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How Much Time Does It Take To Manage One Airbnb? · Short Term Rental Problems and Solutions

• Jeremiah: It's not all sunshine and five star reviews. if you've realized being an STR investor isn't glamorous, then you're in the right place. Today I'm helping Lee identify the real source of burnout and why she's selling a cash flowing asset. She says she doesn't have time for this, and she says the market is saturated, but that's just the excuse covering up the root cause. 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. Anybody can win big in this industry, but you can also ignore education and just quit, like Lee wants to do. My name's Jeremiah. I'm an investor with over a decade of experience, and I'm a property manager with over 140 units under management. I talk about what rental investing looks like from the inside. Welcome to Short-term rental problems and solutions. We're gonna get right into today's email. Hi Jeremiah, my name is Lee, and I'm a super host for a townhome in the Poconos. I've done pretty good with the rental, but want to sell the property and move. I hate having to chat with guests while also trying to unwind from a long day at work. They act like I don't have a life. My strategies for success also take a lot of time and increasingly it's just not worth it. I've seen a few listings pop up near me and pricing that I can't really beat. So my occupancy rate, which was at 95%, is slipping. I considered a property manager, but giving away 25% of my rent, puts me in the negative. I feel burned out. So I called the guy I used to buy the place, and we both think it's a good time to sell. My husband told me to email you for an alternate perspective though. Also, maybe some of your listeners would be interested in buying the townhome. Sincerely, Lee. She does get into some details about like what size and location and the other stuff about this townhome. But this is this is tough, you know. So thank you, Lee, for being honest with your perspective and your situation. I have a question for you though, which will actually direct my whole response to this. If you sold your town home, would you be willing to consider managing it? as the property manager. Putting myself in your shoes, the answer is definitely no. You already have a full-time job and at the end of the hard day, you just want to relax. Your expectation for the time commitment is that it's going to be more than what you have. And you've already said it's just not worth it. And people are always asking me, how many messages do you really get? And the better question is, when do they stop? After looking at an entire month's worth of data, they don't. there's exactly one two hour window every day when nobody messaged me between two and four in the morning. And that is it. Let me show you the heat map for messages recorded by our system. So we're going to get into message timing. And for our listeners on YouTube, that heat map is going to be up on the screen for a good portion of this so that you can do your analysis and you can see kind of what we're talking about. And so for everybody else, I'm just going to explain to you this heat map is showing two hour blocks of time. So there's 12 two-hour blocks of time across one axis. And the days of the week across the other. And this is looking at data over the last month. So The top blocks of time per week with forty two messages and fifty six messages in a two hour period are Sunday and Thursday between 10 a.m. and 12 noon. And a big reason for that is we have a lot of guests checking out on Sundays. And when the guests are checking out, that's usually when they're sending in a lot of messages. So checkout is 11. So they're usually sending messages right before, telling us they've checked out, or they're sending messages shortly after. But there's a lot of communication that happens during that period. Now, Thursday between 10 and 12 o'clock is something I'm not actually good with an answer for. I don't know exactly why we have a whole bunch of messages going back and forth with guests on Thursdays. But if we look at other time blocks, the ones that are about half of that number or greater, then we're looking at some more repeatable, more explainable kind of trends. So that would be Monday from 10 a.m. to midnight, Tuesday from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. and Saturdays from 8 a.m. to 10 p.m. So pretty much all day Saturday, there is that strong cluster. There's also a strong cluster from 2 o'clock until 10 o'clock on Fridays. We have a lot of check-ins on Fridays. And Mondays and Tuesdays we're generally handling registrations. So remember from previous episodes, most of my guests are staying at an HOA. And almost every HOA wants to charge a fee for the guests. Essentially, they want their piece of the pie. So we've got to register those guests and pay for those registrations. So there's a lot of information that has to go back and forth. And we choose to use the thread for that. Now, if you want to try and automate this, you can create like a PDF and tell your guests to fill it out. I found that the easiest way for them to do this Is just to do it through the messages. I'll do the extra work. I'll type everything in. I'll format it the way it needs to be for the community. But what I want them to do is have an easy way to just tell me all the info that I actually need. And if they want to make a phone call, you know, I'm willing to answer the phone and everything, but this is when a lot of those messages are happening. So we have a total of 186 messages on Saturdays, we have 183 and 184 on Mondays and Tuesdays. So our biggest days of the week for messaging are Mondays and Tuesdays, getting their information for registration and on Saturday while they're there all day. And then we also have a bunch of messages that do come in on Friday around that check-in time. So what you'll notice