Latest / Short Term Rental Problems and Solutions / Common Pitfalls for New Operators
Transcript
- Jeremiah: It's not all sunshine and five star reviews. It's sometimes very challenging. And without a roadmap, we can get lost trying to navigate the landscape of short-term rentals. If you believe that, that means you're in the right place. Today we're helping Maria, an owner and operator who's falling into the most common pattern in short-term rentals that leads people to lose tens of thousands of dollars. And then they call a realtor and they complain about saturation while listing their home for sale. She's talking to the wrong people and taking the wrong advice. I'm happy to help her because this is the community where we talk about the gross, awkward, and the operational messes, as well as the real strategies that help you keep going instead of quitting. This industry is somewhere where you can win big, or you can ignore education and you can quit. Welcome to Short Term Rental Problems and Solutions. Now, I have not been starting my episodes with this, but I'm going to tell you a little bit about. The episode, the show, and about me. My name is Jeremiah and I manage over 140 units over here in the Pocon Mountains. I specialize in short-term rentals and investment property. I'm a real estate broker. I'm also an investor. So the properties that I own are some of the most successful short-term rentals in our entire portfolio. I normally don't talk about this just because, you know, anybody can look up my bio, maybe I should be talking about this every single time in my intro, Because somebody's going to listen to one episode the first time and wonder who is this guy and why is he talking about vacation rentals? And I'm kind of an authority on the subject, I guess. But anyhow, So we're here today, and this is a question and answer format. And I'm going to read an email from a listener and answer it. That's how we do this. So maybe I'll come up with something a little more polished for the next episode, but it just occurred to me that I should probably be introducing myself somehow, not just getting right into the email. But with that said, let's get into the email. Hi Jeremiah, I found your podcast and listened to your episode about a Pocono country place. My house is there too, so it really caught my attention. I'm hoping you might be willing to take a look at my Airbnb listing because I can't figure out why it isn't getting booked. I started renting it in December, and since then I've only had four reservations. The guests I've had were wonderful, and I've earned all five star reviews, so I don't think it's a guest experience problem. I even found an Airbnb co-host through the platform to help me. when I asked why reservations were so slow, she told me that the photos were the issue. I spent the money on new professional photography about two months ago, including some lifestyle photos, but it honestly didn't make any difference. I'm starting to get nervous because I really need this house to start paying for itself and my savings are getting pretty thin. If you're willing to review my listing on the show, I'd really appreciate it. I'll include the Airbnb link below. Thanks for all that practical advice you share. I'm hoping you can spot something I've overlooked. Kind regards, Maria. So this email doesn't really have much detail besides, you know, the listing that she's showing me. So I emailed her back and asked for some clarifying details, I basically said, what's your pricing like? What filters do you have? And how do you ensure that you're not getting bad guests? So she responded, Hi Jeremiah, thanks for getting back to me. here are the answers to your questions. I don't use dynamic pricing because I wanted to keep things simple. I also don't charge a separate cleaning fee or a registration fee. I do raise my price for holidays and weekends, and I lower my price for weekdays, but it's pretty much set it and forget it. So it's pretty repeatable. I don't allow dogs and I require guests to be at least 25 years old to book. Right now I have the listing set up for eight guests. Because that's how many people the regular beds sleep comfortably. I do have two roll away beds available, so if a larger family wants to stay, I can accommodate up to 10 guests. For guests 9 and 10, I charge an additional $60 per person. The co-host I found through Airbnb has helped me get this far, and I've only had great experiences with guests with these settings. And hopefully that gives you a better picture of how I have everything set up. I'm looking forward to hearing from what you have to say because I'm clearly doing something wrong. I just don't know what. Kind regards, Maria. So Maria, a couple episodes I'm going to refer you to. the first is episode number 24, which deals with guest screening. the first part of it is about damage and damage claims, which doesn't really apply to you. it might someday, but the second half of that has to do with guest screening. episode right before that is called Empty Calendar. Here's what to check first. That definitely implies. I'm surprised you didn't hear that one first. but that's another really good one for you to listen to. And then the next one is episode number 20. That's the Airbnb algorithm is judging you. And here's how. So conventional wisdom doesn't work. Saying no pets allowed does not protect you from pet damage. saying you have to be twenty five years old or older to book also doesn't prevent guest damage. Or maybe it does. Because with these settings, you probably won't get any reservations, so there won't be any guests to damage your property. But