Latest / Thanks For Visiting / 570. She Doubled Her Airbnb ADR by Finally Trusting the Data

Transcript

570. She Doubled Her Airbnb ADR by Finally Trusting the Data · Thanks For Visiting

1:04
Sarah Karakaian: Hello.
1:04
Sarah Karakaian: Welcome back to another great episode.
1:06
Sarah Karakaian: My name is Sarah Karakaian.
1:08
Annette Grant: I'm Annette Grant, and together we are...
1:10
Annette and Sarah: Thanks for Visiting.
1:11
Sarah Karakaian: Today, we've got on the show Shannon
1:15
Annette and Sarah: Lye.
1:16
Sarah Karakaian: Because for years we were saying her last name incorrectly.
1:19
Sarah Karakaian: It's Shannon Lye.
1:20
Annette Grant: I was doing it.
1:20
Annette Grant: It's okay.
1:21
Annette Grant: I'll take ownership of that.
1:22
Sarah Karakaian: I think you probably started it, and I just, I started it I followed it.
1:24
Sarah Karakaian: Shannon is in her third year of hosting her own out-of-state property.
1:29
Sarah Karakaian: So she lives in Ohio, and her property is in West Virginia.
1:33
Sarah Karakaian: After letting the resort management program handle her property for two and a half years, she took over all aspects of managing the property herself.
1:41
Sarah Karakaian: And today we're gonna talk about the lessons that she's learned, and there have been so many.
1:45
Sarah Karakaian: And I wanna preface this episode with a few things.
1:47
Sarah Karakaian: First of all, Shannon has been a client of ours since at least 2021.
1:52
Sarah Karakaian: I actually didn't look it up.
1:52
Sarah Karakaian: It was either 2020 or 2021.
1:54
Sarah Karakaian: We had her on the podcast in 2021, so if you wanna listen to the beginning of Shannon's story and kinda get inspired there, we'll link those in the show notes as well.
2:03
Sarah Karakaian: But she has been a client of ours for a while, and Shannon is just.
2:07
Annette Grant: Well, she came to us, and then she had to go do some work, had to let go of the property manager, then she came back.
2:12
Sarah Karakaian: That's right.
2:13
Annette Grant: So she's been, she's been in and out, and we like it.
2:16
Annette Grant: It was kind of like that, yeah.
2:16
Sarah Karakaian: We love it.
2:17
Sarah Karakaian: We love it.
2:18
Sarah Karakaian: But in today's episode, here's what you can look forward to.
2:21
Sarah Karakaian: Shannon is, even though she's a freak in the spreadsheets, and this is, these are, those are her words, she was not a believer of PriceLabs, and was definitely one of those people that were like, "PriceLabs doesn't, quote-unquote, 'know
2:35
Sarah Karakaian: my market.'"
2:37
Sarah Karakaian: But after working with us inside of Strategic Host, our revenue managers, and of course using software like PriceLabs to help her hone in, I cannot wait for you to hear how much more money she has brought into her
2:51
Sarah Karakaian: business in 2026.
2:53
Annette Grant: It is an inspiration.
2:54
Sarah Karakaian: It is an ins- Yeah.
2:55
Sarah Karakaian: Stay tuned Shannon, welcome back to the show.
3:00
Sarah Karakaian: It has been five years since we've had you on the show.
3:04
Shannon Leyh: Time flies.
3:05
Annette Grant: What in the, what the what?
3:07
Sarah Karakaian: If I said so much has changed, would that be true, would you say?
3:10
Sarah Karakaian: Or would, do you think so much hasn't changed?
3:15
Shannon Leyh: I would say there has definitely been change in both the professional industry and, you know, just my own personal, you know...
3:25
Shannon Leyh: hosting's such a personal business.
3:26
Annette Grant: Yeah.
3:27
Shannon Leyh: That, you know, you have to look at it from both lenses.
3:30
Sarah Karakaian: You do.
3:30
Shannon Leyh: And yeah, there's been a lot of change in five years.
3:32
Annette Grant: Well, So let's start.
3:34
Annette Grant: We, our last episode, you would re-listen to it today to to, to remind yourself, and you had stated goals in that episode.
3:44
Shannon Leyh: Mm-hmm.
3:45
Annette Grant: Let's, let's go back.
3:47
Annette Grant: And by the by the way, I love this.
3:49
Annette Grant: Sarah knows I'm a huge fan of writing down goals, putting them in journals, and going back to them because it is eye-opening.
3:55
Annette Grant: So let's go back to your goals, what they were, and,
3:59
Shannon Leyh: mm-hmm
4:00
Annette Grant: where you are with them.
4:02
Shannon Leyh: Okay.
4:03
Shannon Leyh: Um, well, two of the, like, big goals that kind of stood out at the end of the last episode was, one, uh, I wanted to at some point take over and self-manage my property, because when we purchased it,
4:15
Shannon Leyh: we decided to stay on the mountain resort management program.
4:20
Shannon Leyh: And then the second goal was to eventually buy more properties down in Snowshoe, where we purchased the first one, and, you know, expand the empire so to speak.
4:34
Annette Grant: Yep.
4:36
Annette Grant: And where are we with the, you actually managing the property yourself?
4:43
Shannon Leyh: I actually took over self-managing in the fall of 2023, so I am rolling up on three years.
4:50
Sarah Karakaian: Wow.
4:51
Shannon Leyh: Of self-managing.
4:53
Sarah Karakaian: So good.
4:53
Annette Grant: From, From a distance, which is, I think, a key there.
4:55
Shannon Leyh: From a distance.
4:56
Shannon Leyh: Yep.
4:56
Shannon Leyh: About five, uh, five and a half, six hours.
4:58
Annette Grant: Right.
4:58
Annette Grant: In a very seasonal market.
5:01
Annette Grant: Was there a rub there since they are the manager of the building and the resort itself?
5:07
Annette Grant: Have you felt any repercussions from that?
5:09
Annette Grant: Just for those of listeners that might be thinking of doing something like this.
5:15
Shannon Leyh: Um, no, because the-- So I bought in a condo community, and the condo community actually has their own, like, property manager.
5:23
Shannon Leyh: So there really isn't any conflict.
5:26
Shannon Leyh: Like, once I left the rental program, like, I haven't talked to them since, and they have no idea what my existence looks like now either.
5:34
Shannon Leyh: Um, so there really hasn't been any friction there.
5:37
Annette Grant: Good.
5:37
Annette Grant: No, that's good.
5:38
Annette Grant: Just, I know some people- Yeah it's fear of the unknown and just knowing that, yep, you kind of cut ties and that's been that.
5:44
Shannon Leyh: Yeah.
5:44
Shannon Leyh: They're big.
5:45
Shannon Leyh: They made a big policy change.
5:46
Shannon Leyh: I mean, obviously one of my goals was to self-manage, but what really gave me that, um, I guess let's call it a push to do it, is in 2023, the contract with them ran basically, like, May to May,
6:02
Shannon Leyh: and they announced in that May that they were going to now make us use their housekeeping program, and that was actually one of the reasons I stayed with them, is because I could keep my own housekeeper that I,
6:16
Shannon Leyh: that had been in place already, knew the house inside and out, and that was really, I was already on that line, but that was kind of the straw that broke the camel's back.
6:26
Shannon Leyh: Uh, 'cause I'm like, "I am not changing my cleaner.
6:30
Shannon Leyh: I like my cleaner.
6:31
Shannon Leyh: She does a lot for me.
6:33
Shannon Leyh: We have good, pretty good communication."
6:36
Shannon Leyh: And frankly, the communication between the management company, I'm like, there will be zero.
6:43
Shannon Leyh: I will have no idea what's going on, and I would have no idea who the actual cleaners would be in there, because I think they have a, you know, it's a housekeeping program that they have.
6:52
Shannon Leyh: So I'm like, it could be anybody in there at any time, and I would not know.
6:55
Shannon Leyh: I would not have any way to chat with them if there was something going on.
6:59
Shannon Leyh: And so that was really the, the big thing that I was like, "And it's time to pull the trigger and do this myself."
