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 Mike Cameron, a superhost who owns and manages two listings in South Rivers, Ontario. He launched his three houses listings last year in October, doing C$20K on revenue only in 2021. Despite them being such unique listings, Mike and his wife weren't expecting how successful they would be. Join us in this interview to hear more about Mike's journey, experience and challenges as an Airbnb host. This episode is sponsored by Airbtics, short-term rental analytics for high return investment, comprehensive data for insights, ideas and inspiration. Go to app.airbtics.com to find precise Airbnb data such as occupancy rate, revenue, average daily rate and so on. So, without further ado, let's get into it! So do you please tell me how did you get started with Airbnb and short-term rentals?
Yeah, so I got started, maybe five or six years ago. We had a little cottage on a river that we had picked up for fairly cheap and we were using it as a family retreat and decided, "hey, I'm gonna see if we can make a couple extra dollars through Airbnb" and so we jumped in that way. And we were just kind of doing it on the side, it wasn't a main source of income or anything like that, but we just enjoyed kind of getting a feel for it.
And was Airbnb popular back then when you were like, just moved there and had your property there?
Yeah, it certainly was gaining popularity. It was the way that people were booking getaways and vacations and even just, you know, a night away. That's where people were turning was Airbnb. So we could see the the writing on the wall that this was something that was certainly had potential and was growing. So that was what kind of motivated us as we took our next big step in developing our current units.
So I've seen your Airbnb profile and your properties both look like three houses.
Yeah, so we decided to, you know, it's those unique rentals that we wanted to capitalize on the all the hype around those and we knew that in our area, lots of people have homes that they can go to. Lots of people have cottages, but we wanted something really unique and so I remember to scrolling through social media one night and I saw a picture of a little cabin that was lofted way up into the treetops and I was like, "I want to do something like that". Yeah, that was that we decided to go is was doing something different than what others were doing.
So you build both of them from scratch?
Yeah, we did. They were new builds. We did everything from clearing the trees on the property to building the actual units themselves and everything that comes with that. We worked with, you know, a builder and electricians and plumbers and all that, but yeah, we took a big lead and getting these things up off the ground, literally.
So it must have taken like a big, big investment, right?
Yeah, so it wasn't cheap. Nothing these days is and we picked, probably the worst possible time to build and most of our building happened, you know, the high of the pandemic, when pandemic pricing just cause materials to go up through the roof and so, yeah, there was a big investment. So it was a big gamble, you know, we were looking at just a raw piece of land, you know, trees in the middle of nowhere and it's like, "are we really sure that this is the right choice? Do we really know what we're doing here?" and so it was a gamble, you know, do we want to, you know, invest, you know, all of our money into this project? And we decided that yeah, we were going to and I'm glad that we did.
And how much on average was your investment on these properties? If you can, if you feel comfortable sharing the numbers.
Yeah, so our total investment on this project, I get that expensive can be a relative term. For us, we spend about C$250,000 on this project. So I know, you know there's people out there that are buying a million dollar homes and using those as Airbnb. We did, yeah, about a quarter of a million Canadian dollars and it gave us two little tree houses that are pretty unique.
And since it was, you know, like a big investment, something you had to build from scratch, what kind of market research did you do? So you thought "Okay, this is may going to work? So I'm deciding to go ahead with it".
Yeah. So leading up to it, I did you know, a little bit of a business plan and some thinking around, you know, "what do I need to do to count this as a success?" and, you know, I looked at the relative success that we had with our little Airbnb on the river and some of our local people who have been doing it in town. And I said, "you know what, I think that we can carve out, you know, enough of a demand here, that it's going to cover our expenses" and so we said, you know, we could aim for 50% occupancy, kind of, you know, as our big goal, you know, realizing that it might take a little bit of time, you know, we're brand new to this. But we said, you know, "if we got 50%, that would be fantastic" and so that was kind of the number and the thought that we went into it thinking that, you know, that was our goal, if we could do that, money was going to make sense, numbers were going to work out. Little did we know that, you know, 50% was way less than the reality of our bookings.
So you were doing Airbnb with another property before these two?