what ends up happening is people put these settings in, they lower their nightly rate enough that they do get reservations, and then they end up getting reservations from like some of the worst guests. So put yourself in Airbnb's shoes for a minute. Now, I know this might be difficult or weird or uncomfortable. Because they're like this large multinational corporation that's just extremely greedy the platform is completely unfair to hosts, and that's why I get so upset with them. But it's kind of a necessary evil, right? If I want Their bookings, if I want their guests, if I want their reservations, then I have to deal with them. And that's what I've continued doing. I offer my best pricing to guests on VRBO and the very best pricing to my direct booking site. But on Airbnb, we're still there. And we're still doing the majority of our business, even with higher prices. So that's telling you something about Airbnb. Now, imagine that you are in their shoes, you're running like a sales department, and there's no limit to the number of deals that your salespeople can close. Now, you're gonna get a fixed number of leads, not necessarily fixed, but you're gonna get a certain number of leads, and you can't just increase those leads with more things. Like you do marketing, you do all kinds of things if you get leads. But once you get those leads, You're giving those leads as many as they can handle to your best salespeople. Why are you giving your leads to your best salespeople? It's because there's a limited number of people who are going to come through your platform. So with that limited number of people, you're going to prioritize sending those people to the salespeople that are most likely to close the deal. And obviously by salespeople, I'm talking about listings. So the algorithm is judging your listing and it's keeping metrics on every single guest interaction. As guests are scrolling through the app, they're looking at your listing, they're looking at the others, and Airbnb is keeping track of how often they pass by yours. If you don't have an attractive first photo, that's a problem because they're never going to see the value that your property has to offer. If you don't have your biggest selling point right up in the front. If somebody is looking for a colonial style house with vinyl siding in a suburban setting, then guess what? You've got them. The thing is, when people are coming to your marketplace, that's Toby Hanna, they're not looking for a colonial. They're not looking for a big suburban looking house with flat ceilings. They're looking for A mountain getaway. They're looking for something that's Instagram worthy. They're looking for that sort of item. So what is it about your listing that's going to cause them to tap on it? I want to learn more. And sometimes it's the title along with the photo, but the photo that you have on your listing is really not helping you. It's actually kind of driving business away. And that's just the start. Getting back to this whole sales department analogy. When there's more leads than your best salespeople can handle, then you spill those leads over to your normal salespeople, the ones who are kind of like on average with their conversion rate, because your best can't handle anymore. You've got to go to your second tier. And it's not like varsity and second string. We're just talking about, they're just spilling over to the next one naturally. kind of like a water fountain. Once the top pool is full, it goes on to the next pool. And once that one's full, it goes on to the third. So that's kind of the way Airbnb acts it wants the highest conversion rates to get as much business as it possibly can. And then the ones with the next highest conversion rate are going to have more than the third level. And the third level, unfortunately, is where you are. And that's not to insult you at all. It's just I can tell based on your answers that your conversion rate is very, very low. So you have to think of your listing from a marketing perspective, but you also have to think of it from a sales perspective. When somebody makes an inquiry on their platform, Airbnb is watching that guest and that interaction to see do they make a reservation? Do they add it to their favorites? Do they click the share button and send it to somebody else? They're looking for indications and signs that you are good at your job, that you're good at sales. And if you are just telling them, hey, you're too young, go somewhere else, then they're not sharing it with anybody. They're just moving on. and booking something else. So now the one that they end up booking, Airbnb is raising their category. they're saying, Well, that must be a good salesperson, while this one's not. And even if you were above in the visibility, now you're swapping spots. And that's just because Airbnb doesn't know the age of that person. They don't care. You said you're only twenty four. I don't care if you are married and have two kids. You can't rent my house because you're only twenty four. And I think you're gonna have a party with your, nine month old and your two year old. I think because you're twenty four years old, you're gonna have a party. So I'm not gonna allow you to rent my house. You can go look somewhere else. That's what you're saying when you put a minimum age of twenty-five on your listing. This is somebody who potentially graduated from college two years ago and has children, responsibilities, and a full-time job. It's not exactly the frat party you're trying to avoid. So really what you need to focus on from, you know, this part of the algorithm that the way this works is your