7:05
Sarah Karakaian: Yeah.
7:06
Sarah Karakaian: And I think it's interesting.
7:07
Sarah Karakaian: I was having this thought in my head.
7:08
Sarah Karakaian: I'm like, well, you know, and I'm on Team Shannon on this one.
7:12
Sarah Karakaian: Like, I would've done the exact same thing.
7:13
Sarah Karakaian: But I think the point for most people is to not know anything, right?
7:19
Sarah Karakaian: The whole point of getting a property manager is to not know or care or have to be involved in X, Y, or Z.
7:24
Sarah Karakaian: But I think there is this epidemic, if you will, of this trust eroding between property owners and property managers, especially as investing in properties is becoming, you know, the cost to acquire a property or to the, the interest
7:42
Sarah Karakaian: rate on the property is so high that those margins are so tight already for short-term rentals.
7:46
Sarah Karakaian: Now you're giving a percent of it to a property management company, and you hear all these stories of them not handling the property well enough, or you're not making what you thought you would, or they said that you
7:56
Sarah Karakaian: would, or whatever the case may be.
7:58
Sarah Karakaian: But what do you ladies think about that?
8:00
Sarah Karakaian: Like, isn't the point not supposed to have to care, but we don't trust them enough to, to allow them to, to handle the whole thing?
8:08
Shannon Leyh: Oh, for sure.
8:09
Shannon Leyh: Like I, you know, I think so many people get into rentals of any kind, long-term, short-term, whatever, however you wanna dice it, thinking it's passive income.
8:16
Sarah Karakaian: Right.
8:17
Shannon Leyh: There's nothing truly passive, you know, unless you can just afford to throw it to somebody and be like, "Good luck," and not really care if you make money or lose money.
8:27
Shannon Leyh: But in that case, the, um, what was happening besides the housekeeping thing, so if there was an issue when there was a guest staying, I wouldn't find out until a month later because they billed or, well, they billed
8:43
Shannon Leyh: or paid, however you wanna look at it, a month in arrears.
8:46
Shannon Leyh: And it would be like on the 15th of the following month.
8:49
Shannon Leyh: So let's say January 2nd, the guest had a complaint or something broke and they gave them a discount, you know, refunded part of their stay or whatever it may be.
8:59
Shannon Leyh: I wouldn't find out till February 15th.
9:01
Sarah Karakaian: Yeah.
9:02
Shannon Leyh: And nobody would even call or contact me to say, "Hey, we refunded their money because the stove stopped working."
9:10
Shannon Leyh: I would only know the stove stopped working if my house cleaner noticed while she was cleaning it.
9:14
Sarah Karakaian: Hmm.
9:15
Shannon Leyh: That, you know, the burners or whatever, something, whatever the function was, wasn't working.
9:18
Shannon Leyh: So there was, it was starting to cost me money as well, and I, the other thing is, and I guess this is actually probably the biggest part for me, is I'm like, "I wanna make it better for the
9:29
Shannon Leyh: guest.
9:29
Shannon Leyh: Why would you not tell me?"
9:31
Shannon Leyh: Because now when they leave, like they have a bad impression of their whole stay, like not just my place, but their whole experience on the mountain, and that means they may not come back.
9:41
Shannon Leyh: And the point is to get people to come back to the destination.
9:45
Shannon Leyh: Whether they stay with me or not isn't, I mean, I'd rather they stay with me, but you don't wanna lose them as a client altogether.
9:53
Sarah Karakaian: No, I agree, and I think this, just this, this portion of our conversation, and we're gonna talk about so much today, it really is anyone listening right now, and if you are grappling with should you have, is it
10:03
Sarah Karakaian: easier on the other side with a property manager doing it?
10:06
Sarah Karakaian: Can I do this myself?
10:07
Sarah Karakaian: Is it feasible?
10:09
Sarah Karakaian: And what is the, what are the trade-offs of both sides of that?
10:13
Sarah Karakaian: And so Shannon, being on both sides and now being three years into managing it yourself, you're a mom.
10:19
Sarah Karakaian: For a while there, you were, you were doing real estate, right?
10:21
Sarah Karakaian: You were selling real estate.
10:24
Sarah Karakaian: Is it doable?
10:25
Sarah Karakaian: What do you think, to manage yourself?
10:28
Shannon Leyh: It's very doable, but it's not passive.
10:31
Sarah Karakaian: Right.
10:31
Shannon Leyh: And that is the big misnomer.
10:34
Shannon Leyh: And I mean, I have a very seasonal property.
10:36
Shannon Leyh: It's in a ski market in West Virginia, right?
10:38
Shannon Leyh: Like, our peak season is literally, like, December 10th through St.
10:43
Shannon Leyh: Patrick's Day, you know?
10:44
Shannon Leyh: And that is when it's very, like, to the grindstone, paying attention to your pricing all the time.
10:51
Shannon Leyh: Not that I don't pay attention to it all the time, but over the last two summers, and we can talk more about this, is I've actually used it as a midterm rental.
10:57
Sarah Karakaian: Mm-hmm.
10:58
Shannon Leyh: Um, you know, because it's a very slow summer season.
11:03
Shannon Leyh: I found somebody who really just wanted to rent for the whole season, and, um, you know, that, so that made it that was super passive.
11:10
Shannon Leyh: When, when my folks were renting it from mid-May to mid-October, and, you know, they, I mean, they would contact me if they had an issue, 'cause it was something I did direct booking.
11:22
Shannon Leyh: But they were the most low-maintenance people.
11:24
Shannon Leyh: They took care of the place great.
11:26
Shannon Leyh: Um, and so that was more of the passive, but I also didn't hardly make any money doing that.
11:33
Sarah Karakaian: Mm-hmm.
11:33
Shannon Leyh: So, you have to know what that trade-off is for yourself, for sure, and what, what you're willing to do.
11:40
Shannon Leyh: And I definitely think it depends on your season of life as well.
11:44
Shannon Leyh: Uh, 'cause as you all know, like, where my life was five years ago looks very different from where it is now, and we can talk a little bit about that.
11:52
Shannon Leyh: But you really have to kind of make those changes as it fits in your lifestyle, and sometimes it makes more sense to pay someone and maybe not make as much.
12:02
Shannon Leyh: And then on the flip side, when you got more time and you can really be in it, be in it.
12:08
Annette Grant: Let's, let's talk about being in it and the numbers behind the scenes.
12:13
Shannon Leyh: Sure.
12:13
Annette Grant: The first part I wanna share is, what was the percentage that you were investing in the property management company?
12:22
Shannon Leyh: Okay.
12:23
Shannon Leyh: So I believe it was about 20%.
12:28
Annette Grant: Okay.
12:29
Shannon Leyh: And then they also, I paid monthly, like a maintenance contract.
12:32
Sarah Karakaian: Mm.
12:33
Shannon Leyh: For a monthly maintenance contract, and then I got billed for anything on top of that in terms of repairs and things of that nature.
12:41
Annette Grant: Okay, great.
12:42
Shannon Leyh: So.
12:43
Annette Grant: So let's do the rundown.
12:45
Shannon Leyh: Mm-hmm.
12:45
Annette Grant: Let's go through your revenue, and let's share that, uh, Shannon has been a part of our coaching programs for years now, and I wanna, I just wanna share that Shannon, if we had to go through a, a, a,
12:59
Annette Grant: you know, list of hosts, she has always known her numbers.
13:04
Annette Grant: She is someone that is a self-proclaimed, like, spreadsheet junkie.
13:08
Annette Grant: So I wanna share that that is one of her strong suits, and, but it needs to be all of ours.
13:15
Annette Grant: Um, I, I don't think Shannon is excellent when it comes to tracking it, but everyone can do exactly what she's, what she's doing.
13:22
Annette Grant: And so I wanna offer that the stats, the numbers that Shannon is gonna give right now, if you cannot pull these up, that should be your goal, is to be able to pull these year-over-year numbers for your property
13:38
Annette Grant: up.
13:39
Annette Grant: So let's, let's get, let's dig into it, Shannon.
