STRSS 17 – Making 50k a month on Airbnb part-time through rental arbitrage w/ Jon Bell

Share:

Join the Host Nation:

Leave a review on:

Making 50k a month on Airbnb part-time through Rental Arbitrage w/ Jon Bell

Today I had the honor of speaking with Jon Bell. Jon is a full time IT consultant who operates 24 short term rental units part-time. Jon has been able to scale up his business in a year and a half through rental arbitrage and is able to bring in over 50k a month on top of his regular salary.

Jon, being an IT guy who loves automation, decided to create systems that would make his business as passive as possible without losing control of how his business operates by giving it to a management company.

Jon shares how he is able to spend as little as 10 hours a week managing his business, how he’s been able to scale up so quickly, and how to operate a business that doesn’t require you to go “full-time” in case you already are working a busy schedule.

Video Transcript

 

 

00:00:00

I think it’s part of mindset. You know, when I went into this business, I didn’t tend to, for it to be full time, I just didn’t come in with thinking that, Hey, I wanted to quit my job and make this a full-time thing. I wanted to come in and, and have some play money. And, you know, just kind of have a few units and thought that I would stop there. But I did.

 

00:00:22

This is episode number 17 of the short-term rental success stories podcast. Welcome back to short term rental success stories. I’m your host, Julian Sage. This is a show where I talk to hosts about their journeys and starting and growing the short-term rental business. My goal is that you’ll be able to walk away with practical information. That’ll help you become a better host and learn how to scale your business. Like any exceptional hosts. We all strive for five star views. So please go on over to iTunes and let us know what you enjoy as it really helps support the show. If you haven’t done so already going over to a Facebook group, the host nation to connect with the community and other professional hosts that have been featured on the show. I want to keep up to date with the latest news and regulations happening in the short term mental space, subscribe to our YouTube channel to get the latest episodes of the short term rental report.

 

00:01:03

Just go to Short Term Sage dot com backslash report today I had the honor of speaking with John Bell. John is a full-time I T consultant cooperates 24 short-term rental units. Part-time John has been able to scale up his business in a year and a half the rental arbitrage, and is able to bring in over 50,000 a month on top of his regular salary, John being an it guy who loves automation, decided to create systems that would make his business as passive as possible without losing control of how his business operates by just giving it to a management company. John shares, how he’s able to spend as little as 10 hours a week managing his business, how he’s been able to scale up so quickly and how to operate a business that doesn’t require you to go full-time in case you’re already working a busy schedule. We’d like my show notes for this episode, go to Short Term, Sage dot com backslash S T R one seven. Or if you’d like my show notes sent directly to your inbox every week, then 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 John Bell. John, would you please let the audience know a little bit more about who you are and what inspired you to get into short-term rentals?

 

00:02:10

Hello everyone. I’m John Bell. I’m a short term rental operator. I’m from the DC, Maryland area. And collectively right now I have about 24 listings on Airbnb. I’m a, from Maryland born and raised and it professional by day and a part-time short term rental operator by night.

 

00:02:33

What got you interested in getting into short-term rentals?

 

00:02:40

You know what? It, actually, I went to California to visit a friend and I ended up booking an Airbnb because the hotels around the area were kind of like ridiculous. And I was staying for about 10 days. So I stayed at an Airbnb. It was actually my first Airbnb experience. And when I got there, it was at Archstone and I was thinking, oh my God, this is just the regular apartment that this guy is renting out. So I kind of looked around the apartment and I could tell that there was no personal items. So I was thinking, wow, this person really operates them as like a business. Like there’s no, no personal items here. This is really just set up for me that got me intrigued. And it was probably maybe a year and a half to two years later before I really went out and started looking for my first unit. But I calculated how much I was paying a night and was like, oh my God, this, this is gold. How could I get in? So I do have a real estate background and I was flipping homes before. And that’s what I was kind of out in California for a meeting with one of my partners. And, you know, flips are great. They bring in a lot of money after a few months, maybe a year or so, but yeah, not like this business.

 

00:04:09

So what, what about, you know, because he said that you were doing flips and that, that this business you decided to transition to what, you know, Y Y if you’re making good money doing flips, and you also said that you, you have a, you had a franchise real estate business that you used to work before. What w you know, what about this business made you want to transition from maybe like the bigger money over to this?