visibility. You need to focus on your marketing and your conversion rate. And your co-hosts, they were not wrong when they said your photos were the problem. The thing is, I think you improved your photos, but you didn't really do it in a way that was effective. Like the lifestyle photos sounds good. it's trendy, that's for sure. But you've got a photo of a trampoline with no padding on the springs, like a 14, 16 foot round trampoline with no padding at all. I think most parents are not going to book your house because they are worried their kid is going to jump on that trampoline. Now, if you're going to have a trampoline at your short-term rental, that's a risk. I would not take. But I also broke my arm on a trampoline, and I know about three other people that have had serious injuries because of a trampoline. but if you want to have one, that could be a big selling point. You know, some people love trampolines. They didn't break their arm and they are nostalgic of when they used to jump on a trampoline. So if you're going to have one though, just make sure it's very safe. Make sure like there's some sort of sign you're jumping at your own risk. Think through that. Okay. Because I think that the fact that you have a trampoline on site is going to increase your insurance rates. And number two, It's going to drive families away from your listing and to check out other listings. Now, this is photo number seven on your listing. Your first picture is the front of your house, which is just this big yellow rectangle, which is not the kind of colors that people are looking for. It's not the vibe people are looking for. And it's a colonial style house with no dimension. It's got practically zero curb appeal. I'm sorry if that offends you. This is not an attractive listing. Nevertheless, you can still be successful. I would just definitely hide that picture all the way at the end. You know, and for a house that's a four-bedroom like yours, you should have like 30 to 50 photos. And you've got 76 photos. So you have too many. but you also have to prioritize your selling points right up at the beginning. So photo number one should be your jacuzzi. Now, currently that's photo number 12. I don't know why. one of your biggest selling points is the the jacuzzi. It's beautiful. It's in the primary suite. It's private. It's a two person size jacuzzi. And these are rare. To have like a nice view out the back window and have a jacuzzi there, I think is a big selling point. So it's probably your biggest selling point. so that would be photo number one for me. Maybe photo number two would be the gym. Now to figure out that your house had a gym, I looked through your listing All the way to picture number 40. And the gym is a big differentiator. The fact that you have this gym in your house, and this is not like a community amenity, is not something that's shared with other people. I think that's huge. I get questions all the time from people who want to know where the gym is and it's a community amenity and if they have access to it and what hours it's open. so having one that's a private gym in your house, I think is really attractive. So those should be your top two photos, and then the rest of your pictures, backyard, interior. If you want to keep the trampoline without a padding on it, I recommend putting that right at the end. 'Cause you do want to warn people, but you don't want them to stop and not book your house because of it, and they're not likely to look through all of your pictures. you have to just basically focus on your conversion rate and your visibility, and then you'll get more bookings. And for that, move around your pictures, put your selling points right at the front. That way people will click on your listing out of a list of other houses and they'll like it, they'll share it with other people. That's gonna give Airbnb the idea that you're like maybe a second string quarterback, or maybe you're varsity and you're gonna get more visibility. Especially if you can get that conversion rate up. dynamic pricing. You need to be doing dynamic pricing. what you're currently doing, I know you think that you're adjusting the value based on market demand. There's no way for you to do that compared to other houses automatically because you're not going in every single day the way price labs will and checking what kind of occupancy all your neighbors have. You're not in there looking at your competition on a daily basis. If you were to Find a listing near your home that's four bedrooms, similar square footage, similar selling points, you look at their calendar and you see what they're pricing everything at, which you can't see anymore, not if you're on Airbnb. But if you look at all those things and you try to reverse engineer what your pricing should be, okay, cool. Now you've got dynamic pricing and you don't have to pay twenty dollars a Or alternatively, you've got dynamic pricing that's static. Once you set it based on the market demand for those nights and days, you're kind of stuck because now it's not going to adjust up, it's not going to adjust down. So applying dynamic pricing is going to help you set a base rate based on how often you want to get booked. And it's going to put a market value on every single night. Once you have this dialed in, you're going to know that you're not leaving any money on the table with holidays or weekends or weekdays. Which brings me to my second point. You definitely don't need minimum nightly rates. I do it sometimes because I'm a property manager. And this is other people's properties sometimes that I'm pricing. And they have their requirements, and they've