13:41
Shannon Leyh: It, it gives a really interesting picture, too, because like Annette said, I do track my numbers, but that doesn't mean I don't make mistakes, and I think that's super important.
13:52
Shannon Leyh: Um, you know, you can be as educated as you want.
13:57
Shannon Leyh: I mean, you ladies are the pros, and I'm sure you have times where you're like, "Oh, that wasn't maybe the right choice," or, "Maybe we should've done that differently."
14:05
Sarah Karakaian: 100%.
14:05
Shannon Leyh: But, um, just to give everybody an idea, I went back, I just looked at the month of January, because for me, that is like a peak month.
14:14
Sarah Karakaian: Okay.
14:14
Sarah Karakaian: Mm-hmm.
14:15
Shannon Leyh: Um, so I looked at January of '23, 2023.
14:19
Shannon Leyh: That is the last January that I was under the management program.
14:25
Shannon Leyh: Keep in mind, with the management program, I had no control over anything, no control over pricing, no control over how much they charged for cleanings, um, which that's important to note, because I was losing money on cleanings, and
14:38
Shannon Leyh: I could do nothing about it.
14:40
Shannon Leyh: Um, and so nights booked, 21.
14:46
Shannon Leyh: 21 nights in a, in a 31-night month.
14:49
Shannon Leyh: My average nightly rate was 495.
14:53
Shannon Leyh: And I don't even know what the booking window was.
14:56
Shannon Leyh: Okay.
14:56
Shannon Leyh: Which if you are a loyal TFV follower...
15:01
Sarah Karakaian: We know our booking windows over here.
15:02
Shannon Leyh: Yes.
15:03
Shannon Leyh: Colleen is gonna have a stroke when she hears that I didn't know and have any way to find out what the booking window was.
15:09
Sarah Karakaian: Yes.
15:11
Shannon Leyh: So then for January of '24, I first, first winter season that I was self-managing, doing my own pricing, all, all the things.
15:22
Shannon Leyh: I had 25 booked nights, so I increased my nights booked, but my ADR went down to 402, and my booking window was 105 days
15:34
Annette Grant: Your ADR went down.
15:36
Sarah Karakaian: Yeah.
15:36
Shannon Leyh: My ADR went down.
15:37
Sarah Karakaian: Your, your occupancy went up slightly, but your ADR went down.
15:39
Sarah Karakaian: Do you know, do you, have you done the math?
15:41
Sarah Karakaian: I guess we could do it right now, but.
15:42
Shannon Leyh: Mm-hmm.
15:43
Sarah Karakaian: We don't need to, but RevPAN probably still went down then.
15:47
Shannon Leyh: Um, yeah, I would say so.
15:49
Sarah Karakaian: Yeah.
15:50
Shannon Leyh: I would say so.
15:51
Annette Grant: Keep it going.
15:51
Shannon Leyh: Um, January of '25, 22 nights booked.
15:57
Shannon Leyh: My ADR increased to 508, but my booking window was still 120 days.
16:05
Annette Grant: Hmm.
16:06
Annette Grant: Right.
16:06
Annette Grant: Got longer.
16:06
Annette Grant: Okay.
16:07
Shannon Leyh: Right.
16:07
Shannon Leyh: Right.
16:07
Sarah Karakaian: What year was that?
16:08
Sarah Karakaian: 2025?
16:09
Annette Grant: Yep.
16:10
Sarah Karakaian: Okay.
16:11
Shannon Leyh: That was 2025.
16:13
Shannon Leyh: January of 2026, so this is my last January, 20 days booked, ADR of 944.
16:22
Shannon Leyh: Booking window of 42 days.
16:26
Sarah Karakaian: I cannot with you.
16:27
Annette Grant: Ugh.
16:31
Sarah Karakaian: So for anyone who's new, Shannon, share why we just did those, those dramatic gasps and laughs.
16:37
Shannon Leyh: Um, well, partially because I didn't listen for a couple years.
16:43
Shannon Leyh: And Annette and Sarah just mentally calculated how much money I left on the table.
16:49
Sarah Karakaian: Oh.
16:49
Shannon Leyh: So, um, So I was not a PriceLabs believer.
16:57
Shannon Leyh: So the difference between January of 2025 and the difference in January of 2026 is that I signed up for PriceLabs in July of 2025
17:08
Sarah Karakaian: And that was after a while of us trying to be like, "Shannon!"
17:12
Sarah Karakaian: Okay.
17:13
Shannon Leyh: So, um, I had done, in 2024, after one of the boot camps, I had signed up for a PriceLabs, you know, like the 30-day trial- Mm-hmm.
17:24
Shannon Leyh: Yeah that they do.
17:26
Shannon Leyh: And I did not think that PriceLabs was accurate for my market.
17:33
Shannon Leyh: Now, I will give myself an excuse.
17:36
Shannon Leyh: So if you do not know where Snowshoe, West Virginia is, you're not alone.
17:41
Shannon Leyh: Um, it is in the Appalachian Mountains.
17:44
Annette Grant: That was good.
17:45
Annette Grant: You're not alone.
17:45
Shannon Leyh: And it's, um, I mean, coming from the north, like Ohio, you lose cell service a good 45 minutes before you get to the mountain.
17:54
Shannon Leyh: So think about where you go in your life that you don't have cell service for 45 minutes.
18:00
Shannon Leyh: It's rural.
18:02
Shannon Leyh: So when I was first doing, um, using PriceLabs and trying to do my comp set and different things like that, I just did not feel like it really was catching how seasonal, seasonable of a market it was and
18:18
Shannon Leyh: that sort of thing.
18:19
Shannon Leyh: Um, now that being said, technology changes, as we all know, as well.
18:24
Shannon Leyh: So I think the biggest lesson, even if I was right or totally wrong in my assessment of Price Labs, I think the important part is that I didn't write it off completely.
18:37
Shannon Leyh: And a year later tried it again.
18:39
Sarah Karakaian: Mm.
18:40
Shannon Leyh: Because I knew, well, I learned, I didn't know, I learned, um, mostly from s- being on continuing education, you know, classes and things like that with you guys, when what my lightning strike was, I'm I, I don't remember
18:58
Shannon Leyh: what I was in, but Colleen made a comment that if your booking window is over, you know, 60 days You're probably priced too low.
19:09
Shannon Leyh: Or you guys might have said it in a bootcamp.
19:11
Shannon Leyh: I'm not sure.
19:11
Shannon Leyh: It was, it was in there somewhere.
19:13
Annette Grant: It doesn't matter where it was said, how it was said.
19:15
Sarah Karakaian: No.
19:15
Annette Grant: You heard it.
19:16
Annette Grant: You heard it.
19:16
Annette Grant: Right.
19:17
Shannon Leyh: And I, And because I was tracking my stuff, I knew my booking window.
19:22
Sarah Karakaian: That's true.
19:23
Shannon Leyh: Was 120 days.
19:24
Shannon Leyh: And that's when I was like, "Holy crap.
19:27
Shannon Leyh: Okay."
19:28
Shannon Leyh: So my calendar was solidly booked for the peak season, which made me feel good inside.
19:34
Sarah Karakaian: Right.
19:35
Shannon Leyh: But then I was like, "If I'm booking in literally July for Martin Luther King Jr.
19:42
Shannon Leyh: weekend the following year, something's wrong with my pricing."
19:48
Shannon Leyh: And so that is when I gave, I decided, "You know what?
19:50
Shannon Leyh: I better give PriceLabs another look.
19:52
Shannon Leyh: Maybe things have changed.
19:54
Shannon Leyh: Maybe I've changed.
19:55
Shannon Leyh: It's probably a combination of both."
19:57
Shannon Leyh: And that is the difference.
19:59
Shannon Leyh: I almost doubled my ADR, um, like for January of '26.
20:05
Shannon Leyh: And actually, I think February was even more dramatic, um.
20:09
Annette Grant: What?
20:09
Annette Grant: This is, this is a, um, What we hear continually from hosts when they see this ADR, these suggestions from PriceLabs.
20:24
Sarah Karakaian: Mm, that's true.
20:26
Annette Grant: "I don't think my property can, quote unquote, get that."