Yeah! So that was the one that I mentioned at the beginning. It was just a little teeny cottage that we had picked up, it was on a little no name river type thing, it was fully off grid. It was nothing special at all and we made sure that we listed it for what it actually was. But we found that, you know, as long as we were clearing our listing and people knew what they were getting, there was a niche for it, that there was people who wanted to just fully get off the grid and escape and were not looking for any amenities at all. And so we're like, "okay, there's people who are interested in this" and so, that wasn't the approach that we wanted to take long-term and our current one certainly have all the amenities that, you know, your average person would expect and benefit from. But we knew that there was something that we could do there.
Oh so you already had experience with Airbnb before starting with these two, so that's great! And can you tell me how was the experience with the first Airbnb you have? Like, you know, was it enough to cover your Airbnb experience? And, you know, get into it, how is it like and stuff like that?
Yeah, so our first one, like I mentioned, it was kind of our property, you know, it was something that we bought for our family to use and so we were just kind of doing, you know, a little bit of Airbnb on the side when we weren't using it, you know, it was just a way to make a couple extra dollars and it worked. You know, we were happy with that, you know, I think our first year we did that property, we only did it for two years before we sold it and, you know, took a different approach to our Airbnb investments. But I remember our first year, I think we made like $3K and I was ecstatic about that because it was just a little side hustle like, it wasn't anything big, we were only doing it for a couple months during the summer and that was it. So it was like, "Okay, this is kind of neat". From there, we've made the decision that "okay, if that worked on a small scale and that was the type of property we had, I think that we could do even better", you know, and yeah, the goal was that with our new one, I'd be able to replace my current income and make this my full-time work.
And were you able to do that?
I was and it happened a lot sooner than I expected it to happen, which actually was problematic, you know. As I mentioned, you know, we had that goal of building up to 50% occupancy and if we could do that, you know, that would be amazing. Little did we know, our very first month, we were at 89% occupancy, so we just hit the ground running. And we opened in October, here where we are spectacular fall colors, there is huge demand. So it was like, "wow, I am so busy and consumed with the work that this is providing that I need to make some big decisions a little bit quicker than I thought I was going to need to". And so it was nice to see the success, but it also led to some stress because we weren't expecting to succeed that well that quickly.
When doing your market research, were there any similar listings there that were doing same numbers or something that you think "oh, maybe I can compare to them?" Or were you the first time in your market?
There was nothing like what we did, you know, there was some things that you could sort of compare, you know, some unique listings, you know, domes and cabins and other things like that, but nothing quite like us and where I think we excelled was we said you know, like we want to winterize these like we want to make them year round rentals. And, you know, again here where we are and I get that everyone's location leads to different challenges, but winters in northern Ontario are not nice, you know, we experienced really, really cold winter this past year, many days were below -30 and when you're looking at a tree house in the middle of the woods, there's a lot of challenges with that. But we said, you know, if we build it, we believe that they'll come. And so we splurged on a few things, we made sure that, you know, in the middle of February, people could have a hot shower, that they could cook a meal, all the things that they wanted to do. And so when we did that, and we took that approach, nobody else could compare to us and that was the feedback that we had from many guests was just like, there is nothing else like in all of Ontario type thing that they could find that allowed them to get, you know, completely into the woods, immersed in nature, but still have some of those amenities that were important to them.
Yeah, that's actually pretty amazing! And you told me you started in October, what year?
We started only October of last year, so 2021. It's been fairly new, it's been a wild ride, but we've only been at this for not even a year with these current properties.
Not even a year and you're already like really busy! I can see your superhost, you have like over 1000 reviews and everything is almost five stars. Wow can't believe it! And can you tell me a little bit of the experience of managing three houses? First of all, you have like these really rough winters, what are the things you do to provide the right amenities for that rough winter, like you said, like the hot shower, that they're able to be like hot and cozy inside the listing?
Yes, so some of the things that we focused on, were again making sure that, you know, we had water, and it's a challenge to bring water up out of the ground, up into the trees and not have it freeze when it hits -30. So that was a significant investment, you know, over and above our build just to keep water from freezing. You know, one of the other things that we found though, that just makes it over-the-top for people is making sure that we had a good clear trail for people to access their units. So making sure that we're out there, you know, before people woke up shoveling snow blowing, that we maintain really good accessibility for them because, you know, for a lot of people coming from the city, even though you know, Toronto is just four hours south of us and that's where a lot of our guests come from, because of, you know, Lake Effect, snow and conditions, they experienced winter much differently than we do just a few hours north and so they're coming to a real winter. So making sure that, you know, they still felt comfortable when they stepped out of their car, that they had their footing when they were climbing upstairs into the trees, they felt comfortable and secure. And so making sure that we spent the extra effort on things like that, I think went to a long ways.
