Hey YouTube what's happening it's Richard founder short-term rental
university and Airbnb super host today's video is about the importance of
investing in your listing all right so why is it important well you've heard in
other videos that Airbnb as a community and as a service is growing and maturing
and that means that competition is escalating and what we need to do is
host to get bookings and to generate maximum profit is charge more money and
get better people and more bookings the way to do that is to differentiate
ourselves from the plain vanilla commodity providers the easiest way to
do that is to invest in your property photograph it properly sell the dream
and encourage people to want to stay at our places booked us and not the
competition so before we get started I want to give a real-life case scenario
here now shout out to my man Zak Scriven from LA he's been a longtime follower
now he's a member at the short-term rental university thank you very much
and he participated in a live conversation we had with one Sheik
retreat will include the link below and they're actually on the podcast they
were giving design and interior decorating tips Zak was enamored with
what he saw and knew he needed some help and so a big shout-out to Zak for
actually spending a little bit of money to invest in his property and for one
Sheik retreat helping Zak out I don't know what the results are yet because I
think it's too soon but I have seen some of the before-and-after photos in our
membership group and they're spectacular and I'm certain that he's gonna increase
his profitability by charging higher rates and having a higher occupancy and
that's sort of the goal so Zak continue to give us updates we'd
really appreciate it but that's the premise anybody can sort of do it if you
don't do this naturally or you need some help there's resources out there listen
to our podcast to get some great tips and in the meantime let's talk about
some ideas that I have and some of the things that I'm wrestling with
personally in my place in Jackson Hole so here's two decisions that I'm making
right now about my place in Jackson Hole and they're related but they're
different and they're both pretty expensive the first one is how much
outdoor furniture do I need I have an outdoor patio and a deck and it makes
sense to have some outdoor furniture but the reality of it is it's only usable in
the summer months not so much in the winter months and then - most of the
people that are coming to Jackson Hole in the summer
tend to be coming to do something outdoors like whitewater rafting or
climbing or going to use cemani not necessarily sitting around and enjoying
a beer on a deck so the question is how important is it for me to invest in that
outdoor furniture how much did I spend and then a related one is do I need a
hot tub now what I'm told by property managers in the area is that a hot tub
is desirable and a competitive advantage and a lot of people have it so if I
don't have it it's a competitive disadvantage and so I'm sitting here
wrestling with well do I spend ten thousand dollars on outdoor furniture
and $10,000 on a Jacuzzi that's twenty thousand dollars and it's not really
gonna be used a lot so what do I do and I don't have a decision yet I'm still
working through and I'm trying to optimize it and find the right solution
but here's my thinking it comes down to selling the dream so the people that are
looking on Airbnb or home away for a place in Jackson even though they may go
to Yellowstone all day and or whitewater raft and or climb and they may actually
never use the outdoor space when they're booking it when they're looking at the
photos they're gonna look at this beautiful well decorated beautiful
outdoor space with couches and sofas and a grill and hot tub and all of this
stuff and they're gonna say I want that and so if I do that chances are I'm
gonna book more frequently and I can increase my nightly rate now you can
increase my profit and so I'm depreciating the furniture and the
jacuzzi it's an expense expensing the maintenance of the say the jacuzzi I'm
increasing my profitability and there's a break-even point maybe I don't break
even in year one but maybe I break even in year two and then maybe in year three
it's all profit right so I'm starting to think about what I'm going to invest how
much in what solution to give myself a competitive advantage to increase my
booking rate to increase my average nightly rate and as an investment in
measured in years and not in days or weeks or months and if you start to
think about all of that the bottom line of this video is you need to invest in
your property to differentiate yourself from everyone else as a our B&B becomes
more competitive and - you need to charge accordingly don't go out and get
all this furniture and keep your nightly rate the same if I have 600 square feet
of outdoor space that's properly decorated and beautifully decorate
maintained without door space I need to charge more for that I think I can I
know I can and then if there's maintenance associated with the jacuzzi
guess what my cleaning fee goes up so think about all of these things like you
would a business you have to have a marketing budget an advertising budget a
cleaning budget of you know depreciation expense with your accountant you start
to do all that it all comes together and generates more profits so two caveats I
want to point out one is in the back your mind you should always try and
invest in things that you would either use yourself and enjoy personally or if
it didn't work out you could put in a different property so for instance if
people didn't pay more for the outdoor furniture and/or the hot tub would I
personally use it could I use it in another location maybe but that's
something that you should ask yourself before you go out and spend aggressively
and overdevelop that's a problem I'm not encouraging you to go out and spend a
ton of money and then find out that people don't want it or that you can't
increase your prices it's a business decision it's a business analysis and
I'd encourage you to do it and one of the fall backs is do I have an alternate
use could I use it personally what I enjoy it if that's the case that makes
that decision a little bit easier for you as well and the second thing to
think about is your location right so in Jackson Hole I think people will spend
more for that hot tub but if I were in you know some very remote spot and I'm
not booking a lot I don't know that I would spend that kind of money in the
hopes that I would attract more people there's a million-plus people that come
to Jackson every single summer some of them have money some of them would like
a hot tub I might want to cater to that subset but I'm not trying to attract a
million people to Jackson because I have a hot tub so in a nutshell you've heard
me say this time and time again sell the dream again I think the dream is people
looking they're coming for a family vacation they want to come to Jackson
for the summer or the winter and they look at this outdoor space and it's 400
600 square feet of outdoor manicured space with furniture and hot tubs and
grills and it's just like wow look at what a great time we could have there I
think that's going to generate clicks sell the dream in reality I don't know
if they're actually gonna use it or if they're gonna benefit as much as I'm
gonna charge them for it but that's not my issue my issue is sell
the dream getting my place booked having it be perfect for them when they come
and enjoy it and if they're too busy outdoors at Yellowstone and they never
get in the hot tub c'est la vie now to be fair a hot tub has a
consequence and a concern and something that I'm wrestling with I'd love to hear
your thoughts on it which is liability you know anytime you have water and
children and families and so on there's a liability issue I want to underscore
that I don't take that lightly that might be a reason enough that I don't
put in a hot tub but at the same time it's a really good amenity people want
it and liked it and so I'm wrestling with that I'd love to hear from you if
you have a hot tub how you minimize liability what you think about it but it
would be silly for me to go on and on about how great having a hot tub is in
increasing profits and not mention the downside which is water pools of water
hot tubs etc big liability human safety first please be careful so that's what's
on my mind and those are the issues that I'm wrestling with in Jackson I'm making
these decisions in real time and I wanted to share it with you I'd love to
hear from you in the comments below what have you done for your investment that's
generated a positive return on investment what have you done that
hasn't worked out the way you thought the reason I want to know all this is
the more that we share in the comments below the more we grow from one another
the more we avoid mistakes the more profit we make the more we can reinvest
the more we can grow the more comments whether you get it anyway LIKE the video
and subscribe thanks so much