20:30
Annette Grant: Mm-hmm.
20:30
Annette Grant: "No one will pay that."
20:33
Annette Grant: Did you have that initial feeling when you started to see these numbers that started with a nine versus a four?
20:43
Annette Grant: What.
20:43
Shannon Leyh: Yeah.
20:44
Annette Grant: How did, like...
20:45
Annette Grant: Was that real for you in not trusting the data?
20:51
Shannon Leyh: 100%.
20:52
Shannon Leyh: I, I don't remember exactly what the numbers looked like when I first looked at it in 2024, but I would be willing to say that when I logged in, and keep in mind, I based my pricing off of
21:04
Shannon Leyh: what the resort was charging.
21:06
Sarah Karakaian: Hmm.
21:07
Sarah Karakaian: Oh, man.
21:08
Shannon Leyh: So I, you know, I didn't, um, I guess, you know, I didn't just throw a dart at a dartboard.
21:13
Sarah Karakaian: Right.
21:13
Shannon Leyh: I went back and looked.
21:14
Shannon Leyh: Now, I didn't know exactly the, the nightly rates.
21:17
Shannon Leyh: I had to go through my owner statement and, you know, kind of do some, uh.
21:21
Annette Grant: Forensic accounting.
21:23
Shannon Leyh: Yes.
21:23
Shannon Leyh: That's a great term for it.
21:25
Shannon Leyh: Um, to see what they were doing.
21:27
Shannon Leyh: And then I was going on their website as well, because you can book through their website, and I can look up other condos in my actual condo community.
21:33
Shannon Leyh: And, you know, so it's not like I didn't have a foundation for the choices I was making.
21:40
Annette Grant: Yeah.
21:40
Shannon Leyh: And so I do think that was part of it, Annette, because, you know, I'm looking at, okay, they charged, you know, an ADR of 495, and now I'm at like 500.
21:51
Shannon Leyh: And if I get into, If I'm in PriceLabs and it's saying, "Girl, you should be charging 900 a night," I mean, that's a huge swing.
21:59
Annette Grant: It's double.
21:59
Annette Grant: It's double.
22:00
Shannon Leyh: It is.
22:01
Shannon Leyh: And so I, I don't think it was a crazy thought to think they didn't understand the market.
22:06
Sarah Karakaian: Mm-hmm.
22:06
Sarah Karakaian: Right.
22:06
Sarah Karakaian: No.
22:07
Shannon Leyh: It was limited thinking for me, obviously, and, and probably a lack of self-confidence maybe in my own property.
22:13
Shannon Leyh: But I would also like to say, I don't have a luxury property.
22:18
Shannon Leyh: Um, ski markets, if you are a skier or snowboarder, you know those holiday rates are insane.
22:24
Shannon Leyh: Um, but I, um...
22:29
Shannon Leyh: Oh, shoot.
22:30
Shannon Leyh: Where was I going with that?
22:31
Annette Grant: So you don't have a luxury property?
22:33
Shannon Leyh: Oh, I don't...
22:33
Shannon Leyh: Yes, I don't have a luxury property.
22:35
Shannon Leyh: So, and I mean, there are beautiful properties there, and we've updated ours quite a bit, but it's just not, it's still not at what your, you would call a luxury price level.
22:44
Shannon Leyh: And so, you know, in my mind, I was also thinking, "They must be thinking that I am like crème de la crème stay."
22:52
Shannon Leyh: Part of it is I'm also cheap and in my personal life, and I'm like, we've all been there.
22:57
Shannon Leyh: I don't know that I would pay that much to stay in my own place.
23:00
Sarah Karakaian: Yeah.
23:00
Shannon Leyh: Like, I'm not gonna lie to you.
23:02
Sarah Karakaian: Yeah.
23:03
Sarah Karakaian: And that's fine.
23:03
Sarah Karakaian: You know?
23:03
Sarah Karakaian: I mean.
23:03
Sarah Karakaian: And, and but hosts do that all the time, Shannon, and I know you see them too in our group of hosts who, who still, they're still there.
23:10
Sarah Karakaian: You know, you have moved past it.
23:11
Sarah Karakaian: They haven't.
23:12
Sarah Karakaian: So my question to you then is, Shannon, is how were your reviews this January and February?
23:19
Shannon Leyh: That is a fantastic question because my reviews were actually way better than what they were when I was charging less.
23:26
Sarah Karakaian: Wow.
23:27
Shannon Leyh: Um, I mean, they, my reviews were not bad.
23:31
Shannon Leyh: I, I will not say that, that.
23:32
Shannon Leyh: I mean, we all get those, you know, curmudgeons here and there that you're like, "Mm-kay, you moved my couch and were looking at my outlets.
23:41
Shannon Leyh: I got some thoughts."
23:42
Shannon Leyh: But, um, it was...
23:46
Shannon Leyh: I think it's a mindset.
23:49
Shannon Leyh: It's almost like the guests that were spending more had a different mindset of how they were looking at the property and vacationing.
23:55
Sarah Karakaian: Yeah.
23:55
Shannon Leyh: Versus the ones that were like...
23:57
Shannon Leyh: I mean, obviously I was a steal with where I was priced before, and those folks were the ones nitpicking.
24:05
Shannon Leyh: I'm like, "This is so strange," because I'm like, "You booked me 'cause I'm cheap."
24:10
Sarah Karakaian: Right.
24:11
Shannon Leyh: Yet when you get there, you literally.
24:14
Sarah Karakaian: Move your sofa and look at your outlets.
24:15
Shannon Leyh: Shout out to Justin Ford.
24:16
Shannon Leyh: I had somebody who checked all the expiration dates on my, on my, uh, fire extinguishers.
24:22
Sarah Karakaian: Oh, wow.
24:23
Shannon Leyh: And I do have fire extinguishers in multiple places, and they put that in my Airbnb review.
24:28
Shannon Leyh: So then I got flagged, and it shut my listing down for not being safe.
24:33
Shannon Leyh: I mean, 'cause if you put something like that in a review.
24:35
Sarah Karakaian: Yeah.
24:35
Shannon Leyh: Airbnb flags you as not being safe.
24:38
Annette Grant: Were they expired?
24:40
Shannon Leyh: Yes, they were expired.
24:41
Shannon Leyh: I had never thought to check them.
24:42
Shannon Leyh: Annette, I mean, I just knew I had them, which was the important part.
24:45
Annette Grant: It's okay.
24:45
Annette Grant: Yeah.
24:45
Annette Grant: Yeah.
24:45
Annette Grant: No, I just wanna help all the other hosts out there.
24:47
Shannon Leyh: Yeah.
24:47
Shannon Leyh: Yeah.
24:48
Shannon Leyh: They were I didn't even know they expired, if I'm being honest.
24:50
Shannon Leyh: I've never actually used a fire extinguisher.
24:52
Annette Grant: Yeah, sure.
24:54
Shannon Leyh: Surprising.
24:54
Shannon Leyh: I'm a terrible cook.
24:55
Shannon Leyh: You'd think maybe I have.
24:56
Annette Grant: Listen, shannon, you just helped so many people, though.
24:59
Annette Grant: There are expiration dates on them, um, and you can visibly see them.
25:04
Annette Grant: So that's a huge shout-out to help every- everybody.
25:07
Shannon Leyh: Yes.
25:08
Shannon Leyh: So, um, we did replace them immediately.
25:11
Shannon Leyh: Turned out my husband was like the next guys' trip going down.
25:14
Shannon Leyh: He ended up taking all these fire extinguishers with him.
25:18
Shannon Leyh: Um, and that's, you know, that got me unblocked from, or.
25:22
Sarah Karakaian: Yeah.
25:23
Sarah Karakaian: Re-relisted.
25:23
Shannon Leyh: Relisted, I guess is the word.
25:24
Shannon Leyh: Relisted with Airbnb.
25:25
Shannon Leyh: I sent them the receipts and.
25:27
Sarah Karakaian: Yeah.
25:27
Shannon Leyh: My husband took pictures and sent them and, you know.
25:30
Sarah Karakaian: All those things.