listened to me explain this logic that I'm about to give you. And they still decide that they want a minimum nightly rate. there's common lines of questioning or common lines of logic that lead people to say, I don't want to book my house if I'm only going to get $100 for that night. Okay, so why? Well, there's risk associated with it. There's utilities. Okay, let's talk about the utilities. What's your electric bill in the winter time if you keep the house at $55? $400. Okay. Now what's your electric bill like if it's Completely occupied. You're literally living there and you keep it at seventy two degrees all winter long. What's your electric bill like then? it's like nine hundred dollars. It's ridiculous. Okay. So the difference between four hundred dollars when it's not occupied and nine hundred dollars when it is occupied is let me pull up my calculator. sixteen dollars and sixty-six cents. So the cost of you having a renter there is essentially the cost of utilities. So it's sixteen dollars and sixty six cents. Well Jeremiah what about the cleaning fee? What about the registration fee? I'll get into that. But the nightly rate you can set at a minimum of $100 and you're still making $83 here and 33 cents. Like you're still making money by having somebody in the house rather than not having them in the house. So do you need the minimum? All right. Now, if the market value on that is $60, what that indicates to me that nobody wants to rent your house. So the likelihood of it getting rented. Is just as low as the likelihood of the following day getting rented, which might be much more. what you've got now is well, usually the lowest price days for us is like Mondays. What you've got now is somebody who's staying and checking out on Sunday. And now you can tell them, hey, if you extend your checkout date to Monday, it's only going to cost you an extra $60. Well, it's in low demand. And the renter's like, wow, like. I thought I would have paid 60 bucks for a late checkout. You're telling me I can have a whole nother night, I can leave as late as I want to, I can catch the football game. Yeah. Yeah. But if your minimum nightly rate's $100, if the renter looks into that themselves and they look at what it's going to cost to add another night, because they don't need to ask you. They can go right onto Airbnb and request a change. It'll tell them what that change in price is. And if your minimum nightly rate is $100, but they were thinking it would be $60. Well, they're not booking it. You're not getting that. And it's not even another renter. Okay. So registration fee and cleaning fee, that should be itemized on your rates, on your calendar, on Airbnb, so that you have whatever your cleaning fee is that you pay to your cleaner plus 15%. And you should have whatever your registration fee is that you pay to the community plus 15%. Okay. So in Pocono Country Place, it's $50. Add 15% on there. Fifty eight bucks. Jeremiah, why am I adding 15%? Because Airbnb is going to take 15%. They're going to charge the guest $58 for that registration fee. If your cleaning fee is $200 that you pay your cleaner, then add 15% on 15 and a half. So you've now added $31. So $231 is what they're going pay for the cleaning fee. That way, after Airbnb takes their 15%, you're still left with $250. So you can pay the registration and your cleaner. Now your nightly rate can be zero dollars and you are cost neutral. Having a guest versus not having a guest is really that simple. Make it so that you've got both of those fixed costs. And if a guest wants to stay three nights or four, that the only difference in what it's going to cost them is the cost of that extra night. That's the way I think that it should be. Because then you incentivize longer stays. By not having this, you're trying to build this into your nightly rate. And that is why your minimum nightly rate is $263 for a four bedroom house. It's because you're looking at this like, well, if somebody books two nights, $263, I'm going to get around $500 minus 15 and a half percent, I'm going to be left with 400 bucks. So left with 400 bucks and 250 of it going to the community and the cleaner. Means I'm left with like only $100 for a whole weekend stay. I shouldn't be giving this place away. No, I'm not saying you should. But your pricing should be set up to encourage people to book longer stays by having a fixed amount and a lower variable rate, okay? The nightly rate. And you have to remember that Airbnb is going to be taking that 15.5%. And for you, you're probably thinking, no, it's like 3%. Well, that's going to change in September. And it's not because Airbnb is trying to take more money from you. It's just that they're going to stop taking so much money from the guest when they charge them for air cover. So, I mean, if you want to check that out, check out my early episode. I think it's like four or five or six. It was one of the early on ones. And I featured Jenny Snow, who is our Airbnb ambassador to the community. And that gets me into the second topic. You mentioned that your calendar is set up so that you have three nights at least, because you need three nights with your pricing in order to like break even. And that's not really the case. If you price your weekends, if you price your nights, if you price everything the way I described, then even if somebody stays for one night, you're still gonna make the rent for that night. If somebody books 10 nights, you're still gonna make the rent for those 10 nights. So the longer they stay, the better it is for you. And the less wear and tear there is on the property, the less turnover there is on the