 

00:04:33

Well, I would almost argue you on a, which one’s the bigger money. If we really look at it, buying a property, you have to put into down payment. You also have to wait for the renovations to get done. Who knows what can happen too, on that stage, you have to sell the property, and then you collect your profits. There’s a lot of money that’s needed upfront to kind of get the ball rolling, just to make some money on the backend. Meanwhile, you know, everybody’s scared recession, recession, housing prices could go down. So, you know, if I think I’m going to make a hundred thousand and housing prices go down and I only make 30,000, did it, was it really worth it? You know? So in this whole thing, it was an easy end if I could say the least, right? I mean, you pay a lease, you pay the down payment and, you know, I’m in for, you know, 10% of what I would normally put in flipping a home. So I’m able to do a lot more and also generate residual revenue monthly, almost passively. So the model is 100% better because I almost don’t have to put much down on anything to actually get some cash generated and it’s ongoing versus a one and done scenario. So that’s why I stopped stop flip it completely

 

00:06:09

When we met up. And you were telling me when, when I was, I, you know, we were talking because we both live in the same area. And when we met were saying, you know, I I’ve, I’ve managed to scale this up in such a, you know, an an about a year and a half. And, you know, you were telling me about your listings and everything like that. And I was just thinking, man, okay, you’re probably doing this like a full-time job. But when he told me how many hours you put in you, you said you spent around 10 hours a week, you know, with managing your teams with the messaging and everything like that, to be able to run this business. I just think that that’s crazy. What, what’s the difference from people that are able to, you know, that that are having to quit their jobs, to be able to manage this Airbnb business while you are able to keep on working a full-time job and manage multiple listings?

 

00:06:56

I think it’s part of mindset. You know, when I went into this business, I didn’t tend for it to be full time. I just didn’t come in with thinking that, Hey, I wanted to quit my job and make this a full-time thing. I wanted to come in and, and have some play money and, you know, just kind of have a few units and, you know, thought that I would stop there, but I didn’t, and I’m still able to be part-time. And it’s really, because I told myself, I didn’t want to jump in full time. I set up things to make sure that I don’t have to. I mean, I do have employees, but at the same time I just manage them. I mean, I, there’s a conference call in the morning. There might be a mid day conference call, but that’s it. Everything else for me runs very smoothly that only got to this point, mainly because of our experiences and the business, and just kind of putting processes together on resolving issues and stuff that happened when they happened.

 

00:08:01

W what would you say are the biggest things that a, a person that is just starting off in the space and they’re trying, you know, maybe they have a few lists. Maybe they have like three or four, and usually, you know, from, from all the people that I’ve spoken to and the, the hosts that I’ve been on the show at around, like the six mark, the six to seven mark, is when people are like, okay, my income is able to be replaced, you know, their W2. So they’re able to quit their jobs if that’s what they want, but it’s also because they need to be able to manage these things. What may be the key things that differentiates a person that is managing their, their Airbnb business full time versus someone that is able to kind of put this on autopilot and let it kind of automate itself.

 

00:08:46

You you’re right. That, that one to seven mark one to six is a stressor for how you would do business within those numbers. Once you get the eighth or ninth unit, you can’t operate the same way that you did prior. So that can be scary and would almost force a lot of people to think they have to go full time. So I experienced that myself, where, you know, we were doing things a certain way, where we were storing all of our linens and stuff inside of each unit. You know, the cleaners could wash stuff in the unit and stuff like that. Well, once you have six to seven units and you only have one to two cleaners, well, how are they going to get around to multiple units within the same day, if they got to wait for a washer and dryer, it’s impossible. So we had to go into a centralized kind of warehouse for our, in our linens.

 

00:09:41

So that was one of the things that we had to change just to expand and grow to multiple units. And even when you get to about 20 units, it starts to kind of change a little bit there because you probably need bigger facilities to store stuff. You need to possibly hire Lennon service or whatever else that’s needed, but, you know, systems and stuff break. You just kind of have to refocus and come at it with another way that, you know, and test it out, see if it works. And when it does stick with it and quite a process behind it,

 

01:10:21

How did you start off? Did you know that rental arbitrage was the method that you want it to go initially? And then how are you able to, how quickly were you able to start getting those units?

