in this video i'm going to teach you how
to properly plan
and set up an airbnb property how to
furnish your airbnb apartment or your
home
and we're specifically going to cover
the topics of choosing pieces
based on like aesthetic durability
cleanability replaceability
functionality like all this good stuff
these are important topics because
if you set up an airbnb apartment in a
hurry and don't really plan ahead and
plan for the future
things are gonna break um they're gonna
wear out uh they're gonna be
unsightly you're gonna end up having to
give guest refunds and then replace
stuff that costs you money down the road
and this can be prevented on the front
end so
um i'm setting up 13 apartments as we
speak here in philadelphia in the same
building
and there's a lot of boxes as you can
see but this is obviously fresh in my
mind so i think i'm well qualified to
talk to you about furnishing airbnb
properties my name's sean rockyjeech i
actually have over 100 properties on
airbnb been doing this for six years
and let's jump into furnishing your
first or next airbnb
welcome back airbnb family thank you so
much for tuning in on this video
uh this is a fun one because it's so
fresh in my mind as you see all these
boxes i'm setting up 13 apartments at
the same time
right now here in philadelphia um and
more to come in this building it's a
pretty big negotiation that i did
uh they actually gave me five hundred
thousand dollars in rent concessions
to pick up this deal and i've got a
video on that um a few videos back
so i want to talk to you about the six
main like
key metrics the factors that we use when
choosing stuff that we
buy whether it's furniture decor stuff
for the kitchen new stuff like that
and their relationship with each other
and how some things need to have certain
characteristics and some things don't
the implications matter so when you do
airbnb
the most time and cost effective part of
this business is staging
taking photos setting the thing up and
then getting it listed right you spend
the most money and you spend the most
time on it from there it should be
easily maintained where guests are just
checking in and out
um you're dealing with them through the
phone and you're doing light maintenance
but if you don't do this appropriately
you don't plan ahead for things to break
or things will wear down you know like
you don't pick your pieces because of
that inevitable future
um things will go wrong eventually where
things will start to look like grody and
dirty even though it's technically in
the best condition it can be in at the
time and guess what want refunds because
things don't look like they were in the
photos or they don't look good and then
you're gonna have to
you have to replace stuff or things are
just gonna break then you have to spend
people time and resources to go replace
things that break um and this stuff
costs you money down the road so when
you set up an airbnb right from the
beginning you should be
looking at the next two years at least
of the future of your property
because we budget for about two years of
use at minimum
for the stuff that we buy so before we
get into the details please like this
video
um i really do appreciate it it helps
the video perform it really does the
algorithm's fun like that
and subscribe if you're new welcome to
the channel uh we're going to talk a lot
about the functionality
of running the airbnb business and of
course i welcome you to watch like
playlists i've got
ones on topics so the six things that we
look for when setting up an airbnb
property first off is price right
everything's driven by price because we
have a budget if you blow your budget
and spend like twenty thousand dollars
more in your home than you should it's
gonna take you so much more money time
to get your money back
right so there is always a ceiling on
budget you've got to be thrifty within
that number
but then there's things like aesthetic
things have to look good
in the photos they also have to look
good when the guest shows up
there's durability like i said things
can't be breaking randomly and you're
constantly sending people to replace or
fix stuff that's tough
things have to be cleanable right they
have to be serviceable
so um like for example like fabric can
stain
where leather does not and so like
things like that where
you might be keeping it in the best
condition you can put it in but a year
from now
it's gonna look diminished a year from
now and that means you're probably gonna
have to replace it when a guest gets
upset about it like so that's the kind
of whole
the cleanable aspect and then there's
the replaceability
where you need to find things that are
either common enough that you can always
buy them
or they are neutral enough that you can
replace them with a like product
something similar where you won't have
to go shoot new photos again right so
replaceability matters there then
functionality um there's things that you
buy because they look good they're good
value
but um they just suck right and we're
gonna talk about a few things that you
shouldn't really buy for your space
because they they actually
harm your guest experience you know for
example as opposed to actually you know
giving them a better one
so functionality matters too um so yeah
let's jump
right in let's talk about budget so we
spent about five thousand dollars
on an apartment like out the door
one bedroom or smaller apartment complex
like this and that covers
all of your basics like furniture it
covers the decor to make your place look
competitive like an accent wall you
paint
to make it pop all the amenities that
make you more competitive like a coffee
station with the decaf and the tea
full length mirror you know tv with the
disney plus on it
all that good stuff and then of course
um getting in rent and security deposit