property. These are all positive things for you and your property. But having a minimum number of nights It's gonna affect the way you show up in search. Because sometimes people are just looking for a good deal. They're just looking to stay somewhere tonight. They're gonna go hike all day Saturday, check into an Airbnb, stay the night and leave on Sunday. And it's because they don't need to spend money on Friday night. But that's the thing is they don't realize that in this marketplace, the normal stay is a minimum of two nights. So there's a whole host of properties that they're not seeing in search because they're thinking they're going to save money by just staying for one night. Why do I need two nights? They just don't. So they're not going to stay for two nights. And you have to factor this in. You have to think about how you show up in search. So if your community will allow you to rent for one night, which I think they will, then you should put your booking settings so that there's a minimum of one night. That way everybody gets to see your listing and increases your visibility. And they're still gonna book two nights. They're still gonna book three and four and whatever else. But what's wrong with a one night stay? It's not like you're missing out on two nights. If that second night is priced well. Somebody's gonna book that night too, even if it's for another one night stay. You know, so oftentimes people just have the wrong idea in their mind about these settings and they don't realize how much it affects your visibility. So the next thing I want to touch on is your occupancy, like the number of people that you can put in your house. Now you mentioned that you can comfortably sleep eight people in beds. It's a four-bedroom house, which means your permit is two per bedroom plus four, because this is Kuba Township. So you've got a permit that says that you can sleep up to 12 people. I highly recommend having beds for 12 people because you're not like a tiny little romantic getaway where you should limit your occupancy. You're like a four-bedroom house. So if you're going to compete with other four bedroom houses, you should have the number of beds that other four bedroom houses have. Now, this is going to have a profound return on investment. What a lot of people do, I'm not saying this is something you have to do, is they fill their house with pullout couches, day beds, and things that convert, like a futon. What you can do is you can have those rollout beds. I recommend just getting two more. Or you can list the couches as sleeping places where people can sleep because people are searching based on the number of people or based on the number of beds. And you have a number that's similar to other four bedroom houses. Otherwise, you're competing with three bedroom houses. And with you limiting yourself to eight, you're actually competing with two bedroom houses as well. Because people aren't always searching based on the number of bedrooms. Sometimes they're searching based on the number of people. And sometimes they're searching based on the number of beds. So to ensure that you show up and search for all of those categories, I highly recommend having enough beds and having enough sleeping spaces for the number of people who are on your permit. that way you're competing with other four bedrooms. So think of it like you know, there's a ton of three bedroom options. And people who are only looking for three bedrooms are gonna see those and they're gonna see yours. But people who are looking for fours are not gonna see yours. Because even though it's a four bedroom house, if they're searching based on the number of people who are gonna be staying with them, they're not seeing it. Now, your house is like 3,500 square feet. It's definitely big enough for 12 people. So I would probably just add a few more beds, maybe a Murphy bed into your office because you have a dedicated work office. That might be a good spot for a Murphy bed. I might like look at some of these couches and consider them sleeping areas. I might even do some sort of a pull-out situation. But you've got at least two couches in the house that you can consider sleeping areas, and you've got those two rollout beds. So that puts you at 12. You don't even have to buy anything more. You've already got couches people can sleep on. And for those larger stays, a lot of times people are okay with just staying on a couch. You know, it's not necessarily about the accommodation and how comfortable the bed was for them. Sometimes it's just about being with their friends or being with their family and crashing on a couch perfectly fine. So you want make sure that you show up in search. Think about the visibility effect of having 12 people as your max. So I want to touch on photo order again because I had mentioned that two of your biggest selling points were not in your top five photos. So your top five photos should be your top selling points for this house. And on a laptop, people are seeing those first five photos all in one space. a mobile, like on a cell phone, they're not seeing that. They're scrolling through the first couple of pictures and the first. couple are sometimes all they look at before moving on to the next listing. So you really want to have your gym, your jacuzzi, you have a beautiful kitchen. I'd probably put the kitchen up there, and your backyard. Those would probably be my top four photos. And the fifth one, maybe your comfortable living room. You've got a beautiful picture there of the couches and people sitting on the couches and the fireplace roaring in the background. So That's really, you know, probably