here's what we learned during our first
month hosting on airbnb
if you've been following our journey
renovating this house awesome if not
you can go back through our youtube
channel and watch all of those videos
the good the bad the ugly
um but now we have been renting out this
house on airbnb and joshua tree for a
month now and we figured that we would
give you guys an update um these are the
things that we found work for us do we
talk about income
that's coming up at the end do you have
all that
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first thing i think that we went through
was learning how to book get people to
book and we had some hiccups for our
first two bookings one had a pet the
other one had kids there were over two
yeah we had policies like home rules on
our airbnb site it's very clear like it
says no pets no children under
or over two that we had decided before
we launched on airbnb that we didn't
want in the home the way we set up our
airbnb you had to request a book yeah we
just wanted to kind of like we didn't
want the house trashed so we wanted to
be able to you know just make sure the
reviews were good instead of having
instant book on long story long we were
trying to stay firm on those things
right off the bat because we had house
rules and we were gonna stick by them
but just know that no pets does not mean
that pets aren't going to come on your
property
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the first person that tried to book us
was trying to book us with the dog and
we were like oh it clearly says in our
in our thing like no pets i'm sorry and
the person responded to that and said oh
well
it's an e-s-a-e e-s-a-dot
e-s-e-a-s emotional support animal
emotional support animal yeah that was i
think the biggest like smack in the face
because the person ended up we had not
even booked anyone yet the person ended
up reporting us to airbnb we didn't even
know that that was like yeah a thing and
didn't even think about it because we
didn't we've not dealt with that
situation it was very yeah the hard part
was they didn't even let us know like
most people usually say hey i'm booking
your place i do have a dog that's an
esa animal and we're happily like yeah
sure that's fine but they just booked it
and said are you cool if we bring our
dogs you know we've learned we're new to
customer service dealing with people is
new and the customer's always right
natural disasters can happen
and you may have a booking and a strict
cancellation policy but
give a full refund like that's something
we learned within the first month we had
somebody who they couldn't make it and
they're they were literally snowed in
the highways were closed it's all good
like here's your money back on the
upside after we canceled the reservation
and gave them the full refund um we did
end up getting booked like within the
like eight hours yeah it was like not
even it was probably like 20 minutes
yeah we got the cancellation we're like
oh dang that was like 600 dollars it
would've been great to have yeah and
then we got it
like the airbnb thing on our phone i was
like this person booked your house and
we're like yes yeah so that is so just
know that just because somebody cancels
on you
you know maybe far out or even kind of
last minute because we've you know we
could see that happening
don't worry too much because it might be
the only place available and people will
book it yeah and if you have smart
pricing on usually it'll jack the price
up because it's in high demand and that
we like that weekend was because it was
near the holidays so worked out for us
it was awesome
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and on that note uh we played around a
lot with our pricing at the beginning we
did smart pricing and then on holidays
we do our own pricing so you can select
certain days and jack up the price or
bring down the price and then the rest
of the time can be smart booking yeah
just fyi if you have any more questions
about that let us know because we may be
talking a lot of jargon like airbnb
jargon so we're
yeah there's also a service called air
dna if you want to see
uh smart pricing like
what they recommend one thing we did
find out about air dna when we after we
paid for it is if you want air dna to
control your smart pricing uh that's
like an extra fee it's like another
service on top of it so uh at this point
we don't need that yeah everybody does a
pretty good job if you set your base
price it'll fluctuate off of that yeah
yeah so we decided not to do that for
right now but we do have air dna and we
didn't pay for the subscription for the
year which was like 200 dollars which
it's nice to see like hey okay fourth of
july weekend what is the average rate
that other people are charging and you
can compare with same bed bath amenities
and stuff like that so it's it is a good
tool to have but um i thought it was
going to control our pricing as well but
it's not it didn't so yeah it was kind
of a catfish for you
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the welcome list when people book us
we learned that we sent we'll send like
a little message right off the bat
that's something that it's copy and
pasted basically like thanks for booking
with us we'll let you know your check-in
instructions three days prior to your
stay three days before i always
i don't know how i remember but i do and
eventually we're going to get too
slammed that i'm not going to be able to
do it maybe reminds you like hey this
guest is coming i think it's seven days
before i'll know like oh shoot okay in a
couple days i need to do it and i'll set
a reminder on my phone or whatever
and we'll send
all the check-in information
how to drive to our property because
we're off-road and we'll send the lock
code to whoever's coming so i'll make a
new lock code for them and send that
specifically to them always over explain
like on the check-in information we have
like you are going to drive a half a
mile down a dirt road like it adds to
the make it a positive spin it be like
it adds to the serenity and the
remoteness of the location
um because we don't want people being
like i had to drive down a dirt road but
if you put that all in your your maybe
your description or in your checking
information you avoid those people that
don't want to drive down a dirt road or
something like that yeah and we're very
detailed like we watched raw built for
probably like a year before we started
doing this
and he said make your description on
your airbnb listing as if it's a blog
about your house yeah and that is what
we've done there is all sorts of
information on there about places nearby
that we love is all in that all on our
page we do have a one sheet that we got
laminated for two bucks at fedex has all
the check-in information yeah and
all the checkout information
one piece of advice we have barely had
any questions about anything in the
house because i over explained i've been
to so many airbnbs and i'm like how do i
work the fireplace
what happens with the barbecue don't
assume
that your
renters are going to know how to do
things because you don't want them to do
that incorrectly if you say the barbecue
turn the gas on then press this then do
this once you're done clean it and cover
it like step by step step by step you
might avoid a lot of messages and stuff
like that because in our first month we
didn't get really any messages saying
like hey how do you do this we also have