And what are other challenges you have when building these properties?
So some of the other challenges I think that we had with these was finding someone to work with actually build it. There's not a lot of, you know, precedent for these types of bill. So finding somebody who is comfortable taking on the challenge of building up in the trees. There's not a lot of builders who are willing to do that, even with codes and stuff like that. We can't conform to a lot of those traditional building codes just because of the type of build that we are in. And we had some things that worked to our advantage. And we had some things that were challenged. I remember, we decided, you know, we were going to get the unit spray foamed with insulation, getting a spray foam truck up into the middle of the woods, that was not easy. I felt bad for them. They knocked off their side mirrors, and they had some troubles getting wedged between trees, but they got it done. So it was like "okay, this is kind of neat", you know. Then there is the other aspects of the build itself. I had to carry up every single piece of wood, building material up from the side of the road up into the woods and, you know, I look at it and I think "well, it's not terribly far, you know, we're maybe 250 feet up into the bush", but when you're carrying, you know, like big pieces of lumber, it's like, "Oh, this feels far!". So there was a lot of challenges with the actual build itself and then once we got the build done, it's like, "okay, it's not too bad. It's kind of going fairly smoothly" and we haven't run into any major challenges. There's a few hiccups as we went through our first winter but we got to a spot now where things are running the way that they should be running.
Okay, so no major challenges so far. That means that you did a really good work with the building, with the initial setup with it, right? So you don't have many, like maintenance to do or anything with it?
There's certainly lots of maintenance to do, especially with people, you know, coming in and out all the time. You know, there's all the regular maintenance that you have and, you know, that's increased, you know, beyond what we experienced. At our personal home, even, you know, I find that I'm over there doing little touch up paints, painting jobs all the time, you know, fixing little things. All the regular maintenance just kind of enhanced.
Okay, and you told me that there are people coming in and out all the time, how many minimum next do you have for your listings? And what's the average length of stay of the guests there?
Yeah, so we have a minimum stay of two nights right now. Our average stay is probably three nights, I would say. In the summer, we've got some longer bookings. But it's not uncommon for most months for people just to kind of come up for two nights or three nights. So that's worked out well for us, you know, we recognize that the type of people that we're appealing to or people that are just looking for kind of a quick little getaway, they're not necessarily able to get away for longer chunks of time. And so we cater to that shorter length of stay where people are just looking for a couple of nights way to escape. We also, you know, we tailor specifically to couples, I tell people, you know, we're not overly a family friendly place and we don't allow more than two people in the units. We don't recommend them for kids, you know. We recognize that there's a million places that families can go, almost every Airbnb, you know, is family friendly. We wanted something that was specifically for couples, where they could go, they could experience quiet, they could experience privacy, they could have that kind of escape from their life and that is exactly the type of guests that we get, you know, so many of them say like, you know, "we had our parents coming up, they were able to watch the kids for a couple nights, and we just needed to get away" and they're so excited to get to a place that is, you know, quiet and secluded and they don't have to worry about kids screaming. So yeah, that was one of the big choices that we made was making it not a family friendly place, but geared specifically and primarily just for couples.
That sounds really nice. I'm not sure if you do not accept kids there? Or do you just say, "Okay, it's not a family friendly place" and they just don't request it for families?
Yeah, so we're clear in our listing that, you know, it's a maximum of two people right off the top filters that a lot. However, we still commonly get asked, "Can we bring in our kids anyways? They would love to experience this", you know, people will say, you know, they'll sleep on the floor and they'll sleep on the couch, we will bring a little air mattress like and sadly, you know, I have to let them know that, you know, as much as we would love to accommodate that, we feel like any more than two people in our units takes away from the experience we want people to walk away with. And so we protect and we honor, and we keep that kind of sacred, you know, there's a certain experience that we want people to have when they come to us and we work hard to make sure that they have that. Also knowing that, you know, there's another unit close by, we want to honor and respect the fact that people are coming because they want to escape, they want to get away, they want quiet and we need to protect that. And even though the units might be able to accommodate an extra person, an extra kid, that's not the route that we've gone and we certainly will help them and recommend some other places that we know locally. But we're not the place if you're looking for a family getaway.
Oh, so it's more for the sake of the experience than just safety or any other, you know, factor?