25:30
Shannon Leyh: So they could prove that we did it.
25:31
Shannon Leyh: But, um, but yeah.
25:33
Shannon Leyh: So that was interesting.
25:34
Shannon Leyh: So yes, my, my reviews this season were excellent, happy guests and, you know.
25:41
Sarah Karakaian: Yeah.
25:41
Shannon Leyh: I also was surprised about that because I thought having What I considered to be premium pricing, I was a little worried that people would get there and be disappointed.
25:50
Sarah Karakaian: That's the next thing.
25:51
Sarah Karakaian: If we can prove to people that yes, you can command that, yes, people will pay that.
25:54
Sarah Karakaian: They're like, "Well, the value won't be there, and I'll get dinged on value.
25:57
Sarah Karakaian: I'll get people who will think my place is not worth $944."
26:03
Sarah Karakaian: And it's just, in some cases that could be true, but we would never, Like our, our team would never steer you in the wrong direction in that regard.
26:10
Sarah Karakaian: And, and the, and the data's there.
26:12
Sarah Karakaian: So, so this is great.
26:14
Sarah Karakaian: You had a great season, Shannon.
26:16
Shannon Leyh: Yeah.
26:16
Annette Grant: How, how do you feel about that?
26:17
Annette Grant: Like you, I don't think we've like celebrated that.
26:20
Annette Grant: I know we've been celebrating you a lot.
26:22
Annette Grant: Yeah.
26:22
Annette Grant: But, but what does that do to just your overall excitement?
26:28
Annette Grant: These are, these are game-changing numbers.
26:31
Shannon Leyh: They are, and I also told my family, "Bad news, you'll never get to go between Christmas and New Year's."
26:38
Shannon Leyh: MLK, nope.
26:38
Shannon Leyh: Oh.
26:39
Shannon Leyh: President's Day, pay it nope.
26:40
Sarah Karakaian: Mm-hmm.
26:40
Shannon Leyh: You will never get to go there again.
26:43
Sarah Karakaian: I can't afford to go anymore.
26:45
Sarah Karakaian: So good.
26:46
Sarah Karakaian: Oh, it's like.
26:46
Shannon Leyh: No, it, um It's, it's, it was exciting and nerve-wracking.
26:55
Shannon Leyh: And also I kicked myself.
26:59
Shannon Leyh: I'm like, "Daggone it, we could've done this the year before."
27:01
Shannon Leyh: But, um, you know, I've learned so much in everything that I've done.
27:06
Shannon Leyh: I don't, don't regret not signing up with PriceLabs the first time.
27:10
Shannon Leyh: Honestly, the first time I obviously didn't understand the product and probably wouldn't have gotten out of it what they intend anyways.
27:18
Shannon Leyh: Right.
27:18
Shannon Leyh: Because I didn't have the right mindset, or I didn't have the right comp set, or I just didn't know what I was doing to use it properly.
27:24
Shannon Leyh: And so I probably wouldn't have had the same type of success that I had once I was like, "All right, I'm ready to embrace it."
27:32
Shannon Leyh: I had time to sit down and focus on it.
27:35
Shannon Leyh: And I, I, I find that so much in both, like, the short-term rental industry, real estate industry, there's always a new shiny object, especially in tech.
27:44
Annette Grant: Mm-hmm.
27:45
Shannon Leyh: And if you don't have time to sit down.
27:48
Shannon Leyh: Like right now, full disclosure, I use a property management system, and I need to sit down and figure out how to use it properly.
27:56
Sarah Karakaian: Hmm.
27:57
Shannon Leyh: Because my next thing is building a direct, direct booking base, and I know that the website I have through that, um, PMS needs some work.
28:06
Sarah Karakaian: Hmm.
28:07
Shannon Leyh: And I don't understand it, and I know that that's something I need to sit down and, and invest my time in.
28:12
Annette Grant: I wanna share though, too, for folks that are listening, it wasn't like Shannon just decided to sync up PriceLabs and, and saw these changes.
28:24
Annette Grant: She was, obviously she's a part of Strategic Host.
28:27
Annette Grant: She's a part of one of our other programs.
28:28
Annette Grant: She was in there doing the work on her own properties, also seeing what other hosts were doing across the country with their property, seeing what they were running up against inside their dynamic pricing tool, their ADR, their booking
28:44
Annette Grant: windows, learning from those other folks.
28:46
Annette Grant: So I wanna say, like, there there is this learning curve that I think you fast-tracked by being around others and having that guidance there because you've been really diligent and, and you've done the work to track everything too.
29:00
Shannon Leyh: Mm-hmm.
29:01
Annette Grant: So it's a big, big difference having that around you.
29:03
Shannon Leyh: Anytime, yeah, anytime you're doing anything, if you're not in a networking group of some k- I don't care if it's a paid proj- paid coaching program or just a Facebook networking group, if you're not in something like that
29:18
Shannon Leyh: for whatever it is that you're passionate about or you're investing your money in, you're, you're shortchanging yourself.
29:25
Shannon Leyh: Um, you know, as Sarah mentioned, uh, I've also been a real estate agent, which is also another kind of lonely industry because you're doing your own thing, you're in your own world, you're not in an office, and that's
29:36
Shannon Leyh: the same kind of thing.
29:38
Shannon Leyh: If you're not networking with people, and I don't necessarily mean, like, going to the local happy hours and stuff, you know, I mean just, like, hopping on educational calls a couple times a month to give yourself a community.
29:51
Sarah Karakaian: Mm-hmm.
29:52
Shannon Leyh: Because you learn so much just by listening to what other people are doing in other, really in other states.
29:57
Shannon Leyh: You almost need to branch out past your own level.
30:02
Shannon Leyh: Um, 'cause, like, for me, I'm in a ski market, obviously.
30:04
Shannon Leyh: I live in Columbus, but it was interesting to hear what ski places out west are doing.
30:12
Sarah Karakaian: Mm-hmm.
30:12
Shannon Leyh: And ski places in the northeast, because it does feel very lonely.
30:17
Shannon Leyh: You know, if you're the only like, let's say you're a beach town, y- everybody seems like they're doing the same ideas.
30:26
Shannon Leyh: You need to be hearing what the people in, like, the Smokies are doing and the ski markets are doing, because it might trigger a different idea for you, either one, to make yourself a little different or just in
30:36
Shannon Leyh: general to make you think about things a little bit differently and take a different approach.
30:41
Shannon Leyh: Um, so you need a little bit of both.
30:43
Sarah Karakaian: Yeah.
30:43
Shannon Leyh: You need people in your community like you, and you need people that aren't.
30:47
Sarah Karakaian: And I think that is why, I wanna talk about quickly, Shannon.
30:50
Sarah Karakaian: We had a, another program that you were a part of back in the, you know, 2020, 2021, 2022 era of Thanks for Visiting.
30:57
Sarah Karakaian: It was called Hosting Business Mastery, and that was group coaching.
31:00
Sarah Karakaian: So we had we had self-guided videos to support the group coach, and then we'd meet as a group and, um, really heavy in operations and, and that sort of thing.
31:09
Sarah Karakaian: And then we did do a pivot last year, so 2025.
31:14
Sarah Karakaian: We saw the writing on the wall where hosts needed two things.
31:19
Sarah Karakaian: They needed more accountability for themselves and, uh, some one-on-one support, and they also needed some serious revenue management education, right?
31:31
Sarah Karakaian: And I think you, and you agree with that because you went from being in our program that we have since sundowned so that we could completely focus on Strategic Host, which includes both group coaching and one-on-one coaching and
31:45
Sarah Karakaian: a focus.
31:46
Sarah Karakaian: We still talk about operations and team and, and direct bookings, like I'm excited to help you with all that, but a real strong focus on revenue management and making sure you understand your numbers and tracking your numbers so
31:56
Sarah Karakaian: you can make these incredible gains like, like you've made this year, Shannon.
32:00
Sarah Karakaian: So being on both sides of investing in yourself by having something that was group coaching into now this, you get one-on-one support, you get weekly, uh, revenue management, uh, strategy, and you're, and you're so good at it.