and stuff like that but i negotiate
a lot of like rents and security deposit
discounts and that's why i can get in
for less than five thousand dollars
i'm getting a lot of free rents on the
front end typically and that's how that
number comes now we add two thousand
dollars per bedroom
in budget for staging but if it's a
house um
add a thousand dollars to the base so
six thousand instead of five
and then add twenty five hundred instead
of two thousand per bedroom
so you're looking at about 11 000 for a
three bedroom house as opposed to 9 000
for a three bedroom apartment
that's based on square footage and
usually homes have a little bit more
needs
because apartments tend to like have
more amenities
better fixtures and all that good stuff
right out the door where if you sell a
landlord on letting you airbnb their
property
there's more that you have to put in
there more love to make that thing
competitive and that's why there's a
little bit more money there now let's
first talk about aesthetic
see the aesthetic of the home isn't
about the individual quality of the
piece
but how it all comes together so if
you've ever walked through an ikea and
saw all the little rooms that they make
that stuff isn't expensive stuff but
they find a way to make these rooms look
really cool
and so you can increase the overall
aesthetic of your space by
using common themes that tie together
well and like painting an accent wall
can give you a pop of color
and you know using just like a few main
colors where you might have
a couple more cool colors and then one
pop of warm
right so you like you do like blue like
maybe two shades of blue and then like
just canary yellow for example right
it'd be a way to like use that use like
a like an electric blue
a royal blue or something and then a
midnight blue and then a pop of canary
yellow
and that's a way to use three colors in
a space and it's gonna make it look
really clean
you can always cut your colors with
neutrals you can always use anything
white black around the gray scale
because they don't really make more
chaos i wouldn't recommend doing more
than three colors and you want to make
sure that those colors have a
relationship with each other
and then have fun with the accent wall
and all the good stuff right textures um
matter too so if everything's like
farmhouse style like wood metal leather
that's really cool um if you do
something modern um you could do things
that are more like glass
acrylic like plastic but like like more
quality plastic
um like that white porcelain style
plastic and stuff like that and go for
this more modern contemporary maybe some
like stone
like um some really smooth concrete
stuff uh custom poured
i mean that starts to get expensive but
you get my point now
this leads to what's what's gonna be the
next one which is like like
serviceability
but what i do want to hammer home here
is aesthetic is about
designing a room as a composition and
making sure you pay attention to like
the little details and give the place
personality
and you're doing it for the photos more
so than for the space you're doing it
for the photos
so as long as your home looks good at a
couple key angles and can get some good
shots out of it
that's good enough so you don't have to
like adorn the place and overload it so
that way it looks good at every single
angle
if you are on a budget and you want a
good aesthetic and you kind of end up
having to cut corners anywhere
skip one wall right just skip one wall
and just kind of basic out that wall but
make sure that your photos
don't include that one wall right and
that's just coming in on a budget you
can always upgrade that later as you
make some more money if you want to
but serviceability is next see the
reason why the examples i gave you were
like wood
metal leather plastic acrylic glass
concrete
is because they can be cleaned right and
this is super important what i've
noticed with a lot of stuff that we've
bought even high quality
items if they've got that fabric top to
it um like couches that are fabric or
bar stools that are fabric those stain
um and if you've got like certain types
of certain types of wood too
certain types of wood tops where like a
cup sweats on the wood and then it gets
a ring on it
that's no fun and then there are like
like
like lacquer um nightstands that
if like somebody spills something on the
nightstand then it creates this like
really weird off-color white translucent
thing
so there's some stuff that you just
shouldn't buy because even though
they're cheap and they look nice
this stuff just goes bad and even though
you try to clean them and ever it says
it's sterile it's not going to look
clean a few examples of other stuff that
you may not even be control of
one of the older properties i picked up
in fort worth years ago um the
apartment was so old that the tubs
needed to be acid washed
so as clean as we could get them they
still had like this like kind of
blackish
color and they kind of had this off
texture from excessive cleaning the
outside of the tub was rough looking
and we had to give refunds for a
completely clean pristine sterile tub
because they looked old and in the
photos that meant that they looked dirty
so
you should be careful with properties
that you pick up where there are things
that
if it looks dirty but it's clean that
means that that's the best condition you
can get it in and if it's going to give
you problems with guests you should skip
that apartment and so
we be careful with like be careful with
tubs you can get them resurfaced
and so if you're negotiating with an
apartment you should negotiate to
resurface those tubs
for an example but try to stay away from
fabrics uh try to stay away from things
with cheap coatings
and you know try to make sure you move
into a place that has new stuff and
that'll avoid
that lack of serviceability another