one of your top five photos as well. And then the things that are going to cause people to not book your house. Again, I recommend getting those as far back in your photos as possible. Those things that are going to make people not want to book your house. So I oftentimes will put one of the bedrooms, like the best bedroom, right up in the top five photos, because that shows people that I've actually got a nice bedroom. It's going to be comfortable and they can book this place and it's going to be really nice. Now you've got like one bedroom that's huge. And has a lot of storage behind the bed. I don't see any value in the storage. I don't think guests care about that. But you're showing them something that's made well, that's looks nice, and it's obviously done with care with the rolled towels and everything. So the picture of like bedroom number four where the bed is just like a double-sized bed and is pushed up against the wall, that's a picture I would probably hold off all the way to the end. I don't really want people seeing that picture, you know, because again, we're trying to get them to share this with others. We're trying to get them to make a conversion. And they don't have to look through every single picture to make a booking. They just need to see enough that they get the feeling and the impression that this is a place that they would have fun at. That they would like and that their group will be comfortable in. So those four bedrooms are kind of important. The other thing to know is they're sometimes looking at these bedrooms and trying to think, would Kathy and Joe be comfortable in this bed? You know, is this a king-size bed? So like the bedrooms and the layout and the setup for them is kind of something that makes a big difference. But they shouldn't have to go too far in your pictures in order to find those. I would definitely make sure that all my selling points were first. And based on the photos that you have of your bedroom, I probably would only feature one or two, like in the first 20 pictures. But like the things that are obviously not selling your house, the trampoline, again, it's kind of a liability right now with no padding on the springs. And then the front of the house, showing people that this is not a mountain house, but this is the kind of house that they would find in the suburbs of New Jersey. Like that's a liability as well. You're gonna want to give people the impression that they're gonna have a good time here, it's gonna be Instagram worthy, they're gonna be able to show off to their friends that they stayed at such a nice cabin. And you're really not getting that here. Which brings me to my last piece of advice is that you need to figure out your niche. And optimize your listing for that. What you're doing currently is like competing based on heads and beds. But I don't think you knew that you were competing based on heads and beds. You're giving people a comfortable, cozy place to stay. And it's really more about the destination, what they're coming here for. And that is really just a pin on a map. Because there's not a whole lot. At this destination that's going to cause somebody to book your house compared to something down the road that's a little bit better priced. So if you're competing based on the beds and it's just a place for somebody to sleep, then you're like in the hotel business. What you really need to do is differentiate yourself. That's one of the things that I love about vacation rentals is that people can be like really creative and they can demonstrate that. And the public rewards it with dollar signs. Like they'll book your house because they love that creativity, they love that theme, they love that vibe, they love that feeling that they're going to get. So compete based on your unique value. Generally speaking, a house can do really well and it can differentiate itself from other homes if it is a lakefront property, if it has a really nice view, if it's next door to something like the pool or the tennis courts or the clubhouse, if it is a log house like the one I'm sitting in now, if it's got an indoor pool. a private indoor pool, if it has a sauna, or like a really nice sauna, right? Or if it has a theme. So some sample themes to consider just for clarity is like a day at the beach. Or Campanawana. Remember Nickelodeon? Can I hold you in on our hearts? you could do a rock climbing theme and you could take, you know, a large garage and you could put a big rock climbing wall across one of those walls. And it could be rock climbing. Like that could be the theme. You could put like something soft for people to fall on so that parents don't get so concerned about their kids, you know, jumping off of a 12 foot high ceiling. And onto this floor. Like you can do things like that, or your theme could be something safe, like antlers, or it could be like the bear den. My recommendation for themes if you choose bears, go all in. Don't do that halfway because too many people are doing a halfway bear theme. And they just get, I don't know, a couple pictures, some coasters, and some sheets. From like Wayfair, Amazon, or Hobby Lobby. And they're just putting those in their house. And there's not really any intentionality. But like I can't tell you as a real estate broker in the Poconos how often I see the exact same bear decor. Anyway, so Maria, for your house, my recommendation is going to be a health and wellness theme. Follow me here. You've got a beautiful indoor gym. You've got a leg press machine. Those are expensive. They're hard to find. A lot of gyms don't have leg press machines. you've got a treadmill, you've got a bench