 

01:10:34

Yeah, rental arbitrage was technically the only method I know for a new at the time. So, like I was saying, when I first went out to California, it was just at a big apartment building and I was thinking, wow, this is how it’s done. So I took that model and I started going to big apartment buildings, and I was there to convince them to rent me two or more apartments. I was able to get one, but then we kind of hit some snags and I was able to talk to another apartment building around that same time. And they were not as restrictive as the first building. So I was able to pick up two, well, then I resolved the issues with the other building. So then I had four. So it kinda started rapidly. But day to day when I was going out and talking to property owners and managers, I was getting nos.

 

01:11:29

So I was really just kind of looking for the person who would give me a yes or it just leaves the door open enough for me to kind of go in and just convince them that they should. And once I did that, all of those landlords, Ottawa, all of those management companies, they would lease me another apartment at any time and they call or they ask if I want another, they can give me a special, so that’s how I was able to kind of ramp up rapidly. I mean, now I have a network of landlords that are my references. So when I go to somebody else, I can say, okay, you don’t believe me, hear it from this person, you know, there at Bazuto or period from this person, they manage a portfolio of 150 apartments. So it’s very easy at this point to kind of get more because I have a nice group that will vouch and say 100%, that he’s the best guy you can get.

 

01:12:33

It kind of sounds similar to the, the, the co-host method where it’s, it’s really kind of referral-based, you know, if you have those clients that you were working with before, they’re able to refer you to more clients, or you’re able to use them as a reference to be able to say, Hey, I’ve got experience. If you want someone that’s reliable and knows what they’re doing, then, you know, talk to the people that I’ve currently been working with. But when you first started off, were you going for like, those, those high-rise apartment complexes, the ones with like, you know, how do you, how, what do you even do? Like, do you just go up to the front desk and, you know, ring the bell and say, Hey, who’s, who’s the person in charge here. I want to, I want to rent out one of your units to make money. Like how, how does that,

 

01:13:15

You know what, that sounds like, how I started out. Yes. I mean, literally I would go to apartments and I would just talk to people. I would almost just ask, Hey, if, if your title was manager or assistant manager, I’m thinking I got the right person. I would always try to talk to the highest level that I could. I’ve learned a few different things. Like don’t go on the weekends because normally that person is not there. So I was pounding the pavement between two and four or five, whatever time the office normally closed to talk to the right person. And sometimes I was missing them. Sometimes I was catching them. But once you talk to the right person, things begin to get a little easier talking to somebody else that doesn’t have the right title or position within the place. It, you almost had just kind of taken a shot in the dark, because either they’re going to tell you, yeah, yeah, yeah. It’s all fine. How many apartments do you want? And you get all excited and you say, Hey, I want four or five. And, you know, you get signed up for five, you go through this and then somebody, somewhere along the line says, no, you can’t do that. You know, that, that hurts because you thought you had it. And it, it was literally robbed from you,

 

01:14:36

You know, w w one of the things that, that, that I would maybe think would be a problem would be, if you’re going to speak with these apartment complexes, and you’re maybe talking to the assistant manager and, you know, maybe the manager says, okay, yeah, we can do that. But what if someone else says like, no, that’s, that’s against the policy, or, you know, we, you know, we’ve heard bad stories about people that are renting out or, you know, how do you, how do you, how do you deal with that?

 

01:15:04

The thing that is most important to me is to protect the lease. So, yes, I’m in big buildings with a lot of tenants. And I’m the guy who rents things out on Airbnb. That sounds bad to some people. So to avoid that sounding bed, you almost have to let them know, Hey, I have precautions teams and people in place to make sure that these things don’t happen. And once you can comfort them on what their issues are, they begin to turn around and maybe get curious about letting you into their space. Maybe you can’t get five units. Maybe they say, look, you can start with one. We can go from there. Maybe they’re aggressive and say, look, we’ll start with one and put you on a month to month. I wouldn’t suggest you sign a month to month, but at least you somewhat got something, some type of positive thing from this person. You can continue to work with them until they’re fully ready.

 

01:16:06

How has, have you seen that things have changed in the year and a half that you have been using this method?