32:14
Sarah Karakaian: Like you're, you know, one of our A+ students.
32:17
Sarah Karakaian: You, you, you catch on very quick.
32:19
Sarah Karakaian: But this, and I wanna parlay this into one more thing when I'm, after you answer this question though, Shannon.
32:24
Sarah Karakaian: But that continuous, like looking for that next level of yourself, like what, how do you do that?
32:29
Sarah Karakaian: Like what is that, that you are just never done learning and that you wanna continue on with, with your education and taking it to the next level?
32:38
Shannon Leyh: It's interesting because I think part of why I do enjoy the numbers is because I am not on the creative side of this business.
32:45
Annette Grant: Okay.
32:45
Shannon Leyh: I mean, a lot of your hosts, especially if people look at the STR Share Sunday stuff, there are some amazing design creative idea people, and that is not my strength.
32:58
Sarah Karakaian: Mm.
32:58
Shannon Leyh: Like, I, I have done, you know, some design in my own home.
33:02
Shannon Leyh: Um, we've remodeled our place down in Snowshoe a little at a time.
33:06
Shannon Leyh: I can, I can pick countertops, I can pick a backsplash, you know, I can do some things like that.
33:10
Shannon Leyh: But the big visionary things that some of the wonderful hosts have, that is not my strength.
33:17
Shannon Leyh: And so the revenue management I think is, for me, it's more my sweet spot because, I mean, I don't know if you guys knew this, I almost went into accounting to become a CPA.
33:27
Sarah Karakaian: Oh.
33:28
Shannon Leyh: That is coming out of high school what I was gonna do.
33:31
Shannon Leyh: And, um, you know, things changed.
33:34
Shannon Leyh: I didn't do that.
33:35
Shannon Leyh: But so I enjoy the numbers part where I, give me your opinion, ladies.
33:39
Shannon Leyh: I would say a lot of the folks feel that numbers are the devil.
33:44
Sarah Karakaian: Yes.
33:44
Sarah Karakaian: Mm-hmm.
33:45
Sarah Karakaian: That's not our opinion.
33:45
Sarah Karakaian: That is the fact, Shannon.
33:47
Shannon Leyh: They, they just don't like them.
33:48
Shannon Leyh: Yeah.
33:49
Shannon Leyh: And they want to avoid them at all costs, and they will make a beautiful space and be a a phenomenal host, but they're just like, "Just send me the check."
33:56
Shannon Leyh: Yeah.
33:56
Shannon Leyh: "Don't worry about...
33:57
Shannon Leyh: I'm not worried about the numbers."
33:58
Sarah Karakaian: Yes.
33:59
Shannon Leyh: And so I think that's, for me, um, probably what makes me a little bit different than what a lot of, than I think what draws a lot of folks to hosting and designing spaces.
34:11
Shannon Leyh: But with the continuing education, honestly, I've just, I've just always been a learner.
34:17
Shannon Leyh: I like to read.
34:18
Shannon Leyh: I just finished, um, "Unreasonable Hospitality."
34:22
Shannon Leyh: Those are the, I mean, I read all kinds of books, but I do, um, you know, I read business books mixed in with my, um, you know, pleasure reading.
34:31
Sarah Karakaian: Yeah.
34:32
Shannon Leyh: And I, I just have always enjoyed learning and so I don't know if that's just a personal trait.
34:38
Sarah Karakaian: Yeah.
34:38
Shannon Leyh: Or if that's something I really strive for, you know, that's like outside myself.
34:42
Sarah Karakaian: Well, how about this, though?
34:43
Sarah Karakaian: You're good at the numbers, and then we're doing something that is, you know, numbers focused for the hosts that love the design and the hospitality part, but.
34:52
Shannon Leyh: Right.
34:52
Sarah Karakaian: Need more accountability with the numbers part.
34:54
Sarah Karakaian: But here you come, you already love the numbers.
34:56
Sarah Karakaian: We don't need to convince you, but you know there's more that you can learn.
35:00
Sarah Karakaian: Like just, you just don't have an ego, I guess, is what I'm saying, and that's just admirable.
35:04
Sarah Karakaian: And, and then you get rewarded with doubling your ADR, which is awesome.
35:10
Shannon Leyh: It is.
35:10
Shannon Leyh: But I think the, you know, the hardest part, and I think I fight with this as a parent, so I think a lot about, a lot, a lot about this with having kids, is I'm like, your mindset is
35:19
Shannon Leyh: such a big deal.
35:21
Sarah Karakaian: Mm-hmm.
35:21
Shannon Leyh: Your mindset is really what limits you.
35:23
Shannon Leyh: And, you know, like we talk about Price Labs, either I wasn't ready for it or it wasn't ready for me.
35:28
Shannon Leyh: Doesn't really matter.
35:29
Shannon Leyh: My mind wasn't there.
35:30
Annette Grant: Yeah.
35:31
Shannon Leyh: To accept whatever the information was.
35:33
Shannon Leyh: And, um, you know, I...
35:35
Shannon Leyh: And so I think that's a lot of education is it has to be in your mindset.
35:39
Shannon Leyh: What are you ready to learn?
35:40
Shannon Leyh: What are you ready to admit that you don't know?
35:44
Shannon Leyh: And a lot of people don't like to admit they don't know everything, or it makes them uncomfortable to admit what they don't know.
35:51
Shannon Leyh: Um, I don't know.
35:53
Shannon Leyh: I, I think, maybe my ignorance is bliss and I'm just like, "Look, I don't know what I'm doing, and so I better find out."
35:59
Sarah Karakaian: No, I think that's,
36:00
Shannon Leyh: Before I make a, make a big, big boo-boo.
36:02
Shannon Leyh: But, um, I, I think that's part of it.
36:05
Sarah Karakaian: That was really beautifully said.
36:06
Sarah Karakaian: So I wanna parlay that into, 'cause we were talking with Colleen, who is, um, our COO and head of revenue management education.
36:13
Sarah Karakaian: And we were talking about you, Shannon, and she's like, "You have to ask Shannon about her wanting to test parent-child at her condo."
36:21
Shannon Leyh: Oh, yes.
36:22
Sarah Karakaian: And so let me just preface this real quick.
36:23
Sarah Karakaian: So, and correct me if I'm wrong here in any of this sharing, Shannon, but you have this condo, it's in a highly seasonable market, and you have the past at least year or two had a tenant in place,
36:36
Sarah Karakaian: so to speak, a midterm rental, someone who needed a furnished place to stay for more than 30 days, and it's been going well.
36:42
Sarah Karakaian: There's nothing been wrong with it, right?
36:44
Shannon Leyh: No, no.
36:45
Shannon Leyh: Um, they had, So in the summer of, it would be '24 and '25, I actually, I was on a Facebook group, and there's a couple different ones.
36:56
Shannon Leyh: There's like Snowshoe Mountain Homeowners, and then there's Snowshoe Mountain Visitors.
37:00
Shannon Leyh: And somebody had posted in the visitors that they were looking for, um, a place to stay all summer.
37:07
Shannon Leyh: They had done it for years, but the building that their group had rented was going under a huge renovation on the exterior and the interior.
37:14
Shannon Leyh: So the folks that they had rented from, they all decided together it wasn't gonna work for this particular season.
37:21
Shannon Leyh: And they only were looking for a three-bedroom, and I have a four-bedroom.
37:25
Shannon Leyh: And they had posted the price they wanted to pay, which was it was definitely a little low for me.
37:31
Shannon Leyh: But I reached out to them and I'm like, "Hey, if you could pay this amount," and it was only like $100 more a month than what they were, had paid before.
37:39
Shannon Leyh: I said, "I have a four-bedroom.
37:41
Shannon Leyh: I know it's not what you need.
37:42
Shannon Leyh: You don't have to use the fourth bedroom.
37:44
Shannon Leyh: I don't, you know, it doesn't matter.
37:46
Shannon Leyh: Um, but would you be interested?"
37:49
Shannon Leyh: And, um, they had, they had a referral.
37:53
Shannon Leyh: They were like, "If you wanna talk to the people we've rented from before, they can vouch for us."