though is that there's only one block of time every day when there's no messages that come in. And that's every night between 2 a.m. and 4 a.m. Every other time there was at least one message. what this tells us is that rental guest messages don't really turn off. When they are awake, they are messaging. And messages do actually come in at 5 a.m. sometimes. I have a total of 11 messages in the last month between 12 a.m. and 2 a.m. That's exhausting. And Lee is getting these messages. Her occupancy rate is very high. There's guests messaging whenever they're awake. There's inquiries coming in. Sometimes people like you know, they're falling asleep thinking, I need a vacation. So they start searching through Airbnb. And they might stumble across your place at 1 a.m. And they might send an inquiry. Hey, does this house have a XYZ? And could they just find the answer if they look through the listing? Usually, yes. Or they might ask, how far is this to Kalahari? Or how close is this to a ski area? And they could just figure this information out by looking at the map, but they don't. They send the inquiry instead. And Airbnb Watches how long your average response time is. So if you're not responding at night, then your average response time goes up and your visibility could suffer. So this is like a real thing. And hosts feel this pressure to respond. Like whenever a message comes in, the phone lights up, immediately it's picking it up and getting back to somebody. Because God forbid you forget. God forbid, it's on do not disturb, and you are, you know, letting an hour or two hours go by before that guest gets a response. Now, number one, they're still shopping. They're looking at other houses. And if those other houses don't have those same questions for them, they're gonna book something else. Something with instant book on. Where you're listing because it wasn't complete, they're sending you an inquiry instead. And it's not even that it wasn't complete, it's just that they still have questions. Now, one thing that you can save yourself a little time with is those inquiries. You can actually set up with your software that your guest, when they make an inquiry, will get a blanket message just automatically sent to them. And depending on the level of software that you're using, it might even customize the response based on what they asked. But it'll basically, you know, if if you're just automating this, then when the inquiry comes in, you just want to remind the guest, hey, these dates are going to remain open until you book it. I'm gonna answer this question as soon as I possibly can, but I might not be able to see this if it's at night. This is an automated message. Something like that keeps your response time really short and gives you the opportunity to then respond to them in the morning rather than late at night, right? Like when the message comes in. So you can tell from this heat map, like this obviously comes in all the time. There's not really a time when guests aren't messaging. So there's a few things that you can do in order to cause this to take less of your personal time. One is automated messages. Another is templates. So you can set up templates for a lot of frequently asked questions, but they're not going to go out automatically, not until you say, you know, this is the message I want to send out, and you send it. So we do Utilize those for time savings. another thing that you can do is you can keep your answers short. I know like a big part of hospitality is sometimes over explaining or being very flowery or long-winded with your messages. But if you keep these things short, the guest will usually also keep things short. not always, but sometimes. So I try to come across as very friendly and nice without being too wordy. it saves you time. But while you're doing that, just be careful that you don't share your attitude. If you are a little unhappy with when the message is coming in or when they're expecting a response from you or what their expectations of you are, just be careful that that attitude doesn't transfer over to them. Because what you'll end up with is a bad review just because you were trying to save some time. Now, if you want to save even more time, Lee, I recommend you hire a co-host. usually you can find a co-host right through Airbnb, through Facebook groups. You can just talk to your friends. so their compensation is going to be different based on, you know, who they are and how experienced they are. a co-host, though, sometimes they're only taking 10% of the rent, sometimes they're taking less, sometimes a flat fee, like per reservation or a flat fee per month. But essentially that co-host is going to, do all the communications with you. So I think this might be a really good option for you, since you say that you can't really afford a property manager. Another thing that you could do is you could engage an AI host. Now, the AI hosts that are out there are expensive. They're like $400 a month minimum. But depending on the volume that you're doing, this might actually still benefit you and save you money. Because What you would pay a co-host is maybe more than $400 a month. So, I mean, by comparison, the AI host might help out. The problem with AI, though, is that it takes a ton of training and it's still not all that reliable. it's a lot easier to train a human being, somebody with some background knowledge, somebody maybe with a bachelor's degree, you know, in communications or hospitality. but an AI host doesn't come with any of those things. They were not traditionally trained, they've not been a guest at people's properties before, It doesn't know how that feels, So, you know, be just careful integrating AI. like some property management softwares that you can engage, like Hospitable or Hostaway, that are starting to engage AI in their platforms for the purpose of messaging guests. And I would recommend looking into those because that