 

01:16:14

Yeah. I mean, I know that a lot of people have also started in, have tried to get into this space. You know, it’s, it’s definitely a catchphrase at this point and that’s good in bed. If more people are going out and doing things well, then that helps the space a lot in regards to regulation. So, I mean, there there’s been numerous changes with regulations that are somewhat good and somewhat bad in my personal opinion, if the city or state or whoever is talking about short-term rentals, that’s a good thing, because that means, you know, it’s, it’s somewhat solidifying the space. The other big thing that that’s recent is when Marriott said, Hey, we’re, we’re getting into this space, right. That to me was really, really, really big because if the, if America’s biggest hotel chain says, Hey, yeah, we’re going to do this too. That means that there’s, there’s going to be some freeing up of regulations because everybody, every state, once the, the tax money and the revenue, so they could build new things, put into schools. So I see this as a good thing, contrary to some of the, the people that don’t like, short-term rentals.

 

01:17:47

I just don’t think everybody sees the benefit that it could bring to the area. Now for the people that are bad host, they will probably not be within business, you know, after a few months. So that just creates more of a opportunity share for someone like me to pick up those extra units. So in a sense, the ecosystem is, is pretty good. I think things are right where they need to be as far as just the changes and stuff that have kind of come around. Yeah.

 

01:18:22

What would you say is the most challenging part of starting a, a rental arbitrage business?

 

01:18:29

You will want to start out in the grandest, the best building with the pools, with the pool room, with, you know, the, the three lounges with the rooftop. That was a challenge because it’s also those types of places that will come down on you harder when it comes to, they want to change their own rules, whether they, they don’t want you anymore. You know, you are a good person when the building is new and you want multiple units. Well, that’s great. You help get them to a certain flat line number, but once that happens and then maybe their building management changes when they come in, if it’s not within your lease, you have issues. And if it is within your lease, then when it comes to renewal, you’ll probably be without a lead.

 

01:19:26

You know, that, that seems like a very scary thing that like you’re, you’re investing because you’re, you’re having to put some, some good money. And if you’re catering like a specific type of niche, niche being maybe the more luxurious style, you have to put some money into your unit. How much would you say you’re putting into a single unit to get it up and running

 

01:19:44

Anywhere between five to seven? K

 

01:19:48

If I bought a

 

01:19:49

Thousand, yeah. Four for a one to a two bedroom apartment.

 

01:19:54

Okay. And that’s in the, in the, the DC Alexandria area. So that’s what that includes. What does that include?

 

02:20:04

That includes mainly furnishings and the down payment for the apartment itself. So that’s enough to get you started,

 

02:20:15

That’s a decent chunk of change to be able to put into a place that really isn’t like, you’re, you’re not investing into the equity that you’re, you’re, you’re, you’re just renting that place out. And let’s say, you, you have multiple units. You know, the previous property manager says, Hey, yeah, you can rent out. We can give you five units. And then you spend all this money to be able to get those units furnished. And the, the, the, the down payment and everything. And then, you know, the, the manager changes and now they say, Hey, you know, we had a complaint or we don’t like people Short Term renting. And so they either maybe want to charge you more, or they just end your lease and say, you know, you have to get out, you have all this equipment, all this, all this stuff, what are you supposed to do with that? And w where do you, where do you go?

 

02:21:02

Well, you know, I kinda thought about it this way. It’s a little funny, but I thought that this business starts other businesses. Let’s just say, everything goes belly up. And I bought all this furniture. Well, guess what? I am now an owner of a furniture store. I’m selling all my furniture out to everybody else. That’s kind of how I thought about it in case stuff really goes that bad. But yeah, I mean, in the rental arbitrage world, you do run that risk of somebody changing their mind or the owner of the building deciding, Hey, I’m not going to renew this guy’s lease. I mean, you could be the perfect tenant. You could have no issues, but if they want to change direction, you just have to be comfortable with it. I mean, there’s nothing you could really do. You’re renting. You don’t own the place. Now, if your strategy was to rent enough apartments, to then approach the owner and say, I want to buy the building and okay, then, you know, you might have a leg to stand on. If you control the majority, you know, they probably won’t kick you out as fast, but, you know, it’s, it’s a risk cause you, you still have to maintain that relationship even after you are in there.

 

02:22:19

And what is the most challenging part of scaling a rental arbitrage business.

