Welcome back to another episode of Into The Airbnb, where we talk with Airbnb hosts about their short-term rental experience. Today's guest is Janelle Hicks from Carlsbad, New Mexico, who has been an Airbnb host since 2017. She manages some listings in Carlsbad and Ruidoso, New Mexico and today, she will share with us her experience being an Airbnb host and also some very useful tips. So without further ado, let's get into it! Can you tell me how did you get started on Airbnb?
Sure! So we moved to Carlsbad, New Mexico for my husband's job and I was home with a newborn baby and a two year old. And we had some extra money from the sale of our house in Arizona. So there was this little house on the gate. It was I think 40,000, it's only 600 square feet. So I just took a look at it and thought, you know, let me turn this into Airbnb. So I did, we bought it, we fixed it up and did a little bit of like rehab on it and then listed it on Airbnb. And it's been kind of building ever since then we started with that one and then, seemed like each year, we bought another one and then the next year, we bought two more, etc.
Oh, so how long ago was that?
That was, I think 2017 when we bought our first one.
Okay, great. So in the areas you're hosting because you told me you were hosting in two cities, how is the seasonality like in those cities?
So Carlsbad to me is more of like a year round thing. It seems like there's a little bit of a low in January and February. And then it's otherwise, I mean, it's a little slower in September right after school starts. But otherwise, we're right near the National Park. So people come pretty much year round and it's a cave, so it's not like it's not good certain times of the year, so people come all the time. In Ruidoso, that one is a lot more seasonal because people come specifically for the snow or they come to get away from the heat. So like Christmas is really big, February is pretty slow. Although it was pretty good this year, so it's much more like the weekends tend to book versus the weekdays lower.
Okay, good to hear that! And in the high season versus the low season, how is your average occupancy rate like?
Yeah, in the summer, basically, June to August, we're like 100% book. In the low season, I'd say 70 or 75, maybe 6% occupancy in Ruidoso. But in Carlsbad tends to be pretty full, it'd be 75 the lowest.
Do you run short-term rentals in all of your listings?
Yeah, so I've started occasionally taking like travel nurses, but mostly they're all, yeah, two to three days. So occasionally, I'll take like travel nurse for three months. But I don't discount the rate that much just because it's, I mean, it'll book if I leave it on Airbnb, too.
So what would be your pricing strategy for your listings?
So a couple of months out, I usually have higher rates. People who book in advance, you know, they'll get the higher pricing, but they get to choose their days versus, usually within, you know, maybe two weeks out or whatever, if I'm not full any empty nights, I reduce the rate. And I try to stay kind of right in the middle of similar listings for my area. We take really nice photos and I do really nice, you know, decor so they stand out online. But yeah, the pricing, I usually just drop it maybe the week before if I have like an empty night and if I have like single nights all by themselves, sometimes that will lower than the average rate. But in general my rates in Carlsbad, I mean, it varies because some of the houses are like a one bedroom. So like a one bedroom would go at like, you know, at $9 a night, I'd say that would be the average, plus a cleaning fee on top of that. Then the bigger houses in Carlsbad, so like a three bedroom, I list those usually like 100, well during the summer, like up to $149 a night and then add the cleaning fee on top of that. Then in Ruidoso, that's a cabin, it's like a six bedroom, three bathrooms. So that one I priced like, usually like $300/$400 a night, up to like $900 a night at Christmas time.
Okay, I see. Do you get to use any pricing solution for your pricing? Or do you do margin research on your own only?
So I looked at pricing solutions or whatever and I used actually one for a little while, but I didn't see a huge difference versus me just like, you know, watching and also just having done it for four years, now I have a pretty good idea of what the rates are. Also, I can tell based on how many bookings I'm getting, like, if I get too many bookings all at once, I'll drop the price, I mean, I'll raise the prices a little bit because I don't want it to fill up too fast. So it's really based on, you know, if my calendar is completely full, I know I'm too cheap, especially if it's like two months out. So if I start getting a lot of bookings, like right now, it's March, so if I started getting a whole bunch of July bookings, I'd start raising my rates for July because I feel like, clearly that's in demand. So yeah, I don't know, I just like doing it myself.
Sounds like good strategy though! So throughout the years you have been running Airbnb, what have been your top challenges?
Finding cleaners was a hard thing at the beginning, but now I've got a pretty good team. We did at one point have to like, you know, my main cleaner, my head cleaner, decided she didn't really want to have to manage other people anymore. So we've started using TurnoverBnB and that has been good to us. You know, it has more flexibility as far as like, if somebody needs to, drop a day and we can add somebody else in or whatever. So that was a challenge. Then other than that, it's just, you know, dealing with guests that are not used to New Mexico. New Mexico, it's kind of an interesting place like, one guest, we had a bunch of complaints one time about going head to the yard and that's not even something I can control. They don't like float in the air. So if they've been out hiking or whatever, they'll bring it back. It's something that it's really hard to mitigate. And dust can be the same thing, you know, if you leave a window open in New Mexico, you will get dust inside the house for things like that. Or people who just don't like the look of like the neighbor's house or whatever, which again, New Mexico is, compared to some people who are used to like, Dallas or Houston or a subdivision somewhere, New Mexico is kind of unique in that way. Like there's some architecture, not so much architecture as they just did it themselves or I don't know, just some creative house decor and things like that out here that I don't think you see as much in other places.