37:57
Shannon Leyh: 'Cause they did not want, they wanted to clean it themselves.
38:01
Annette Grant: Hmm.
38:02
Shannon Leyh: You know, which I know is kind of a bit of a pause.
38:04
Annette Grant: Mm-hmm.
38:04
Shannon Leyh: But their plan was they were, they're mountain bikers, and they're like, "We just go down in the, on the weekends.
38:11
Shannon Leyh: We do, like, three-day weekends.
38:12
Shannon Leyh: Go down on a Thursday, leave on Sunday morning.
38:16
Shannon Leyh: And it's more cost efficient if we just have a place all summer."
38:19
Shannon Leyh: They're like, "We can leave our stuff there.
38:20
Shannon Leyh: We can lock our bikes up."
38:22
Shannon Leyh: And turns out they were from Dayton, which.
38:25
Sarah Karakaian: Close by.
38:26
Shannon Leyh: Yes, if you're not familiar with Ohio, it's only about an hour or so from Columbus.
38:29
Shannon Leyh: So, um, and they're, they were a group of, like, eight, and they're like, "We're not usually even all there at the same time."
38:35
Shannon Leyh: They're like, "There might be six of us.
38:37
Shannon Leyh: You know, we, that's why we only need, like, a two or three-bedroom place."
38:40
Shannon Leyh: And, um, so, but we worked it out, and they rented it.
38:45
Shannon Leyh: They were fantastic.
38:46
Shannon Leyh: And my seasonal deep clean that I always do before the winter season kicks off was right after they stay anyways, and they left it better than most of my short-term rental guests.
38:55
Shannon Leyh: Probably because they were living in it for, you know, five months.
38:59
Sarah Karakaian: Right.
38:59
Sarah Karakaian: Yeah.
39:00
Shannon Leyh: Weekends.
39:01
Shannon Leyh: Um, they did their own laundry, brought their own linens.
39:04
Shannon Leyh: Like, they didn't even use my linens.
39:05
Shannon Leyh: Nice.
39:05
Shannon Leyh: They were like, "We'll bring our own.
39:06
Shannon Leyh: It's fine."
39:06
Sarah Karakaian: But despite all this, this, this summer that we're in right now, I believe you were chatting with.
39:13
Shannon Leyh: Yes.
39:13
Sarah Karakaian: The coaches that you wanted to try parent-child, which meant you have a four-bedroom, maybe you can do short-term rental, but only rent, only make available one or two of the rooms.
39:26
Shannon Leyh: Right.
39:26
Shannon Leyh: So this summer, 2026, um, we needed to not do the midterm rental because we had some updates that needed done.
39:35
Shannon Leyh: Um, my my electric fireplace wasn't working.
39:38
Shannon Leyh: My kitchen countertops were falling apart.
39:40
Shannon Leyh: They were laminate, so you know, those have a limited lifespan.
39:43
Shannon Leyh: And, um, that was the drawback of having the midterm rental, because they would go when the season started and they're in there.
39:51
Shannon Leyh: Now, they were super flexible.
39:52
Shannon Leyh: Like, there's been a couple times that things had happened and I'm like, "Hey, I'll have the maintenance out there."
39:56
Shannon Leyh: They're like, "No problem.
39:57
Shannon Leyh: We're gone."
39:58
Shannon Leyh: But, you know, things like countertops, I mean, that's a project.
40:01
Shannon Leyh: I gotta empty all the drawers, you know?
40:03
Sarah Karakaian: Yeah.
40:04
Shannon Leyh: All that kind of stuff.
40:05
Shannon Leyh: So I'm like, "Okay, this year I'm gonna do a short-term rental over the summer."
40:08
Shannon Leyh: I haven't done it for two years.
40:12
Shannon Leyh: And there are some summer events down there that I'm like, as a four-bedroom, it should rent no problem.
40:17
Shannon Leyh: The problem is when those events aren't going on, it is dead slow down there.
40:21
Annette Grant: Yeah.
40:22
Shannon Leyh: Um, actually I had my call with Colleen yesterday and she's like, "When you said it's a slow market, you meant like real slow."
40:28
Shannon Leyh: I'm like, "Yes, I did."
40:30
Shannon Leyh: So we decided this year, this summer, to test out a two-bedroom, uh, three-bath, just market it as a two-bedroom.
40:38
Sarah Karakaian: Mm-hmm.
40:39
Shannon Leyh: Just to see if I could 'cause a four-bedroom isn't necessarily going to book, you know, in a week.
40:47
Shannon Leyh: It, that's just more, you need a longer planning time.
40:50
Shannon Leyh: You can still get those one-night stays and things like that, but it's just your booking window's gonna be a little longer.
40:54
Shannon Leyh: So we decided we'd try that.
40:56
Shannon Leyh: Um, and the way that my condo's set up, it didn't really make sense to like close off a bathroom, so it ends up being a two bed, three bath.
41:04
Shannon Leyh: And I kicked that off, it's been about three weeks now.
41:09
Shannon Leyh: So, um, there hasn't been a lot of movement on it, but we're giving it a try, and I figure no matter what happens this summer, that I'm gonna try it through the winter.
41:21
Shannon Leyh: Like, if I haven't booked within 30 days with the four-bedroom, I will release the two-bedroom and, and see how that goes to kind of fill in.
41:30
Shannon Leyh: You know, I mean, there's obviously, you know, a good 10 nights I have available a month in the peak season that, hey, I would love to fill that with a two-bedroom lower.
41:39
Annette Grant: Right, especially if there's a nice snowfall and people wanna switch up their plans suddenly and.
41:44
Shannon Leyh: Oh, oh yeah.
41:45
Annette Grant: Hit the slopes.
41:46
Annette Grant: Yeah.
41:46
Annette Grant: Nice.
41:46
Shannon Leyh: Yeah.
41:47
Shannon Leyh: It's way easier to do a last minute trip with four people versus, you know, eight or 10, so.
41:51
Sarah Karakaian: And I just love this 'cause Colleen was just saying, she's like, she knows it's slow.
41:54
Sarah Karakaian: She knows that this is, she has these renters that could be great, but you're just willing to test and try.
42:00
Sarah Karakaian: And I know it, it does help that you, you know, like I could also do this counter, this countertop project.
42:04
Sarah Karakaian: I could do these things a lot easier if I can control the calendar.
42:07
Sarah Karakaian: But I just think, again, it's that quintessential business owner in you that you know you've gotta test things, you've gotta try things out, and especially when things are going well and you, you might have some more wiggle room
42:19
Sarah Karakaian: this year to test, get the data, see how it goes, and then you can make a different decision next year depending on where you're at.
42:28
Sarah Karakaian: But I just thought that was really cool to share that we could see in the data too how it would probably perform.
42:33
Sarah Karakaian: All that information is there for your market, right?
42:35
Sarah Karakaian: In Price Labs.
42:36
Sarah Karakaian: We can see it, we can predict it.
42:38
Sarah Karakaian: And yes, there are some things that we can do to move the needle one way or, or another, but I just, I think that's so cool that you see the data, you know what you're up against, you do
42:47
Sarah Karakaian: it anyway, you track it, and this is what makes you so fun to work with.
42:53
Annette Grant: Yeah.
42:53
Annette Grant: We gotta see how this, how this goes, especially in the busy season.
42:56
Annette Grant: Yeah.
42:56
Annette Grant: Now that you've done the work now and it's there and it's in place and you can have it running in the background.
43:03
Shannon Leyh: Yeah.
43:03
Shannon Leyh: It's awesome.
43:03
Shannon Leyh: I think that's one of the biggest things is that, um, I wanted to try it when it's slow because, I mean, you know when the, when it's, when you're in your busy season, you don't, that's not when you
43:13
Shannon Leyh: wanna mess it up.
43:13
Sarah Karakaian: Right.
43:14
Shannon Leyh: If somebody rents the two bedroom right now and is getting a steal of a price, great.
43:20
Shannon Leyh: That, uh, that's fine.
43:21
Shannon Leyh: You know, it doesn't matter.