 

02:22:24

It’s tough when the slow season comes, you know, when it’s January and it’s freezing cold outside, and nobody’s traveling to your area, you need to have managed your money well enough doing the high season to carry you through the low season.

 

02:22:44

Now, with, with the rental arbitrage business, you, you are, you are having to pay for the rent. You have to pay for all your amenities, all that stuff. How, how much, how is this really a profitable business that someone can, can really be able to pay for the rent and also make a profit and also be able to, you know, continue this. Like, if something, let’s say your occupancy isn’t as good or the slow season does come, are you S are you still making a profit? Yes.

 

02:23:14

Yeah. Like I said, if you’ve got proper money management, you’re making a good profit on most of your units, if not all. So it is 100% of a good business

 

02:23:29

From, from all, all of the units that you are operating because you, you also operate in multiple locations. Well, how much would you say on average from the total year, with the low, with the, with the low seasons, and even with the increase in maybe competition, other people getting into the space, how much would you say that you are able to profit from a single unit going up

 

02:23:55

Profit wise, anywhere between a thousand to 2000 in profit,

 

02:24:02

And that that’s what you’re able to put into your pocket after all expenses and you’ve paid your cleaners and everything. Yup. A thousand, a thousand dollars per unit. That seems pretty crazy in the, in the, in the real estate, you know, the, the long-term rental or in the long-term rental world. It is, it is a thousand dollars even possible,

 

02:24:23

Not necessary, no, not per unit. I don’t think it’s possible having a few rentals myself. You’re doing good to have five, 500 plus in profit from a renter and just the traditional method. So a thousand to 2000. Yeah. That’s, that’s why I got into this space.

 

02:24:47

And I think that that’s pretty, pretty amazing that, that from a single unit, with the low seasons, with, with paying off the rent and everything, you’re, you’re still able to profit that much. You know, I I’m, I’m just curious. I’m just curious. How, how has this really kind of changed your life? Being able to have this, this many units now in such a short period of time and previous to that you were working a full-time job. So that was like your primary source of income. How has, how has this really kind of changed your life and, and being able to operate this business and set it on autopilot and, and also, you know, being able to profit from that?

 

02:25:27

I mean, it’s, it’s actually benefited my life tremendously. I mean, I, I love to travel. I travel on a whim. I mean, I’m here today. I could be gone tomorrow. This helps that this funds, that, that excitement for me at the same time, I’m able to put away enough money to accelerate my retirement if I wanted to. So, I mean, as long as you can hold onto the cash, that it, it could be life-changing. I mean, if I really wanted to go out and buy my dream car, I could do it. Well, I do it right now. Probably not. But ask me again next week.

 

02:26:06

I think that the, the, the real big thing for a lot of people is like, it becomes too much for so many people that are working a full-time job that maybe they are just trying to manage like one listing. And it’s becoming like too much having to deal with like bad guests, having to deal with all this headache, you know, people that are maybe staining their sheets and having to deal with the reviews. What do you, what do you even do? Because you’re, you’re managing these 24 listings, but you don’t have someone that like a virtual assistant that is messaging all these people, you’re doing the messaging yourself. How do you manage that many guests and satisfy that many people,

 

02:26:44

You know, we have a lot of automations in place. So most of our check-in messages check out messages, wifi, and stuff like that are all automated. So within the general conversation of a normal guest, there’s, there’s some automations there, it is just the one-off questions that you kind of have to answer that I answered myself. This is how I’m able to reduce how much time I’m actually spending messaging guests back and forth.

 

02:27:17

And what do you do to, to set your units apart? So if you have multiple units in a single, single complex, I imagine that there would be some, some competition against yourself, potentially. Correct.

 

02:27:33

So, as I said before, I tend to style them differently from each other. So although they’re all mine, they’re all in the same building. I might attract a different guests. You know, my style is in everybody’s style. We can take that from, you know, just the general branding of Marriotts or whatever hotel change. You personally like yourself. I tend to go for a certain one, but you know, some of the others are more traditional than what I go for. So, you know, different people like different things, you kind of have to appeal to them being a small time, a host with multiple apartments. I get to play around with style and stuff like that to try to see, you know, is there a thing that people like more do when I do my rooms with red, you know, lease more than my rooms with blue, to my orange rooms, you know, attracted a certain type of guests. Do I need a certain type of thing with this design? You know, if I do, let’s just say a Asian design, do I need to include chopsticks? You know, it’s the little things like that that might attract certain guests.

