Thank you for the information, which is really helpful!Just curious: you mentioned that you adjust minimal days based on how fully your place is occupied. I totally agree that full occupancy is not the goal here. What are the targets for setting your price? I read somewhere that people should adjust their base price so that they can have about 50% occupancy for next 30 days. I am sure it is much more complicated than a simple 50% and wonder how you experienced STR hosts deal with it.
The reason I asked is that I saw similar places in the building where my unit is located are listed with much higher price, but with very low occupancy. They are experienced hosts and definitely know what they are doing. I am just trying to figure out their thought process. I assume that higher price will weed out bad guests and may achieve similar profits by catering high-quality tenants only with less work/hassle, but is there a yardstick I could follow to achieve maximal profits?
Thanks
Lee
Originally posted by
@Jason Muth:
As many have stated, there are so many variables involved. For our STRs, I have found that I'd rather pick vacancy over poor tenant quality, because success (for me, at least) is not 365 nights/year of rentals.
- Started with Minimum 2 nights, 5 or 7 during summers (I start at 7 and back down to 5 to fill in gaps)
- Now we have Minimum 3 nights since I have so many positive reviews and have been a Superhost for over 2 years at this point. I'm sure we are missing out on some 2-nighters, but that's fine. If the calendar looks a bit sparse, I just back that down to 2-night minimum
- Keep the prices as high as possible. If you're in review-building mode, play with the rates and offer discounts. Naturally higher prices will weed out many problem tenants
- Overcommunicate. Give them a sense of responsibility. Customer service goes a long way. We spent a lot of time building out our listings and welcome materials. They are complete and thorough, but not overbearing. Our tone is friendly and irreverent, but serious when needed. Thank people for booking immediately after they do, drop them a quick note before their arrival and welcome them upon arrival.
- Minimum 25 years is a must.
- Have great eyes on the ground. Both people who clean our units are amazing. I communicate with each after every turn. And when people show up to spotless units, I feel as though they share a responsibility to treat our space as if it's their own (in fact, we let them know that we use both ourselves from time-to-time, again so they remember that they are staying in OUR place, not merely a hotel)
Would you believe that I don't even charge security deposits? I believe that layer of trust goes far. If I did charge one, I think that guests might go so far as to see that as the amount of damage they can inflict.
No joke, last summer I had a bunch of guys at our lake house and received a call on their final night that one of them broke our TV by punching it. Yep! They were playing a Virtual Reality game and got a bit too close. Well, during the call they said not to worry because they already replaced it with an ever nicer model. They hung it on the bracket, sent photos and everything. I wasn't thrilled at first (because I would have picked a different brand to remain consistent with my systems), but quickly laughed it off and figured it was an amazing story, which it is.
BTW, separate topic, did you know that you can connect your calendars between Airbnb and VRBO? In fact, we have ours connected with TripAdvisor as well (but I've only received one booking from TA in 3 years). I recommend both Airbnb and VRBO to start. The sites optimize their listings differently, and not being on both platforms is a big miss IMHO. I ran with pay-per-stay on VRBO for the first two years and then calculated that (for us) it's actually worth spending the $499 annual flat fee per listing now