could save you some time as well. I think people who are unfamiliar with short-term rentals expect most guests to act the way they do when they're staying at a hotel or even a rental, but that's obviously not reality because there's a broad spectrum of how people act. Some people are completely normal and they're just like you. Other people are completely the opposite. In my formal training as a teacher, I learned in one of my freshman classes that, in some parts of the state, You've got people at the dinner table speaking over each other. And that's just completely normal. The person who gets attention, the person who gets a reaction is the person who's the loudest or the most entertaining. And then there's other places in the state where those dinner tables are there's only one person speaking at a time. And people have to kind of like look around for nonverbal cues to know that it's their turn to speak now. And then in other parts of the state, people don't even get together as a family for dinner. And There's something to be said of that as well. But like there's a broad spectrum of what is normal, what is acceptable, and what will get you attention, what will get you favor or respect. And that is true with your guests as well. The thing that's weird is that people buy short-term rentals expecting other guests to act the way they do. And I get it. It's a culture shock when you get invited to dinner with one of those families where everybody's talking at once. And you feel like you can't get a word in because nobody stops. Like there's not a moment when it goes quiet and nobody's talking. So like you don't actually get to say anything. And they all just assume that you're quiet, but you have something to say. You're just trying to be respectful. This is a culture clash. And this happens a lot in vacation rentals. So the reality is very few guests are actually going to act like you. Some of them are. They're going to be very respectful. They're going to keep their messages short. They're not going to take up your time a whole lot. But others are gonna be extremely chatty. Your best friend, they're inviting you over for drinks. There's all kinds of people that you're gonna meet out there. here's a couple of messages that I'm gonna read just to give you an idea of the spectrum, Because a lot of guests wouldn't say these things, but this one did. ready? So this is the guest saying, Hey, we had a lovely time. Just a couple of notes I wanted to pass along. The deck is pretty run down, to the point where the railing feels a little unsafe and there's a floorboard or two loose. Also, some of the deck furniture is broken too, which was disappointing, because sitting out on the deck is something that we looked forward to. Also, the grill is in really bad shape. It's so dirty under the grates that it was starting to catch fire down there. I think it probably needs to be replaced. And having tongs or some other grill specific utensils would be nice. The hot tub also was a little cloudy, but I'll be honest, it didn't stop us. Overall, though, it was a great stay, and you were incredibly helpful. I'll be leaving your nice review shortly. No, if this is a four star review, I'm gonna be pissed. I absolutely hate four stars. so I responded back in the same minute that this message came across. I said, Hey, I'm really glad you mentioned it. Most guests assume I know everything, but the railing and those loose boards is new. At my home, it happens to be in the summer when things get really dry. So I'll be sure to get that better supported. I've been saving up for a new grill. That one's about two and a half years old, but it gets a surprising amount of use. Good note on the grill tools. I could use a new set. The hot tub? Well, the well water, it's a roll of the dice, whether it'll come out or the hose clear or cloudy. It's clean. The bromine and chemical balancing, the cleaners used, ensures that. But it's not always predictable if it's going to be a little cloudy or crystal clear. I'm also considering a more expensive filtration system for the well, but I don't know yet. why did I respond to the guest that way? I want them to know that them leaving a review is not warning anybody because every issue that they identified is something I'm going to be taking care of. Second, I want them to know that I also have a budget that I'm saving up to replace the grill. I'm saving up for this stuff. And I want to improve it. And I thank them for making me aware of it. the thing about the railing and the the deck boards. I actually went over there yesterday and it's not that bad. They're making it out like it's a terrible thing, it's not dangerous, it's not rickety, it's completely safe. It's just I need to put some through bolts in there, and we don't have those right now. So through bolts will definitely make that more secure. Gonna get that taken care of. But telling the guests that I'm gonna be taking care of this as soon as possible means that their review doesn't have to mention it because it doesn't have to mention it. There's no point in leaving a review saying this deck railing is bad and the furniture is rickety. Also, I only identified two chairs that were like not in great shape on that deck. So I'm going to be getting rid of those and adding a couple more chairs. So also the thing about the hot tub, you know, it didn't seem like it was a big deal for them. They just felt like, you know, it would have been nice if it was crystal clear. Well, the water's not always crystal clear. And it's not unsafe. It's still completely clean. So I'm addressing these issues for them and sympathizing with them and doing this so quickly. That they don't have time to leave that nice review yet until they've seen these messages. But still, it takes time to compose something like this. This takes a little thought, it takes a little time, and you want to write it correctly, you want to write it right. And it's not just