 

02:28:57

And is there anything that you include in your units that maybe saves you time and money

 

02:29:04

Saves me time and money? I would say my devices, my tech, like I know he’s aware and my nest thermostats, you know, they let me know what’s going on in the room and kind of helped me paint a full picture if I need to either evict a tenant or if, I don’t know if it’s getting set ablaze, you know, I kinda know at the same time things are kinda happening. So those things help with the long-term saving of money, because if I were to lose a unit and I technically lost a lot,

 

02:29:40

You know, that, that, that’s also one, the things that is potentially really bad about a rental arbitrage and having multiple units in a single complex, like, let’s say you do have a party that is going on in one of your units and you have maybe five or more units in that single complex. And maybe that one party, you know, it really, you know, maybe it gets out of control. How could that affect your, your business? I mean, I could imagine the, the property manager just saying, Hey, you know, this is, you know, you’re, you’re causing trouble, get outta here. And there basically goes your, your whole business in, in that complex.

 

03:30:19

Yeah. I mean, you always run that risk, but the party that goes too far too fast, I mean, you know, that is somewhat the risk that every host, whether it’s rental arbitrage or co-hosting, or the burn method, it’s one of those things that you just, you almost have to deal with it. There’s not too much. You can do. It could turn even my own personal property into a bad deal. You know, I don’t know if they could set it on fire. Well, no matter how fast I can get whoever out there it’s, it’s somewhat lost. So you just need to be able to be responsive. One, to be on top of all of those issues as they arise. There’s some communication that I do to my landlords, where it’s more, more like an incident report where even if I think I resolved something before a attendant would’ve complained to the property owner, I’ll just send them, Hey, this is what happened. This guest made too much noise, past quiet hours and we messaged and they were able to quiet it down. You know, I’ll communicate stuff like that, mainly because I want them to know that, Hey, I’m on your team and I’m, I’m on top of my stuff. So you can trust that. I know, and am, I’m going to continue to perfect what I do and make sure my guests are treating your property. Great. And my belongings great. At the same time,

 

03:32:02

How much would you say of your business is automated or systematized and how much would you say is there actually that, that person there, you know, how much of the, the, the host is actually in the, your, your model?

 

03:32:18

So I would say a good 90% of our messaging is automated. The 10% that isn’t automated are things that I feel like need a personal touch. You know, let’s just say, you’re asking me for recommendations on a restaurant. If I were to automate some of those restaurants that I would normally say, maybe you send a message. You say, Hey, looking for a restaurant close to the area. I see there’s a sushi place across the street, but I’m allergic. And my automated response, first thing says sushi, right? That doesn’t sound like, you know, it’s, it’s a very personalized response to a guest and it’s almost on the lines of being offended. Like I would be like, you know, like I said, I’m allergic to sushi. Why would that be number one? You know? So you want to make sure that you don’t offend anybody like that. So I didn’t automate those, those pieces, however, things like wifi passwords and where to park stuff like that, it’s all automated because it just makes it easier on myself. And technically I’m the only one messaging the guests, my assistant doesn’t message. It’s really up to me.

 

03:33:43

So with, with 24 listings though, 24 units, that, that there’s 24 people that are staying in your properties, but then you’re also dealing with all of the people that are interested in staying in those properties. How, how can you manage so many people by herself

 

03:34:01

Systems and standards? Like, you know, when somebody sends an inquiry, there’s, there’s an automated response that helps, you know, that, that helps with your response rate on Airbnb to my response rate is right at a hundred percent where it should be, because I want to make sure that at least they get something, you know, I don’t have a virtual assistant to where somebody is responding overnight. So in some cases, if I’m not up a message goes until the next morning and unanswered, but they have something, you know, there’s something that they get back in return for even inquiring about the space.

 

03:34:44

And with, with, you know, being a about, you said about 90% of the communication is automated, 10% is personal. Has this affected your views at all?

