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April 10, 2019February 26, 2023

Pet Friendly Vacation Rentals?

Pet Friendly Vacation Rentals

Do you allow pets in your vacation rentals? We’re adding two new units that are both pet friendly this month, but there are a lot of pros and cons to allowing animals into your rentals.

In Mammoth, generally, only condos are eligible to rent on a short term basis, so the first thing we have to consider with regards to animals is homeowner’s association restrictions (HOA). We manage a few units in HOAs that don’t allow any renters to have guests, but only the owners of the unit. Obviously if the HOA doesn’t allow it, that makes the discussion very short! We don’t want to deal with fines or other issues from the association, or our guests being harassed by management there.

If the association permits though, we love to allow our rentals to be pet friendly. We, of course, let the owner decide for themselves, but we have found that pet friendly units far and away produce more gross income than non-pet friendly units. Think: last summer, we had a pet friendly one bedroom that was grossing more than a 2+loft condo. It seems people really love to bring Fido with them on their vacations to the mountains! And what pup doesn’t want to frolic in the snow or swim in the lakes?

But what about damage?

We have had some minor damage due to pets in our units before. When we started allowing pets, I purchased a carpet shampooer that takes care of 90% of any issues. It’s definitely no fun when an animal relieves itself inside, but it’s generally not hard to take care of with the proper tools. The only other damage that we’ve experienced to this point is some scratch marks on the doors. This has also been easy to take care of with a bit of sand paper and some touch up paint or stain. To be entirely honest, we’ve had much worse damage come from guests with small children than guests with pets. So far, we’ve had a great luck with contacting airbnb guests whose pets have caused damage and having them pay for the extra work or clean time without any issues.

If you or your owners (and your cleaners!) are prepared to handle the minor inconveniences of allowing pets in exchange for the major payout, here are some tips we’ve found invaluable:

- Θ Make sure to be explicit in instructions to guests about cleaning up after their pets. Let them know where they can find dog bags and where the closest dumpster is.
- Θ Provide carpet cleaner (if there is carpet in the unit) that’s designed for pet messes that the guest can easily find.
- Θ Provide a lint roller! We keep multiple lint rollers in each pet friendly unit. One for guest use and another for our cleaners. If guests see a lint roller they are more like to help keep furniture clean of pet hair., saving your cleaner time.
- Θ Lastly, make sure to pay your cleaners more to clean a pet friendly unit than a similar sized one that doesn’t allow pets. If they need to spot clean the carpet, lint roll the furniture, and vacuum more carefully, they need to be compensated for their extra time. Make sure to have a system in place for the cleaners to notify you of any damage or messes so that it can be handled immediately.

I’d love to hear about your experiences with pet friendly units, or why you chose not to allow pets.

April 3, 2019April 3, 2019

Why Airbnb?

Often when we’re interviewing potential clients, they will ask us why we aren’t using other platforms like VRBO, Booking.com, Homeaway, etc. On the surface, the answer is really simple. We stick with what we know, and what works. We know the Airbnb platform like the back of our hands. Not only the technicalities, but we have a pretty good grasp of the clientele and what they’re looking for, plus how to stay high in the search results.

We keep our occupancy rates incredibly high using only one platform as well, so setting up and paying for other channels doesn’t seem like a great option right now. We love the simplicity of having all of our bookings and communications with guests in one place, and we think that makes it much easier on our guests too. We communicate easily, frequently, and quickly whenever there are any questions or issues, so our guests can always reach us.

We like (generally) the clientele that uses Airbnb to travel. We have a lot of foreign tourists in our area, and Airbnb is a very international platform. A lot of our guests are a bit younger and a bit more tech savvy (I’d much prefer to answer questions sent via the Airbnb app than getting a phone call in the middle of my dinner or yoga class, haha!) I’m sure you’ve also heard the horror stories of terrible Airbnb guests having massive parties and trashing places, but we haven’t experienced anything like that, thankfully. Maybe having smaller units, such as studios and one bedrooms, helps prevent the party crowd, or maybe we’ve just been lucky so far, but either way, we’ll take it!

Lastly, we really like the way the review system works on Airbnb. That added layer of protection of being able to review the guest and review their previous reviews makes a big difference in running our business. When we do have the occasional crummy guest, it’s a nice satisfaction to be able to leave a poor review, and we’ve definitely read reviews from other owners that weren’t favorable and declined stays because of it.

Overall, Airbnb has worked well for us and for our business, and we’ll continue to use it as long as it stays that way! As always, we’re keeping our minds open and ready to make any changes necessary to give both our owners and our guests the best experience possible. What platform(s) do you use for short term rentals, and why?

April 2, 2019February 26, 2023

The Airbnb Experiment

Four years ago my newlywed husband and I toured Europe on our honeymoon and stayed in Airbnb rentals along the way. We had such an incredible time that we decided to give Airbnb hosting a try in a big, bold way. We decided to list the twin-size bunk bed built into the wall in the living room of our one-bedroom apartment.

What started as a hare-brained idea to meet new people and make a little bit of extra cash soon turned into much more than we’d ever planned. After 6 months of having someone new in our living room almost every night we crunched the numbers and decided we could afford to move into a larger house and rent out our entire condo- no more sharing a living room with strangers!

We’ve now been renting the condo through the Airbnb platform for more than a year with an average monthly NOI of around $2,500 for a one bedroom condo! Here are some of the lessons that we’ve learned from our Airbnb Experiment:

Reviews matter. A lot. Because when we started renting, we were offering a “shared space” the price was much lower than any other housing options available in our area. We were able to get a lot of reviews very quickly because we were the cheapest option. Now that we rent the whole unit, we had a solid base of five star reviews that keeps us at the top of search results and helps our occupancy rates stay really high.
Price Low. All the people that I’ve talked to that struggle with nightly rentals set a fairly high nightly price and stick with it no matter what. We’ve learned that we gross way more by lowering our prices during slower times. I would rather rent my space out for $100 per night in the middle of the week than have it listed at $250 per night but have it sit vacant.
Be Involved. I know it seems counter intuitive for a real estate investor who is normally chasing after passive income, but I’ve learned that part of the appeal of Airbnb is having a host that’s a real human, not a big company or corporation. Whether I meet my guests in person or just check in with them via phone during their stay, I want them to feel like they know me. There’s a fine line between being involved and allowing privacy for your guest, but this creates a feeling of loyalty and guests tend to take better care of your home.
Provide Local Knowledge. I love having conversations with my guests about my favorite coffee shop in town, or where the best place is to rent skis. Guests are really grateful and feel privileged to get the “inside scoop” from someone who lives there.
Higher Prices=Needier Guests. As we gained a larger number of good reviews and began consistently hitting a 85-90% occupancy rate, we started to raise our nightly prices. Though our prices are higher than they were when we started, we’ve actually backed off and lowered them a bit. Even though our occupancy rates stayed pretty level, the type of guest that was willing to pay higher rates also expected a lot more. This just became more than we wanted to deal with! We decided to keep our prices moderate and attract a more laid-back guest.

These tidbits of knowledge have transformed how we live and interact with our Airbnb guests. Airbnb has quickly become our primary source of income and my favorite part of real estate investing. We’re looking forward to expanding our portfolio and adding on to the list of lessons we’re learning