example
of something that is like durable enough
to continue to be used but just starts
looking bad
we love the home hero knife sets for the
most part they're the ones with the
acrylic stands and the knives all fan
out they look really pretty
but we've bought a lot of ones that are
black and black black blade black handle
problem with that is the blades as you
re-sharpen them and you use them
uh the the silver underneath starts to
show and the outside layer
starts to like oh no in a way like chip
away as like
you know like a ceramic pan would i'm
not a ceramic pen but like one of the
like a teflon pan would
and they just start to look really junky
and old so we're now moving to
using knives that just have a stainless
steel outside
because we don't have to worry about the
coating going away and that way they
last
longer that's one example now the
acrylic thing it's actually hard to
clean so that's the only drawback to the
home hero knife sets is people stick
dirty knives in there for some stupid
reason
and cleaning the inside part can be
really tough
so you really have to stay diligent with
your housekeepers to have those cleaned
um another example is like um what
coffee stations you use
keurig machines they they go dirty and
people don't know how to properly clean
keurig machines
um and it's nasty mold grows inside of
them so i always recommend get a regular
coffee station
if you want to have a perfectly
manageable perfectly clean and pretty
coffee situation
you should do a kettle and you should do
a pour over like a chemex
with the tin on the top this means that
a housekeeper will never forget to open
the coffee machine to check for a filter
and coffee because they'll forget that
sometimes which sucks
so this coffee station if it's used it's
obvious and it has to get cleaned every
time
so i would recommend those now they're
not as durable somebody could drop the
glass or chip the glass
and you'll need to replace it but that's
the kind of trade-off that we're looking
for
here or we're considering is um for the
proper maintenance of the property and
proper cleaning
a regular coffee machine doesn't get
cleaned properly typically
and i used to work as a barista in a
coffee shop and i kind of know how grody
that stuff gets
and so i'm leaning towards pour overs
and the chemex style thing just because
i think they look
cool it's more of an like um like a
do-it-yourself coffee thing which is
kind of a fun activity
some people hate it um but it just saves
us from ever disappointing a guest
with a with the subpar quality of clean
so those are some stuff in the kitchen
that matters just the same now uh
durability is next
so these things are all still usable but
um they just become unsightly or
problematic and that's kind of
like the point there but with durable um
there are things that just like break
they look good and they're cheap and
stuff but like ikea furniture that's
like the eight dollar nightstands they
just break and they're hard to repair
and so this is the other part of the
durability airbnb has got a policy where
you have to try to repair something
before you build the guest to replace it
in its entirety
so we're looking at this a lot at scale
as how to manage our property
based on durability and how to fix stuff
so
we've got this beautiful 10 foot long
blue couch that we bought
off of sofa mania because we had a
really unique floor plan
and somebody put a cigarette burn mark
in it well it's a blue
uh like velvety felt kind of fake fabric
and so it is really tough
because um i had to throw my phone it
keeps ringing um it's really
tough to replace because that fabric's
so unique so we have to pull fabric like
a
like a little patch of fabric from the
back of the couch and then patch the
cushion
and like restuff the couch and then
cover the back of the couch with a black
patch
or something like that the part that's
not aesthetic can have that off color
patch
so that's what we have to do to replace
like the fabric of the couch now the
cool thing with this couch
is this fabric doesn't stain like other
fabrics right like if you have like the
cross stitch like
linen or cotton like you know like the
weaving that stuff stains it has like
water marks really easily and those ones
have given us the most trouble but this
felt like like
velvet thing they i like the velvet they
it doesn't stain so easily so if you're
going to use a fabric you can use velvet
but watch out for burn marks
i think it is better too considering
burn marks even though people aren't
supposed to be smoking
um it is better for that than leather uh
but leather
is completely easily cleanable like and
it's hypoallergenic which is great
i'm sitting on a faux leather couch
cushion right now from a new couch that
we're buying we're testing something let
me tell you about it
um but i will say uh that like burning
this with a cigarette there's no way to
fix it you just have to replace the
whole cushion or replace that section of
couch
so with that in mind the couch i'm
sitting on see if i can get you to link
i think i bought these on sofa mini as
well
they're black faux leather chesterfield
style couches and they're modular
they just click together so the arms
click and the bottom clicks and the back
clicks together
so what we can do is we can have 10 or
20 of them and then keep keep a couple
in
inventory and then if somebody breaks a
piece of the couch we can just replace
it we can use two
spare couches for parts right and so now
we can
very quickly replace an entire couch
by fixing the piece that's broken so
it's easy for our housekeeper
or someone to go into a storage closet
grab the arm of a couch and bring it in
and have some maintenance guy come in
real quick and put it together
all right so that serviceability or the
repair ability replaceability kind of
intersects there