 

03:34:57

Yes. There are some reviews that I get that are, Hey, this person doesn’t message. You know, you do get those because when you’re sending automated responses, some people know because they happen every hour, you know, like, you know, they’re not like at all times or anything like that. It’s funny because those people that write those reviews, they normally never asked any questions. So that’s weird. I don’t understand that one. Some people love all the information and they’ll say the communication’s a hundred percent you’re really hit or miss, no matter which way you go. I mean, this is really it’s up to the guest to determine whether it was good or bad. And because they have that control, some people want more of a personal touch. Some people don’t want to be bothered while they’re staying with you. So there’s a fine line. And if you do everything else well within the apartment, your communication score normally will stay around the same score as everything else.

 

03:36:09

And is there anything that you do do that helps your guests leave positive reviews?

 

03:36:14

I asked for it. I mean, I think it’s important to ask for favorable, favorable review. I don’t overly ask, you know, I’m not saying, Hey, start a review. Hey, my name is five star review. Hey, give me a five star review. Oh, you left giving me a five star review. You forgot to give me a five star review. I mean, this stuff I’ve seen it I’ve stayed at places. You know, when I was doing some of my market research, I would go stay at places and I would look and see what they did. And literally, I mean, the wifi password was five star review. I mean, you know, on the countertop, there was something that says, Hey, you know, we hope you enjoyed your stay. Please leave a five-star review. I’m like, oh my God, I’m review overload. You know, I feel like there’s a professional way to ask court. And even when there’s a mistake that has to get resolved, you know, there’s, there’s a, still a pleasant way to say, Hey, you know, well, we act up please. You know, when you can just leave a favorable review, we’d love to bring you back and, you know, make up for the difference in something that you were lacking, whether we missed the mark on something, or you just felt like something wasn’t up to par. So you gotta ask for it, but there’s a professional way to do it.

 

03:37:34

And is there one house rule that has saved you before?

 

03:37:38

Yeah. Wow. Which one? You know, I would say Noyce past a certain time. I normally carry my quiet hours longer than whatever my building requirements are because I want to be on top of stuff. So whether or not they say a 10 o’clock, I’m going to tell my guests nine o’clock that way I know I have an hour buffer to kind of get things down before it really becomes a problem. And I’ll carry that hour past when they cut off as well for the same reason.

 

03:38:22

And so, w w what would you do differently if you had to start from scratch?

 

03:38:27

If I started from scratch, there was a apartment building that I had a couple of leases with, and it was somewhat outside of, I guess, where we are now. Right now, we are 100% self check-in. And I like that this building, we had to interact either with the doormen, or we had to drop off a key that stressed the system too much, because now we’d have to time arrival of the key or make sure that their name was on a list. And, you know, those, like if we left it to the doorman, we almost had to hope and pray that the doorman was having a good day, because if they were having a bad day, that’s the first person your guests sees when they come in to collect the key. So we’ve had issues with that. And it was just when it came time for renewal of that lease, we just decided to let it go because it was too much of a headache. Do we like the location? That was one of our only locations with a pool. And, you know, you’d hate to give that up prime location, 10 minutes from the airport, but it was one of those things. It was just too much of a headache to maintain and keep.

 

03:39:51

And if you could give one piece of advice as someone who is trying to start a rental arbitrage business, what would that be?

 

03:39:57

Don’t be scared of going to buildings, pounding pavement, and I’m going for the no, and listening to objections and trying to overcome them sometimes, you know, once you get enough under your belt, you become fluid and somebody is going to tell you yes, but at the same time, be ready for the yes.

 

04:40:21

And where do you, where do you see short-term rentals going in the future?

 

04:40:25

Nothing but up, like I said before, Marianne getting into this base makes this whole thing really exciting because now we have a major player. Who’s, who’s basically saying, Hey, this model works. We’ve ignored it for years. And yeah, now we’re in full fledged, but we’re going to do it our way. And I liked that they’re going to do it their way. That allows me to still do it my way, you know, so love this space. I think it’s going to grow tremendously over the next 10 years. And, and yeah, it’d be a major avenue for anybody to travel.