43:22
Shannon Leyh: But if it's like your peak weekend during peak season, I mean, I made that mistake when I, um, rolled out on VRBO.
43:30
Shannon Leyh: Um, I had not set the pricing before I made it live, and so somebody booked like very, very high rate dates at a very low price and then got the new listing promo on top of it.
43:44
Annette Grant: Oh.
43:46
Shannon Leyh: Yeah.
43:46
Shannon Leyh: I was like, "Dang it, I was, I did that in the wrong order."
43:49
Shannon Leyh: You know?
43:49
Sarah Karakaian: I think we've all been there.
43:50
Shannon Leyh: It was just something simple like that.
43:51
Sarah Karakaian: Yeah.
43:51
Shannon Leyh: When a booking I mean, it came through.
43:53
Shannon Leyh: They must have been, but, um, yeah, so.
43:56
Annette Grant: Live and learn.
43:56
Sarah Karakaian: Shannon, this is incredible.
43:58
Sarah Karakaian: Is there anything we haven't asked you or got an update on that you think would be really important for hosts today, 2026, to know about?
44:09
Shannon Leyh: I think something to think about, and this partly comes from just having a real estate background.
44:14
Shannon Leyh: We know the market's different than what it was.
44:18
Shannon Leyh: I mean, we were talking about COVID stuff when we talked the last time.
44:21
Shannon Leyh: So, you know, things are a little different now.
44:23
Shannon Leyh: But if you're looking at your numbers and maybe things aren't going the way that you really want, um, we talked about revenue management, we talked about nightly rates.
44:35
Shannon Leyh: Something to really think about though is also your mortgage.
44:39
Shannon Leyh: If you have a mortgage, one of the things I did in 2024, because property values have gone up so much, um, which honestly, that's the reason I haven't bought any more properties in Snowshoe.
44:50
Shannon Leyh: Um, give you an example.
44:52
Shannon Leyh: We bought our place for 225.
44:55
Shannon Leyh: In 2024, I reached out and asked my lender if I could do an appraisal to drop my primary mortgage insurance.
45:01
Shannon Leyh: My new value's over $400,000.
45:03
Shannon Leyh: Well, let me tell you, the rental numbers at 225 look a lot different than at 400,000.
45:07
Shannon Leyh: So, um, if you are, you know, trying to pinch those pennies, if you're paying primary mortgage insurance, call your lender.
45:15
Shannon Leyh: For $150 I paid for an appraisal and got my PMI dropped.
45:19
Sarah Karakaian: Wow.
45:19
Shannon Leyh: That saved me like 85 bucks a month.
45:22
Sarah Karakaian: Yep.
45:22
Shannon Leyh: Um, or maybe consider a refinance, you know, because you might have a ton of equity sitting in your property that if you've been waiting to do some updates, and it, I, if you're like me, I like to pay
45:34
Shannon Leyh: as much as I can with cash instead of taking out debt to do improvements.
45:38
Shannon Leyh: That cash might be sitting in your property.
45:40
Sarah Karakaian: Yeah.
45:40
Shannon Leyh: So, you know, it's, um, revenue management's super important, but also look at your fixed costs as well and see what there is that you might be able to do to adjust those things as well.
45:51
Sarah Karakaian: Well, and I argue, not argue, but I think there's also that mindset of, of there being a difference, everyone, between revenue management and pricing management, right?
46:00
Shannon Leyh: Mm-hmm.
46:00
Sarah Karakaian: Like when you think about revenue as a whole, what you do with that revenue, how you manage that revenue is the strategy that we're talking about.
46:09
Sarah Karakaian: Yeah, because, and this is really good, Shannon, that you're bringing this up because there's, it's so scary, and I, and I, and I, and I do this with love when they come on to any of our boot camps
46:19
Sarah Karakaian: or our trainings.
46:19
Sarah Karakaian: But we've got these co-hosts that come on, these property managers that come on, and, and they're, and they're, and they're being transparent, and they're sharing their PriceLab screen, and they're talking about their quote unquote "revenue management strategy," and
46:30
Sarah Karakaian: they have 20, 30, 40 clients, and they actually have no revenue management strategy.
46:36
Sarah Karakaian: What they're doing is they're just moving prices around.
46:39
Sarah Karakaian: They're not thinking about when the holiday falls.
46:41
Sarah Karakaian: They're not thinking about, "Hey, the value of the home has, has increased.
46:45
Sarah Karakaian: I should talk to my client about other ways that we can strategize their property."
46:49
Sarah Karakaian: 'Cause it's not just that reve- reservation revenue that comes in.
46:52
Sarah Karakaian: There's so much other cash in your calendar, cash in your home, and I think I'd argue that another reason why you're so good, Shannon, is because you do look at it holistically, and you really are thinking about all
47:04
Sarah Karakaian: aspects of revenue in your business and how you can manage it strategically.
47:08
Sarah Karakaian: And that's a really great reminder to everyone listening.
47:11
Sarah Karakaian: It's not, we're not talking about, you know, raising your price, lowering your price at certain times.
47:15
Sarah Karakaian: It really is a holistic approach to the money that comes in and out of your business.
47:20
Sarah Karakaian: Well, Shannon, thank you so much for your time, your transparency.
47:23
Sarah Karakaian: Congrats on all your success.
47:26
Sarah Karakaian: I'm excited for this parent-child thing for you to learn from it.
47:28
Sarah Karakaian: I think it'll be great data to set for next year.
47:31
Annette Grant: And I'm excited for you to continue to, I know you've been looking for properties, but I love that it's very strategic, and you and your husband are really discussing the why behind it and the where, and being, having
47:45
Annette Grant: awareness about where you are in your life with your kids and your portfolio and what's next.
47:51
Annette Grant: We love it.
47:51
Annette Grant: We love that, um, you've trusted us with.
47:54
Shannon Leyh: Yeah, I, I would say to anybody out there, also talk to your CPA.
47:59
Shannon Leyh: I mean, they, if they are, um, long-term rental or short-term, short-term rental owners themselves, I mean, I just had a conversation with my CPA a couple weeks ago because we have a long-term rental that we're considering selling next
48:11
Shannon Leyh: year, and we would like to, I mean, I'll be honest, some of that, some of the equity in it is for my kids going to college, which that's a whole nother, college financing, a whole nother thing.
48:21
Annette Grant: That's a whole other revenue management.
48:23
Sarah Karakaian: That's a whole, that's a different, that's a different podcast.
48:25
Shannon Leyh: Yeah.
48:25
Shannon Leyh: That's a different podcast.
48:27
Shannon Leyh: But, um, but the thing we were talking about, because we don't wanna just sell the property and not do anything with it, and we will owe capital gains tax, and so we were talking about cost segregation, and if
48:37
Shannon Leyh: we buy another short-term rental.
48:39
Annette Grant: Mm-hmm.
48:39
Shannon Leyh: You know, how we can minimize the capital gains that we would pay.
48:42
Sarah Karakaian: Hmm.
48:43
Shannon Leyh: Cause a 1031 exchange doesn't make sense for us, so, and I mean, I am not that kind of professional.
48:47
Shannon Leyh: So if, if you are looking at life changes, whether it's you've got multiple STRs and you wanna maybe f-focus and sell a couple and reinvest in other ways, talk to those CPAs, man.
49:01
Shannon Leyh: They're, they're amazing.
49:02
Sarah Karakaian: Yeah.
49:02
Sarah Karakaian: And knowing enough, like you do, I think is the, is the key.
49:05
Sarah Karakaian: Know enough.
49:06
Sarah Karakaian: You don't have to be an expert at it, and then you can ask the ex-experts, "Hey, I heard this on a podcast.
49:11
Sarah Karakaian: How could this work for me?"
49:12
Sarah Karakaian: Yeah, I love that.
49:13
Sarah Karakaian: All right.
49:13
Sarah Karakaian: Well, Shannon, thank you so much.
49:15
Sarah Karakaian: With that, I am Sarah Karakaian.
49:17
Annette Grant: I'm Annette Grant, and together we are...
49:19
Annette and Sarah: Thanks for Visiting.
49:20
Sarah Karakaian: Talk to you next time.