something you do while you're driving, or you might be risking a four-star review. I've actually pulled over in situations like this. But nobody warns you about the weird part of this business. Guest messaging is on several spectrums. We've been invited to parties, told to F off and mind our own business, or like incredibly chatty guests with like one word text messages where like 15 messages come in a row with one word per message. I see a ton of broken English messages where guests just make no sense. I've also seen accusatory guests or threats to sue us and put us out of business. I had one guest that called me a scammer. My assistant one time had to call a guest about a check-in. complication. He complimented her on her voice. After checkout, he asked us to go to the house to get a few gallons of fruit juice to store until he passes through this way again. Cause apparently he had left those behind. When we walked inside, there was a webcam live streaming the entrance of the house. We threw away his juice and we threw away his webcam. He still has her number. She'll still get a random text from him once in a while. Guests are weird. Sometimes they're extremely weird. And there's not a whole lot you can do So we've learned to block our number when we have to call them. or use only a company phone when it's going on. But there is very weird activity. There's very normal activity. Sometimes people are extremely friendly, sometimes they're extremely hostile. Like this happens a lot when the guests know they're being unreasonable They sometimes just become extremely hostile because in their mind the review is already written and they're no longer going to be able to get to do this stuff. And you're not going to give them a credit like you thought you were going to and they're not going to be able to ask for a late checkout. And in their mind they're losing a whole lot of things. But that's just a hostile guest. You know and over time you learn how to deal with them. But sometimes you just have to make those mistakes. as you're dealing with them. And AI can help, you know, it's got some experience. But my point is like not everybody is expecting this. So we've had some very cautious guests and we've had some very bold guests. I had one that said, I didn't realize that the hot tub was in the front yard. So I was looking forward to taking the bathing suits off. We made the most of it and draped some towels over the railings, though. Since all the towels got used, we did two loads of laundry for you and a smiley face emoji. Like, that's really bold. You know, you generally don't tell people that you were naked in their hot tub. but that's what this guest is saying here. And so my point in giving you all these illustrations is that guests act different. They are on a spectrum. There's no quote unquote normal. And if there is, there's cloudy edges to that block of the graph. So there's very normal activity. There's very creepy activity like that guy with the fruit juice. I think it was a mango juice that he bought in North Carolina. And like apparently only convenience stores in North Carolina have this mango juice and it was really good. And he was driving through and he was staying at our place for a couple of days. And he forgot the juice People think this is a real estate business. It isn't. It's a people business that happens to involve real estate. So besides all the messaging with guests, you've also got messages with cleaners and repairmen. And this could actually take up a lot of your time depending on who that person is or what their personality type is. Cleaners sometimes can view your calendar through an API or through their own software. And this is actually very time saving, like if they can view it that way. Most of them though, they just send you a text message or they expect a text message from you confirming or canceling. anytime there's a new reservation, anytime there's a cancellation, anything like really just in the next two weeks. They don't really care about anything outside of two weeks. So if you think, I could just automate this through my software, that they get a message every time I get a new reservation, I can guarantee you they're not paying attention to your reservation that's coming next June 2027. I don't think they think that far. They're not putting it on their calendar. They're paying attention to like the next two weeks. And what we found to be really useful for people where there's not a software integration is just screenshots of their calendar. And every time that calendar changes to send us a new screenshot. That way we're looking back in the text message thread or the WhatsApp thread to the most recent calendar. And we can plan accordingly and we can tell them we're going to be there on Tuesday to do the clean. That's a good cadence, but it does take up a lot of time 'cause there's screenshots involved, there's sending messages, there's a lot. And like I was telling you, a lot of cleaners will use text messages or they'll use WhatsApp. Some of them use Slack. some use Breezeway. I don't use Breezeway. And if you're out there and you're a Breezeway rep, stop calling me. I'm not considering Breezeway right now because of the way you price things. but let's move on. cleaners also will communicate damages or missing items through text messages. So if you do have a broken arcade game now. They're going to notify you of that once they find out. They're going to notify you of it by text message. Sometimes you need something a little bit more official for like an Airbnb claim or something like that. Make sure that you're working with a cleaner that's willing to write up an invoice, put some notes on it, that sort of thing, and do it in a timely manner. But all of these things take time. Repairmen. Repairmen sometimes will only call, or sometimes they will only text. They rarely send invoices. so this can be complicated, unfortunately. You would think