they just like you less.

03:37:32

Do you ever, when you’re communicating with them, is it more from an emotional stance or a logical? Like I know a lot of people try to create their house rules so that when a guest does something that they could just be like, look, Airbnb, this is in my house rules and they’re not supposed to throw up every second Thursday of the month into this specific location, but they did that. And they think that if they, if they have that in their house rules, that Airbnb will just automatically side with them. Have you, have you found that to be the case?

03:37:59

No. So I’ve not, luckily I’ve not had anything that Airbnb has said, well, I don’t care if it’s in your house rules. But another thing I don’t do is I don’t have 8,000 house rolls. I make sure that every property has less than 10 rules because you don’t want to leave your guests with a huge list of rules, but they are specific roles that are important. And Airbnb has in situations, I’ve called them. And I’ve said, well, you know, this was against my house rule or whatever. And it definitely is not just a black and white. I’ve heard of cases where they said, well, those, those house rules aren’t really enforceable. That’s, that’s a ridiculous rule. So it definitely is. I feel like it’s all, every single time you call them, you could have had a guest who threw up and it’s against your house rules. And so Airbnb awarded you $150 and you think, okay, well, this guest did the same. So that’s what I’m going to get this time. And you’re dealing with a different Airbnb representative. You’re dealing with a different guest, a different situation. You know, they definitely look at your interaction with the guest as well. How is your tone with the guest? What were you saying to them? Were you interactive? So every situation is unique and that’s why it’s so important to be professional and kind to them, no matter what,

03:39:09

Is there any house rule that you included that, that Airbnb was like, okay, well, because you have this house rule, is there like one house rule that has really kind of saved your butt before?

03:39:20

For me, I have a house rule that says any, I don’t know exactly how I phrase it, but it says that any violation of house rules will incur fees and, or may incur fees. And that has saved me because, you know, I’m annoyed that I say no late checkouts. And my guests is still there four hours later. Well, it is against my house rules, but Airbnb can say, while the guest is gone now. And so, you know, there’s not really anything you can do about that while I have in there that it incurs fees. And so I do charge depending on the property and how late the guest stayed a 40 to $60 fee. If they check out late, because my cleaners are stuck there, then it throws off their schedule. It creates anxiety for me. I have to call Airbnb, stop what I’m doing. And so I think that that specific rule, that violation of house rules may incur fees has been a huge one that has saved me time and time again,

04:40:14

Brianna, I just want to thank you so much, this, this conversation. I, I think anybody that is starting out should relisten to this and I’d love to potentially in the future get you on, because I think it’s really cool that you went from the property manager that was handling everything. And you were actually, that was a property that you owned to now, you are scaling up a short-term rental business that is through rental arbitrage. So you don’t own any of the homes and you have just the leases on them, but you’re growing this team, you’re scaling up. You’re you’re, you’re you’re you left your full-time job, doing HR to now, you’re actually just managing your properties and, and decorating. And I think that’s what a lot of people are striving for. So I just want to encourage the listeners to go back through this episode and listen, one more time, you know, listened to Brianna’s confidence. You know, she went in there and she didn’t know what to expect. She just heard that a friend was, was renting out their basement. And now, you know, she, she just kind of dived in and, but it’s been baby steps along the way. And now it’s a full run and you’ve been doing this less than, less than a full year, about, almost about a year now.

04:41:19

So our first property that, that not the one that the manager took care of, but our first property here locally went live in July,

04:41:28

July of 2018. Wow. And right now this episode, we are the middle of March, March 13th. So about eight months or so that’s, that’s, that’s really, that’s really good. I want to congratulate you Brianna on your success. I am super excited to continue to follow you and listen to what you’re doing. I would be honored to have you back on the show and maybe talk about rental arbitrage for those that are curious through your journey of using Airbnb and maybe what other ways you are trying to build that, that business model. But thank you so much. Again, I will create a summary of this and we will, I’ll have everything in the show notes for you guys to be able to listen to. But is there any last parting words, Brianna, any way that anybody can reach you online if anybody has any questions? Yeah,

04:42:18

So I am on Facebook. My name is Brianna beats on Facebook. I am terrible about getting on social media. I try to spend as much time with my kids. So bear with me if it takes me awhile to get back to you. I, my email address is breezy B R E E Z Y rentals with an S LLC at Gmail. I do check that a little more frequently. So if anyone has questions, you know, I definitely have an abundance mindset, so we’re not competition. We’re all here to help each other. It doesn’t matter if your Airbnb is right next door to mine, they’re going to be totally different. They’re going to attract different people. So I’m always here to help. And I would love to talk to anyone who has questions.

04:42:57

That’s fantastic, Brianna, and I’ll again, I’ll include everything in the show notes until next time, guys, peace out. Hope you host benefited from the show like any exceptional hosts. We all strive for five star reviews. So please go on over to iTunes, Stitcher, SoundCloud, YouTube, wherever you’re frequently listening to the show and leave us an honest review. Let us know what we’re doing, right, or how we can improve, because that’s what we want to do. We want to become better hosts. I want to become a better podcast host and a better Airbnb host. Talk to you guys in the next episode. Peace.