you have to plan for things to break
down now so this one
right we can't just patch it with a
little sewing machine but we can replace
the whole chunk of it other things that
need to be really durable in your place
is like the bed frame
we've noticed that a lot of times the
bed frames give out so we've been buying
these
uh like amazon reinforced metal frames
that go below the bed and kind of like
stick it into
the outer part of a frame but there's
been a lot of like cheapskate
manufacturers on amazon selling like
really low quality versions of this
um and they've gone up in price we used
to get the best quality
metal frames on amazon for like 80 90
bucks for a king
now they're like 165 bucks for king and
that could be just because of logistics
with covid and china shipping and stuff
maybe otherwise people just know that
these things are popular now
and they can get more money for them i
don't know but you should reinforce your
bed frame
so instead of buying a 160 dollar metal
bed frame you can go to lowe's
and get extra lumber and like reinforce
the wood
frame that you have i think that's a
good idea because it's definitely less
than 160 bucks in lumber to reinforce
what's already a wood frame
and these are all the beds so i'm gonna
have one guy go and assemble all of the
beds it's gonna be part of our like
launch for these 13 units um but each
one
the beds will have to be reinforced
because we're planning ahead
for stuff like that now certain things
don't have to be durable like the
like the the fake plants and the lamps
tend to not have to be durable because
they're very rarely
interacted with um the lights have to be
functional
but they don't have to be durable and
functionality is one thing too
like we'll talk about that in a second
so we buy our fake plants typically from
ikea or target
we prefer the ones at ikea because of
better price
but if you order them online or go into
the store it's just what they have at
that store's inventory when you order
online
target if you buy fake plants online
they'll distribute them from like a
wider geographic area so you can get
more
so for 13 apartments i had to use target
to buy tons of fake plants in bulk where
if it was just one or two apartments i'd
go to ikea or ship in from ikea but they
they don't carry as much inventory which
makes it hard to do it at scale
but cups plates bowls stuff like that
ikea is good for that so we buy all that
kind of stuff
from ikea because you can get 80 cent
plates that are good quality 80 cent
bowls that are good quality
so in mass i mean i think we just
ordered like 100 plates for this place
something like that and it was super
cheap which is awesome
now with stuff in the kitchen of the
same type we don't buy teflon pans we've
switched to ceramic
um we're hoping that ceramic is a little
bit more durable doesn't create that
grody nasty teflon scrapey
thing also when you buy like cooking
utensils you should be using silicone
instead of like the hard plastic because
the hard plastic melts and gets into
food which is
just super nasty and certain people know
this and if they
see that you have cheap cooking utensils
that kind of like start to warp and bend
and like flatten out
they're like come on guys right so um
silicone
cooking utensils is more durable um and
they
they won't irk out certain guests so and
what that said is for like functionality
goes that's another thing there
and like the keurig machine coffee
station thing that's a functionality
thing that we talked about too see all
this stuff starts to intersect
now the keurig is le the keurig is the
easiest to wield
right the regular coffee pot people are
used to the coffee station with the
chemex
it's a little harder to like to use so
it doesn't win on the functionality side
um but if you if the guest likes it as
an experience then way cool right
um all the lights lamp switches they all
have to work um
we stopped using sleeper sofas
combination of functionality and
durability here they eventually break um
sleeper sofas are hard to replace
because they're heavy
uh they break and they're hard to do
maintenance on because they're kind of
like
weird and you have to find somebody
who's like good at repairing them and
if you can't effectively repair it it
stops being couch
right it just becomes like sunken in and
like off center
and they become problematic so if they
if you lose the sleeper part of the sofa
you lose the sofa part of the sofa so
that's why we don't really like sleeper
sofas anymore
we've actually switched to rollaway beds
um because
they still break like sleeper sofas do
but
um they're easier to do maintenance on
because you can remove it from the
property and try to fix it and bring it
back later
they're easier to swap out because
they're smaller and they roll and they
roll out
um and they're more modular right so you
can have a love seat
in a space that only had room for a love
seat but then you can have a sleeper
sofa like
i mean a rollaway bed where you can
still sleep an extra person with the
roll-away bed
didn't have room for like a whole couch
but you had room for the like roll-away
bed
and that is something that you can do
too especially with couches
they're like this faux leather you may
not want somebody sleeping on it so you
don't want to list the couch as a
sleeping space
but you can have the roll-away bed and
give somebody space to sleep in in the
living room so that's another kind of
pro tip
is we're getting away from sleeper sofas
and into rollaway beds for that reason
so to kind of in reverse take a look at
everything i kind of just dumped on you
the most interacted with stuff on a
property that you should plan
for upkeep uh and breakage and stuff
like that will be the couch
the bed um the towels and the linens in
the house
the cups plates bowls utensils stuff
like that