press machine, you've got a lat pull-down machine and tricep extensions. You've got a lot of weights and you've got this beautiful open space. Now, that gym is only half the room. The other half of the room is your couches and a TV. Well, I feel like that whole space should be utilized for health and wellness. And that you can go with this gym theme and you can go a lot further. So there's an art to this, and there's also a budget to this. But I'm going to give you a bunch of ideas that you can either take them and run with them, or you could just say like, let's budget this for later, or I don't really like, I don't want one of those in my house. You've got a jacuzzi here. I recommend having Epsom salt. Epsom salt baths are common in this like health and fitness industry. So if somebody's booking your house so they can use the gym, they're gonna be sore and they're gonna be like tired. But an Epsom salt bath is gonna aid in that recovery So another thing I would recommend is like getting a like a serious cold juicer. Now you can get like a ninja juicer for like 160 bucks, or you can go like really high end. Now, a lot of people already have juicers. So the way you would kind of impress them is by having something that's like really heavy duty, really high quality, something like that. But you might not have the budget for it. I recommend figuring out your budget and then buying a juicer based on that budget. The next thing be red light therapy. A lot of people are really getting into this trend where they're covering their face with a red light device. Or they're doing a few other things. Research a little bit. I think what you'll see is that it's impressive, that it can have some serious effects over time. Now, because it's so trendy, because a lot of people are looking into it, you can actually add this into your listing and people will book your house just so they can try this out. I don't know. I mean, it's not going to do anything with just a weekend or a one-week stay. It's not going to do probably anything at all. But The placebo effect, the fact that it this is something that's trendy and they can try this out and they can take an Instagram photo of themselves in front of this thing while they're, you know, in their bathing suit in front of a red light device. It just means that they can do something that they can't do at other houses. So this is a differentiator. Even if somebody else has a gym, even if there's a community gym that they can go to, yours is special and unique because it is private. And it has a red light therapy device. So that's just another idea, but I've been researching it a lot lately. And I think that's a whole nother like health trend, But I would recommend an indoor sauna. You've got plenty of space for it. If you can even mix your indoor sauna with your red light therapy, that's even better. Because now you're doing both in the same location and you can still advertise both a sauna and a red light. The next one I would recommend because it's simple, easy, and cheap, is yoga mats. You could have like, I don't know, 12 yoga mats there. And now everybody can do hot yoga. They can turn on the sauna, open the door. It gets real hot in this room potentially. And That brings me to the next thing is you probably should have some heaters. If you're going to do hot yoga, you should have some heaters just for that room so that people can pump the temperature up you are gonna wanna think through that. Another thing along with that decor and that theme would be like posters for walls related to yoga stretches or poses or you know, whatever. You've got that that standard one of a guy standing up here and all the muscles are identified. Like this is your gluteus, whatever. Moving on. small trampolines. How often people run like jump on those small little trampolines in front of the TV, and you've got a TV there, which is another idea. Get a DVD player. I know these are like really old-fashioned, and people can find everything that's on DVDs just on the internet, but you can't take a photograph of that. So, what you can take a photograph of is your DVD player and a bunch of DVDs for fitness. Because these folks, they can all stand in front of your TV and they can bop along with P90X or Zumba or Billy Blank's Tai Bow or Insanity. Remember Insanity? Like people do actually want to challenge themselves. They do actually want to try something like this. And What you're doing in that photo is just showing them that they can try these things, that you have the tools that they need to just try insanity for one weekend and they might never do it again. And you've got the tools for recovery because you have a juicer and you have Epsom salt for the jacuzzi tub. there, I feel like your house could be so incredibly successful with some of these ideas and with good management. And by good management, I mean like pricing strategies. Marketing strategies, photographs, the kind of stuff that I'm talking about. And Maria, I feel terrible that you've been taking advice from people who tell you, yeah, don't allow pets. That'll reduce the amount of like pet damage you get. It doesn't. The bad guests still bring their emotional support animals. They still bring their service animals. There is this myth going around that they can do that and you can't stop them. And while it's there. It's going to ruin the guest experience for you to point it out. So, yeah, are you legally allowed to do this? Yeah. Does it create a terrible guest experience? Yes. And that bad guest experience increases your likelihood of being thrown off the platform, your visibility being hurt, you getting a bad review