Oh, so people just complain about other people's houses?
I've had a couple of people, yeah, that like, they stay, I mean, one of our houses in particular is not that it's a bad area. it's just the house next to ours is really ugly and like poorly. I mean, I wouldn't say poorly maintained, it's just like, they have a poor design sense. It's just ugly. So we've had guests show up and see that and be lik "oh, well, it's a bad neighbourhood" or whatever. It's not, it's just people watch, like TV shows about, you know, like, the Breaking Bad TV show and stuff like that. Then they come and they see a house that got, you know, some crazy paint colours and whatever and then, they think "oh, like, this house is sketchy" and it's really not my fault. You know, my house is fine and, you know, whatever.
Yeah, it's really weird that they complain about that. So now that you've talked about guests, have you had any major troubles or even small troubles with nightmare guests?
I've had some nightmare guests. Yeah, we've had let me see... We had one guest who showed up, basically dropped his kids off and then disappeared. So we showed up to clean and it was just like, some little kids in the house by themselves. So we're calling the guest and you know, I ended up calling child services because I was like, I don't know what to do, these children are just here. And let's see, we've had guests who've had like, you know, drug use in the house and things like that, where we have to do a full deep clean after they leave. We've had guests who we've never had a party really just, I mean, at the cabin, we've had people who clearly had a party, but they cleaned up mostly after themselves. And things break and stuff like that, which doesn't really bother me usually. The worst one for me was definitely the one where they left their kids at the house and eventually they did like, you know, come back, but it was like, what are you doing?
Yes, that was ahardcore experience. And how did you get to deal for example with guests who use drugs in your property? Do you get to message them and tell them you're going to charge them a little bit more because of the smell or stuff like that?
Yeah, so the most recent one for example, the guests had stolen somebody's credit card booked the house snd so the person whose credit card it was, messaged me saying "hey, I didn't make a reservation it's not me in the house". And so we had to call Airbnb and then we actually called the police and the police said not to go to the house, so me being me, we drove out to the house, but we didn't knock on the door or anything, we just kind of staked it out and just watched as the police kind of banged on the door and one guy ran out the back, it was the whole thing. When the police had left or whatever so we did a file report and then when we went in, you know there was like a smell and there was like paraphernalia or whatever. So we basically placed a claim with Airbnb saying that we had to do extensive cleaning which we had to wipe down basically everything and throw away some things, fix a couple things. I mean the big thing is just cleaning because you want to be really careful about, you know, you don't know what kind of chemicals there were, so we had professional crew coming and do a deep clean. And Airbnb, I think ultimately didn't actually pay out the entire claim and they paid out I don't know a good portion of it, but not not everything I felt like they should have done. But I was glad they covered anything considering it was like a stolen credit card and all that. But I mean I'd say on the whole like, I mean, I forget how many houses, but you know, out of all those we've had maybe three or four bad guests and other than that, it's all been good.
Okay, sounds good then, but those have been some great experiences for you! Would you recommend for people to start Airbnb in New Mexico not because these crazy guests' stories, but can be in case there's any regulation or anything?
Yeah, you know, my city is actually pretty lenient, Carlsbad itself, I think the rule is like if you have more than four units and that's in a single property, so there's like a tax, there's a largest tax basically. That's basically it. Then in Ruidoso, it was kind of the same thing that you get a permit and then you pay taxes. But other than that, I'd say, they're really friendly towards that, they expect it and it works out. You know, it works out well for the city because the city gets money from it. It works well for a visit and it works well for me. I know Albuquerque, like I know up north, in different parts of New Mexico, there are different rules. I know Albuquerque and Santa Fe probably have more strict policies, but down here in south are less strict about those kinds of things.
Okay, that's great to hear. Are there any tips that you'd like to share to other Airbnb hosts? Can be regarding any topic, anything you'd like to share.
If people are interested in this area, they're welcome to, I don't know, get a hold of you and contact me or whatever and I'd love to talk to them.
Anything else regarding your Airbnb host experience that you like to share? Like some tips?
Oh, yeah. I'd say like, the most important thing to me seems like, just be really honest, in your listing, you know, because every house has flaws in it. You know, to me, I don't, I mean, maybe some people do, but I don't focus on having a house that is completely perfect in every single way. Like, if I buy a house, I buy it because I can see good things about it that people will appreciate and I try to be really, like really honest, in the listing about like, you know, "there's a wonky floor here" or "okay, the ceilings are lower in one spot" just because I don't think people like to be surprised by that. I think they like to know what they can expect. So the key thing to me is like, you know, your house doesn't have to be perfect to host you just want to be clear about like "okay, this is my house, this is what I what I can offer you", you know. It might have old carpets or something, it doesn't have to be renovated, top to bottom, every single surface brand new and that to me, also attracts the kind of guests who are like, looking for something different than like a hotel, where every room is exactly the same and exactly perfect. Like it's a unique experience, as opposed to just a generic one.
Yeah, I agree and also, being honest with your guests will give them no space for complaints about them.
Yeah. It cuts down on bad reviews because you can be like "well, it's in the listing".
Yeah, right, right!. So that'd be it for today. Thank you for your time!
Okay. Thank you.
Thank you. Bye bye! Thanks for listening to into the Airbnb. We're looking for hosts and other people in the short term rental industry to interrupt if you have what we need and would like to share your experience in this podcast, please send us an email. All the info is at the end of the description.