that there's like great, contractors everywhere and that they're all going to use a contract, but most of them don't use contracts, even though they're called contractors. And most of them only want to send you a text message and your Zell, and then you send the money, or their cash app and you send them money. That's what they're looking for. They'll send you a picture of the job once it's done. If you're lucky and you just send the money. so Lee, one real quick suggestion. When you find a contractor, like a handyman that communicates well, ask them what they would charge to visit your property on a holiday or weekend. So like something might be a $100 job today and it's during the week, it's during business hours, but ask them if I called you to do this on New Year's Eve, would you show up? And if the answer is no, what amount of money would it take for you to show up on New Year's Eve? And they should tell you. And then you can hold them to that later on. The reason for this is because people are much more likely to make promises for something far enough in the future, something that's not likely to happen. So they'll tell you, it'd be like 800 bucks. So 800 bucks plus the $100 service call. Yeah. It's like 900 bucks. I'd show up on New Year's. What you've just got now is a threshold because they don't actually have an $800 fee. If they're just working for themselves, if they're an independent contractor, they're probably just coming up at this off the top of their head. They're basing this on how much they like you, what kind of favors they want to do for you, that sort of thing. But if you can get them to say 800 bucks plus the cost of the job, then if you find them later on and it's like, I don't know, Thanksgiving, and you say, Hey, I really need you over here. Are you in town? Yeah, I'm in town, or I got a buddy who can go over. All right, what's it gonna cost me? And now you wanna be on the same page, right? If he says a thousand dollars, it's just like, whoa, does that mean that this is more inconvenient than New Year's Eve? because you said eight hundred dollars before and saying stuff like that is gonna make them realize that they had made a promise. Not a promise necessarily, but they made an estimate. The number could very well change. And to my listeners, thousand dollars seems like a lot until you've got a reservation that's like three thousand dollars and the guest is going to get comped. $1,000 if this doesn't get taken care of, and you're still gonna have to get it fixed on Monday. So it might seem like a really big number for that contractor to show up, but what you're actually paying for is a solution and a happier guest. So these things like the numbers don't really matter so much. Sometimes it's just about the contractor. It's about what incentive do you need in order to get out there? What value do you place on your time? And Certain times of the week or of the month or of the year are more valuable than others. Like Lee, I probably can't get you, out of bed on a Saturday morning because you work hard all day, every day of the week, and you want to be able to sleep in one day a week. You know, like that time is more valuable to you than we'll say, like three o'clock on a Tuesday. And the contractors are the same way. They're just like you and I. And so to get them out of their home, to get them away from like a date with their spouse or something like that, there has to be proper motivation. And if their spouse knew that they were turning down a thousand dollars in order to spend New Year's Eve with them, then that places a value on their time. But if they knew that they were turning down $2,000, I think the spouse would be like, what are you doing? Like, let's go over there together. You're like, it's worth our time. And so, it's just a matter of proper motivation. A lot of times people say, like, I can't get a contractor to come out on a holiday, or I can't get a contractor to come out on a weekend, or I found good contractors, but they're not willing to like show up half the time. This is why. They just need proper incentive. And usually money is what's going to get them out there. Now I want to touch briefly on what you were talking about with the property manager. If you hired one, they would put you in the negative. So Lee, my news for you is you already are in the negative. You're just, if you look at it the right way, the income that comes in from your property, once you get down to the net rent, 75% of that, or 80%, is going to you for making your good investment. And that's getting used to cover your expenses, your repairs, the cost of shoveling the snow, whatever. That's your property costs and that's your rent for making a good investment. So what you look at is 75% of this over the year is passive income. This is what would go to me as the investor. Now I've elected to be the property manager in this situation because I'm replaceable. Other property managers can do the same job I'm doing. So Lee, what you're actually paying yourself is 25% or 20, you know, depending on what your property manager is going to charge. You are replaceable. If you can hire somebody to do the job that you're doing at 20 or 25%, then that portion of the net rent is what you should be keeping as active income. This is your income for the work that you've done. This is your income, like the 70 or 80%. That's your income for the property. And that's for making a good investment. So if your deal doesn't have the ability to take 20% off the net, then your 80% is not actually enough to cover the property, in which case this isn't that great of an investment. You can get all those numbers higher, you can get some of your expenses lower, you can look at this deal that way. But if you're looking at it like, well, if I hired a property manager, I can't afford to pay them 20%. Well what that means is that you're a property manager for your own property and you're only paying