 

04:41:05

Are you planning on sticking primarily with the rental arbitrage model or are you planning on doing some diversification? W w what’s your strategy with, with the,

 

04:41:17

Yeah, I’m definitely going to diversify. I, I like to just try every model. I think every model has its benefits and disadvantages at the same time with the good mix, you’re able to have the benefits of everything, you know, best of both worlds. So yeah, you gotta have a good mix. This is why I started introducing some co-hosting. This is why I’ll continue to grow on that, that side. I’ll do some more burn method strategies and the near future. So it’s, it’s all good. You know, I want to be able to have a good balance. So in case one doesn’t work, I have the other to fall back on.

 

04:42:04

Last thing I want to share is that I’ve wanted to announce that John and I are going to be releasing a podcast, which is available on iTunes right now called Vacation Rental Machine. And this is something that I’ve been talking about if you’ve been following in the, the host nation Facebook group, about some of the projects that we have going on. And John and I, we met up before we released this podcast, and we’ve been talking and trying to see how we can be able to make some content that can best benefit you guys, because John, we, we met and we just connected on a very nice deep level. John is a, is a type of guy that is, is, has a really big heart and wants to be able to share his methods on how he’s been able to scale up to, you know, 24 listings in a short period of time.

 

04:42:53

But really the, the point that that John wants to be able to do is have people that wants to be able to work their full-time jobs, or just be able to change their lives by learning about the, you know, rental arbitrage co-hosting, and really about building systems to be able to automate your business, because there really isn’t that much information out there to be able to, to take a host that is just starting off, because you said Jon, your, your sister is just getting off into the space and she she’s, she’s a little bit overwhelmed with the type of stuff that’s going on, right?

 

04:43:25

Oh yeah. You know, I almost forgot how I felt getting into this space, but seeing her go through it, I’m still, I’m slowly starting to remember, you know, just the things and the details and the stuff you would worry about just as a new Short Term operator. So it’s definitely a, a fun space. I’ve grown to the point to where those pain points, aren’t my pain points anymore. I have bigger and badder pain points at this point, but, you know, I want to share my experiences with the community and I want to help people get to the level that I am and potentially higher than where I am, but I also want to learn from the community myself so I can do better for my own listings and as I continue to grow. But yeah, as you said, I want to give something back to everybody that’s out there. I want to share some information that I think will be beneficial and help people to accomplish whatever goal they might have for themselves. So whether that’s putting away some extra money just on one or two properties, or if you want to build a portfolio of multiple properties, I want to be the guy that you call are basically messaged to, to get some assistance. So, yeah, I’m really excited that we’re going to do this. And I came here,

 

04:44:46

Wait again, and that’s, that’s going to be a that’s Vacation Rental Machine. W it is now available on iTunes. We’ve released a couple episodes on there, just a little introductory one, and also the first episode, which is all about your brand identity, figuring out. So our method with this podcast, you can go and listen to the introduction episode, and we’ll talk more about it, but really like John said, you know, he he’s scaled up to a point where now he isn’t really thinking about some of the minor details that a new host would have to go through, you know, dealing with maybe the ratings, dealing with certain types of questions and messages that, that maybe could have some type of automated responses and, and building that foundation. So, you know, John, John has decided that he really wants to be able to help the community.

 

04:45:33

And he, he really liked what I was doing. W w we both have some really big ideas and big goals, what we’d like to do with the community in the short-term rental space. So w we’re releasing this podcast to you guys, and please, this is a very, a new podcast. So please go on over there, let us know what you think. Join the host nation, Facebook group, leave your comments, John. And I will be there answering your guys’ questions. Thank you so much, John, for this interview and explaining how you’ve gotten to where you are and some of the awesome benefits and tips on rental arbitrage. It is just super exciting, excited to keep on doing these shows with you. And until next time, host nation, keep on hosting, hope he hosts benefit from the show. If you found value, please go on over to iTunes, leave us a review and let us know what you enjoy about the show. If you’d like to talk to hosts that have been featured in these episodes, as well as the community, going over to our Facebook group, the host nation, talk to your hosts in the next step. So keep on hosting.

Recent Podcasts

STRSS 67 – From 2 to 10 Airbnb properties in 1 month by Cohosting w/ Peter Plourde

STRSS 66 – Turning 17 Long Term Rentals Into Short Term Rentals w/ Brian Tibbs

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

strategy

We want to help you get started

01

02

03

Subscribe to our Youtube Channel

02

Learn the Strategy

03

Join the Facebook Group