the front door the carpet coming inside
you know like that old stuff
the stuff that is the least interacted
with would be
the fake plants uh would be the lights
um
the toaster probably rarely gets used
but i mean they still get used
um stuff like that uh stuff that it just
kind of sits there and it's like hey
that's nice so the art on the walls the
decor
the fake plants that stuff is rarely
interacted with so that stuff
just kind of lasts right so you should
be keeping extra things on standby that
are highly interacted with i recommend
keeping a spare
like smart tv on standby because if
somebody steals it or breaks it you can
just replace the tv
um we're doing these extra couches that
are modular so we can replace pieces of
that
we keep extra sheets and towels and
stuff on standby
and now here's a pro tip for that too
guys is you
you can do the white towels and linens
and stuff and look really crisp and
sharp and professional which i love i
love that white crispy look
but they're harder to maintain you gotta
bleach them and stuff like that um you
don't want to bleach them on site
because then the washer could have
bleach in it and you bleach your guests
clothes and they get pissed and you have
to replace those that would be bad
so you would have to launder them
off-site
so that becomes a thing now you can use
colored towels and stuff but then they
may not seem as professional or as
luxury and then there's a trade-off
there
but one thing you can do is if you want
to justify using colored towels and
colored sheets you can incorporate it
into your design style
so that way using a purple towels in a
place that has like a good purple theme
is like justified right now if you use
white
sheets uh be careful what colors you
have you should probably use a blue
if anything because um natural white
sheets
um kind of actually more dull than the
vivid pearly white sheets that we all
love they're like just
like like pearly white teeth kind of
white um those actually have a little
bit of blue in them they're not actually
a true white
so if you want to wash white with
something else probably choose a blue
like a light blue
um and that'll keep your white sheets
lasting longer um so just keep that as a
pro tip
but if you want to use colors for
everything then just justify your colors
in your design style and you'll be good
there
now if you if with all this set you find
yourself kind of like at a loss
on budget um and you want to stick to
that five thousand dollars and you want
to buy some nice stuff and you want to
do the accent walls and everything but
you just don't have enough money to
build up a whole place
pro tip is you're actually designing the
the place
um for photos not for the space right so
you are trying to make sure that the
photos look good so if you can do two or
three walls and make them look really
good at certain angles
that's good enough if you have to skip
one wall and have like a basic
wall that's fine but com like make sure
that everything else is composed and
good enough that you can get the photos
that you need for the airbnb
listing and then you can work on that
wall later something like that
um so coming in under budget means
everything that you do
do well think of it as photos first not
the entire space
um because if you do the wall with the
headboard like with the bed um at that
point then you're like able to
um be able to get the photos of the bed
at a couple different angles with the
headboard the back wall with a cool
backsplash or whatever spend all the
money on that then if the rest of the
room is generally basic that's gonna be
okay to get started
now um if there's things that you're not
gonna slouch on money on
don't slouch on the mattress and don't
slouch on the pillows um and you
probably also should make sure that
you've got a decent quality of uh
of like sheets on the bed too because
the sleep experience in that in a home
is probably the most important thing
um the sleep experience is the most
important now if you have a larger home
too
your cookware needs to be on point
because people will be preparing meals
and if they're cooking for family
and that's a big thing for like their
their family situation
if a family can't cook like they
normally would because they've got to
work around like really dingy stuff
that's going to give them a negative
kitchen experience right so
eating with family is a big experience
think about greek culture italian
culture just think just
picture thanksgiving right you want to
deliver on sleep quality and on bigger
properties you want to deliver on
kitchen quality those are big
now the couch will get sat on a lot so
couch cushions having good dense firm
cushions
it's probably gonna matter because
otherwise they'll start to sink in and
get old
otherwise you have to have a plan to
replace those cushions right so um keep
certain things of quality the stuff that
doesn't get interacted with just make
sure it looks pretty
now if you'd like to continue this
conversation i welcome you to
leave questions in the comments talk to
me directly in the comments
i manage those myself if you want to get
a big
like hearty response on something that
you want like hosts
opinions on like multiple hosts join my
facebook group the hosts of airbnb
automated there's over 16 000 people in
there
we talk about all sorts of stuff they're
all super professional
super helpful people and if you want to
know what a lot of hosts think about
something that's
that's actually the best place on the
internet to go for some good
solid feedback thank you for watching
this video i hope it was super helpful
um in your journey as a short-term
rental operator airbnb host
small business owner uh if you need me
find me and like on instagram hit me up
in the dms
as per usual i will see you on the other
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side