yourself maybe 10 or 15%. See the replaceability is important to know. And let's think back to that co-host option for a second, right? If the co-host is only charging you 10% of the rent, then that's all you're making for messaging the guests. And the biggest headache that you're encountering that you're talking about in your email, is that the guests aren't respecting your time. They're not respecting any boundaries. They're being too chatty. It's taking too much of your time to message the guests. Well, if you had a co-host for 10%, they would be handling all of that. Which means that by taking on this job, that's something you choose to do, and the compensation for it is 10%. So no, it's not worth it. Some people sign up for stuff like this and they want to be a co-host. You don't have the time for that. So you should just find somebody who can take care of it. Find somebody that you know, like, and trust. There's lots of co-hosts out there who will be looking for another property to co-host. Some of them, this is their main gig. They might have 150 properties and they're just a co-host talking to guests, communicating with them, looking at notes about the property and answering questions of being friendly. You could do that. Said in another way, owner operators get confused thinking they're making $7,000 a month for the activity that led their rents to come in. But really, they're just making $1,750 for the activity of managing the property. The other $5,250 is what they earn for making the investment. So of all that net rent, you've got to split it. There's this part is what I'm paying myself for actively working this job. This part is not. And at scale, 25% makes sense. But when you're only talking about one property, 25% is not enough. I'm sorry. It's just not. It's just one property. You've got to have pricing software. You've got to have hosting software. You've got to have all these different tools that are costing 20, 30, 40 bucks a month, sometimes more. And this adds up. Everybody wants their piece of the pie, right? Everybody wants their subscription. And there's a lot of good tools out there, but none of them do everything for you. So you end up doing it all manually, or you hire a subscription, or you hire software to do it. So it doesn't really make so much sense if you're only managing one place, which is what you're doing. So out of that $7,000, 25% of it is your active income. You should be actually like putting that in the bank. as your own income, setting it aside. Now, your 75%, that's what you would be taking home if you had a property manager and you didn't have to do anything. You just have to pay the bills, you just have to do the investor activity. And you should be having enough in that 75 to save up for another investment property. Now, the same thing is true if it's 20%, right? In that situation, $1,400 is your compensation. And the rest, that $5,600, that's what you're actually making as the investor. Because you made a good investment, your property netted this much. And you know, now you take out expenses and everything else and you figure out the actual net. And Lee, it sounds like to me that if you were paying somebody else to do this job, that you wouldn't have enough money to pay yourself as the investor. Which means Your property needs to make more money or it doesn't make sense. So is it really worth it? And that's the thing, because nobody really looks at and counts the midnight interruptions, the endless inquiries looking for prom night, the vacations that you couldn't enjoy, the interruptions at dinner time, the arguments that it starts with your wife. And to make matters worse, your wife and your kids are assuming that you're putting them through this because of money. And It's not that you're putting your rental property or your money in front of your family and your kids. You're just trying to balance everything and this is an immediate need, but at the most inconvenient times. And you made a good investment, but you're trying to manage it yourself. See, your wife didn't marry a property manager. This is just something that you guys got into with the wrong expectations. So instead of just selling a good investment property, something that you and your family are going to enjoy, you could just hire a property manager. And I'm not telling you, Lee, I'm not telling you to hire me. I don't even know if your property's in my area. But at the end of the day, you need some help in order to keep this thing going. You need to make some more money with it. And you need to hire somebody so that you can continue being an investor. Because investing in real estate is kind of like being on a roller coaster. It's a fun ride as long as you don't jump off at the wrong time. The other thing about your comment that you can't hire a property manager or you'll start losing money is also assuming that the manager can't do a better job than you did with revenue management. See, like one of their core functions as a property manager is to price your property well in the marketplace so that you get the most amount of rent possible. That's why they're incentivized by getting paid based on the rent. They're not paid based on the number of reservations. And they're not getting a flat fee for the year either, regardless of the number of reservations. They want to get the rent up just like you do. So that's why they're charging a percentage of the rent. why are you thinking that a property manager can't earn more money? If your property is making $70,000 now and a property manager starts optimizing the rental revenues and getting that up to $80,000, well, there's the extra margin, right? Now they're taking twenty percent of the rent, but you've got ten thousand dollars extra coming in So that helps cover their expense. They're basically paying for themselves by managing your property and they're taking the job away so that you don't have to do it anymore. Now, you