our fireplace like a sheet laminated
like you had said like instructions for
the fireplace we have a sheet laminated
and by the fireplace for people so yeah
and we have a welcome basket we give
people waters we give snacks
and
soap for their hair and body just normal
airbnb stuff yeah that kind of fun stuff
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with our calendar we decided to go three
months we started out just opening up
three months because you can do i
believe three months six months a year
and then like your calendar is just open
forever reason why
i initially
thought that way to do the three months
out was because if everyone's calendars
are open and all these places are booked
and then we pop up as open and you're
looking during that time and you're like
oh shoot there's so many places oh look
at this beautiful gem we'll book that
one
what's next um one thing we learned that
we can live without even though it's
very unfortunate because i love it is
eucalyptus in the shower yeah it's just
not
ideal
little touches are hard to upkeep if
you're not living really close or you're
not the one flipping the house things
that are sustainable for
people that are managing their own
properties i would say to steer away
from
eucalyptus and little like things that
will die which is exciting so what i've
combated that with i guess or switched
out
in my own mental i got a room spray
that's like a palo santo kind of spray
i'm like you know what if we can't have
it be like a spa i'm gonna have it have
a signature scent yeah some people are
allergic to scents they let us know
ahead of time we did have a guest that
did that and i swapped out things and we
didn't use the room spray so you can
not do that as well
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cleaning the house ourselves
what have we learned about cleaning the
house ourselves yeah so in the last
month
we've cleaned it after every guest and
we've learned one how hard it is
to how hair gets everywhere
um and the main of my existence three
we've learned that your cleaners are
probably going to be your most important
people because they're the ones that are
there in between and they'll let you
know what's
right or wrong um
so
i think that when we hire cleaners for
the long term
we are going to have to make sure that
they are just on the ball and
on it because um another thing is
laundry if we do like one day stays
right now we have a two night minimum on
just for our own sanity so we don't have
to drive back and forth about you for
cleaning oh yeah laundry you definitely
need bigger washer and dryers if you're
gonna have a lot of laundry cleaning the
house ourselves i had learning the
difference between a deep clean and like
us like light cleaning because every
time we deep cleaned yeah and it was
like three hours to clean the house
because i was like cleaning the
baseboards and stuff lifting rugs
obviously all the sheets are fresh and
everything like that
the shower is clean but like dusting
really like dusting everything off and
like getting the windowsills like we'll
do that every other guest
and getting under the rugs and stuff
maybe every few guests because it just
was it's taking way too long yeah we do
talk about income so
stay if you're still watching just know
we do talk about our first month income
coming up at the end of the movie so
watch tv at the end of the movie it's so
long
at the end of the video it's not a movie
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lost and found is next for us first
month we had somebody leave a hat it was
like stuck in the bedding and it was
like really sentimental hat to this
person so they asked us to send it back
so things like that will happen
usually we'll wait like a week and if no
one says something we'll either hold on
to it or toss it
depending on what it is people leave
food in the house
and if it's unopened we'll either leave
it like we had
some really nice milk that was left and
some iced coffee we took home with us
it was nice well we took it home yeah it
was cold brew but yeah like like beers
and stuff like that we just we have a
bar so we just put them in the bar
and you know they got drank so i think
that's a nice touch but i wouldn't leave
anything in the fridge make sure your
maids take everything out the last thing
you want when you get to an airbnb is to
see like food from somebody else yeah so
i think the only thing i would allow is
either like ketchup mustard yeah or
something like that
or like unopened alcohol
if you're running a place that's more
geared for adults like us
yeah so on the topic of oversharing we
are on a septic tank here
and light switches are kind of confusing
so the two things that we did to get
people and like i said we didn't have
anybody reach out to us we put a sign in
the bathroom that said only toilet paper
down the toilet we're on a septic tank
and in the kitchen
no food down the drain
septic tank there's a little thing that
catches it and then you just throw it in
the trash and on all the lights that are
confusing we did
we got a labeler and we labeled above
the light switches like this is the
living room this is outside bar room
lights because there's so many lights in
the bar room yeah so so that was one of
the things that like like i said over
communicate things because it's not
their space and they don't know and you
don't want them to do something that is
not right
let's get into finances yeah cause
that's what everybody wants to know
all right so we went live on november
15th halfway through the month or
something like that
so this is really kind of like half of
november and into december right it's
not even half of november
although we got booked
on like the 15th of november
our first guest didn't show up till the
day before thanksgiving oh so the 24th
yeah so i have november 24th to december
25th is what we're talking about this
was take home not gross the end of the
day we made how much 39.84 rounding up 3
984
which was way better than i ever thought
that we were going to do in our first
month um i thought we were gonna maybe
have to like pay some of our own money
for the mortgage and stuff like that
let's do some calculations real quick so
3984
minus our mortgage which is 2066.
that's
1918
and then our utilities i think we're
around 400 i think that's a high
estimate yeah but um so at the end of
the day we took home 1518.
which is which for our first month
not too shabby it was a holiday so
that's good um we found out that we were
booked mostly on the weekends yeah um
so
that's something to consider so all in
all um very good we
are going to take the profits and put
them back into the house there's so many
things that we want to do we need to get
a new dryer we need to get a cowboy pool
there's a laundry list of things that we
are going to be doing be fixing up at
this house so please keep watching our
channel if you slam that like button
subscribe to our channel and also if
there's something uh you would like to
know about our airbnb business
let us know in the comments because uh
we are new to this so if we can do it
you can do it yeah
and if you have questions maybe we've
have some experience i don't know
or if you have any suggestions yes
suggestions in the comments yeah like
and subscribe to our channel you know
the drill next week we'll have back with
more um of us i think fixing fences and
yeah
cool
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