that you can't have taken down. It's this domino effect. So My recommendation, check out episode number two. We talk about pets. You should allow the pets pet proof your house, make sure that people can clean up after their pets. Because at the end of the day, if somebody's got a pet that's going to cause damage, they're not taking that pet with them to your house. Especially if you're an expensive property that's getting booked a lot. They're not taking the pet if it's not well behaved. If it is well behaved, then you're likely to get the pet. But you're not going to show up and search if they want to bring their well-behaved pet. You're only going to show up and search if they're the kind of guest that knows that they can pull one over on you by having a pet that wasn't declared or a pet that wasn't paid for. So essentially, I just I feel bad that you've been given all this advice. it's how I started. Conventional wisdom doesn't work. You've got to think through this from Airbnb's perspective, from the guests' perspective. You have to think through this as like, what is the least expensive way for me to increase the value of my property to guests, the perceived value? Think about this from a marketing side, right? You could have a whole bunch of videos even saved. on your TV, but you can't take a photo of that. That's why I'm saying get a Blu-ray or a DVD player and make it available to your guests to use because they still know how to use it. So identify something people are looking for. Focus heavily on that niche and go all in. What is the path of least resistance for you? And would still be found In high demand among travelers. And even if it's in high demand, you have to make sure that there's not so many people on the market that are offering it. You know what everybody's offering? Beds. you've gotta differentiate yourself. I think you're getting the point, You've got to do something different. And health and wellness is a huge emerging market In the vacation rental industry. So once you've figured out what you're going to be, and it doesn't have to be health and wellness, you know, you could go all in on the spa, or you can get a really awesome hot tub, put it in your backyard, make your backyard like a big oasis. There's all kinds of things that you could do. But once you've figured out what your theme is going to be, morph your listing into that idea over time. As funds become available, you can reinvest along that theme. Now, if I was you and I only had $1,000 that I could change my listing into the theme that I just described, number one, I'd buy some yoga mats. Number two is the DVD player and some of those DVDs. You can probably find all of this on Facebook Marketplace. I probably would not buy used yoga mats. But the next one is Epsom salt. It's also very inexpensive. You can pick it up at Dollar General, At Walmart for sure. the next one is the posters. Those are something you can probably find on Amazon. And the juicer. The juicer is probably the most expensive of all these things. And for yoga mats, you don't even need 12 yoga mats. Even if your house can sleep 12 people, you're still gonna want to maybe limit it to like six yoga mats just based on price. But they're like 20 bucks a piece. And they're kind of just get the cheap, replaceable ones. You know, not that I know a lot about yoga, but this is for the economics value of it, not necessarily for I don't know, all you yoga posers, put in the comments the right kind of yoga mat to buy. So then if I only had a thousand dollars, those are the things I would get. And again, that's the the yoga mats, the DVD player, and the DVDs, the Epsom salt, the posters, and the juicer. Now down the line, I would save up for an ice plunge. Those can be expensive, but I think it's again very trendy and would be particularly good in the poconos. And a sauna, an indoor sauna. And bonus points again, if you can put a red light. In your sauna, and it's not going to be just, you know, a regular heat sauna. But those sound pretty good. Now, Maria, if you do these things, you'll technically be competition to my listings, to my management services, too. But there's not a limit to the number of guests who are willing to come to the Poconos region. As we improve our listings, like what I'm encouraging you to do, we're going to bring more people to the area. This is an abundance mindset. I feel like we all can win together. So together we improve tourism in the region because. We make our properties and our practices better. So, why don't more people talk about stuff like this? I think they do sometimes, like in networking groups, but you really need to be around people with an abundance mindset. And that's something that we talk about here, because this is the show where we discuss the challenges. As well as the stuff that no one talks about when they sell the dream of easy passive income. If you're a property manager, an owner, operator, a co-host, or just an investor, I would love to help. Have you got questions? Email me at infogalvanizemanagement.com. Your question might be the next one that we break down, and chances are you'll help a lot of other hosts in the process too. We win or we lose together. If this episode helped you, great. Share it with another host who's in the trenches. Rate and subscribe too so that we can organically reach more people. That's how we make this industry better. I'd also love to see you follow on TikTok at Galvanize Investments and Facebook and YouTube at Galvanized Management. Until next time, stay steady, keep learning, and keep building something real. This is Short-Term Rental Problems and Solutions.