might think that the property can only make $70,000 and that you know what you're doing and nobody else is going to be able to copy it or be as successful as you are. Now that I've said it out loud, can you tell how prideful that sounds? maybe you've just dealt with like a lot of people who claim to be experts or claim to be competent in a certain region or in a certain area, and you found that you're still better than them. I totally get that perspective. I feel that way sometimes as well. But sometimes I just allow the experts to do their thing, even though I've done it in the past. And I like learning from their experience and learning from their approach. So maybe you just haven't found the right fit. Maybe you just haven't found a property manager yet that you do feel confident in that can get that revenue higher. And it's more than just revenue management. It's also direct booking sites. It's multi-platforms. So you're listed on VRBO as well as Airbnb or Booking.com in addition to the other three, And a good property manager will actually be advertising to your guests to come back in the future. Where you can actually charge a higher nightly rate because they're coming back direct and there's fewer bills. So there's smaller margins between what the guest is paying and what you're making. So you end up making more money, even though the guest is saving money. Airbnb is taking 15.5% from you right now. if you're on the 3%, 12% split, then they're taking 12% from your guest, they're taking 3% from you. Starting in September. All direct hosts are going to be 15.5%. So everybody across the platform is going to be paying their commission out of what they were charging. So you're going to have to account for that. You've already got 15% between what the guest is paying and what you're paying. So if you do a direct booking, which your property manager can do, then that percentage goes from 15% down to zero. So the guest is saving maybe 5% because there's no booking fees. And the host, that's you, is making an extra 10%. So wouldn't it be worth like paying the property manager a portion because now you're able to save your guests money and still make more? And then, like on top of that, if you've got a good property manager, they're gonna bring you more reservations just by better, advertising the property, better photographs, better marketing. They've got like emails going out every month to their guests that they've hosted before, and encouraging them to book your place or book another one of their houses. And this whole thing becomes a network Of guests that just continue returning and going to more properties that that property manager manages. You would benefit from all those things. Currently, none of that. You're only on Airbnb. You're not using dynamic pricing. You're marketing your property as effectively as you can, but there's not professional photos Like getting all those things together is something that I highly recommend. But it also leaves you at risk because without any boots on the ground, with just the cleaners that you're using, you don't have systems for accountability. You don't have scalability. So I'll share stuff like this. And then people start to ask me, like, well, Jeremiah, what's your angle? Well, listen, not everybody out there is selfish. Some people just like helping other people. So that's what I get out of this. I get to feel like I've helped somebody and I've given them good advice. And if this enables you to up your game to stay in the market, fantastic. I'm not necessarily looking for another property to manage, but if I can help you to manage it well, if I can help you to stay in the game then maybe we can elevate this marketplace together. Maybe this is about, setting expectations too. How much time does it take to manage a property? Well, one time I looked across all of our, team, between the cleaners and the maintenance team and hosts, and I added up all their hours and divided it by the number of reservations. And it was like 10 hours Do you have 10 hours per reservation? Now, Lee, with a occupancy rate of over 92%, you're dealing with three reservations a week. And if it's taking you 10 hours, and part of that is being spent like just managing your cleaners or managing your handymen, then it's time that they're actually spending there as well. You're probably looking at four, five hours per reservation. And no, you probably don't have time for that. But You can make time. It just has to be worthwhile. So if you're wondering if you have time for self-management or you're considering buying a rental, my message is this. It's not a ton of messages for just one house, but it can feel like it when the guest is a little odd. It's a people business. And you have to at least tolerate people to enjoy it. Either that or you need to outsource it. Hire a co-host. I don't offer co-hosting services, I offer full management services. But I can point you to some really good co-hosts. And if you want to roll the dice, you can even just check Airbnb for co-hosts. In your situation, I recommend getting that revenue higher. And to take it to the next level, I think you need a professional. Otherwise, this is just a property that might need to be sold. And then the next owner, they might be able to take it up to the next level. I genuinely enjoy sharing messages like this. And that's why this is the show where we discuss the challenges and the stuff that no one else 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, then email me info@galvanizedmanagement.com. I'd love to connect and learn more about your approach. And if you have a question, ask it. 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. I'd appreciate a good rating and a share too so we can keep growing organically. Together is how I believe we make this industry better. I'd also love to see you follow us on TikTok at Galvanized 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.