Yeah, exactly. So, safety, it's a set of stairs, there's railings. It's just as safe as anybody, you know, going anywhere. But it's the experience that we want people to have. It's the environment that we've worked hard to create, that we want to protect.
And do you plan to maybe invest on some more properties that can accommodate families maybe?
So we've thought about it and we've gone kind of back and forth. So when we designed our systems and services for this build, so things like our septic system and the electrical service, we designed it could accommodate more than we currently have and so we've been thinking, "Okay, what comes next? Is there a next for us? It makes sense to build on the same property because we've already got a lot of that infrastructure in place and so that saves us a lot of money". But at the same time, we again, keep going back to that idea of "Okay, if we were to build a third unit, what impact is that going to have on other guests?". We don't want to get to the spot where people are constantly coming and going and you're running into people and you hear, you know, the noise from this couple over here having a campfire, you know. We want to still find a way to protect that and so we believe that there's a way to do both. So we're looking into a couple of thoughts and ideas as to how that might work out and what that would look like because yeah, we feel we can still protect that environment well, allowing even more people to benefit from it.
So both rentals you have are like, fairly far away from each other, so both of them can have privacy?
Yeah, they're about 250 feet apart from each other separated by forest, so you know that there's another unit there, but privacy is not an issue. Again, you know, that they're there, but you don't really see people a lot, you know, maybe if you're coming and going at the same time, you'll see each other in the parking area. But otherwise, you know, there's private campfire areas for both units that are even further apart. So people have that privacy that they come for.
Okay it's amazing that you can keep that, you know, privacy thing! Another thing that I would like to ask you about if you don't mind sharing the numbers, how much revenue have you made from October last year to this point?
It's been good. Airbnb has been good to us, I can't complain. So we've done around 47K this year and then in the October, November, December, I think we did around 20K. So I think we're around 65K or so for the year. And the year is not, you know, we've still got a number of months before we hit a full year, so we're expecting, you know, to be around that 80K mark for our first year,
Wow, it's a lot! And do you think this is going to cover your investment fully in the next year, maybe?
So probably not in the next year. So again, our total investment was around 250K. You know, if we can make around $80K a year and then you've got expenses, on top of that, we're still looking at, you know, totally paying off a significant investment within just a few years, you know, within 3-4 years, it's not unreasonable to think that the majority of that investment will be paid off, which when you're talking about, you know, amounts like a quarter of a million dollars, it's not bad to be able to pay that in 4 years. So we're pretty happy with it.
Yeah, I can imagine! Four years is a really, really short time comparing to, you know, other people's investment that might be even a little bit smaller than this and they don't get to cover it. But yeah, you have been very lucky with it. I mean, it's your area, like busy with Airbnb, that's why you get many bookings?
No, so we're in the middle of nowhere, like, you don't get much more in the middle of nowhere, we're, you know, 4 hours north of Toronto, where our nearest town is only 1000 people. We're an hour away from the nearest place that, you know, has anything of significance. So people come solely for this experience, which is kind of neat, you know, it's not that we're in just a desirable area, it's that we're a desirable place. So that's kind of neat as we made that realization and so we've done more and more. And, you know, part of our plan moving forward is to make this more of a destination for people so that they're not coming to this area to do things, but they're coming to see us. And so as we can add more amenities and more activities, we cut a big snowshoe trail this past winter and we purchased snowshoes that guests could use and so little things like that, it was like "okay, now they've got another reason they can come, they don't need to leave the property. They can just enjoy everything right here". So yeah, that's kind of one of our goals moving forward is just to make this the destination.
I see and how far do usually the guests travel to get to your place? They usually probably like from everywhere or just like neighbors cities and stuff like that?
Yeah. So I would say that probably, you know, a good 80% of our guests come from Toronto or the Greater Toronto area. So they're coming from the city and we're only four hours, three hours from some parts. So it's reasonable, you know, they'll come up, they can get here in a few hours, enjoy their weekend or those weekdays. It's not terribly far and then I would say our other 25% are local people, you know, people from within an hour of us that have heard about us and again, the most common one is couples that have kids at home and they just need a couple nights away with no kids, no distractions, they just need time for themselves as couples. So we get regular couples that come from local towns around us and that's always neat to talk to them and hear their stories. We can completely relate to because, you know, we've got young kids and I think so often it's like, "I want to go over and stay at the tree house. I want that break". So I can empathize and relate with them.
Yeah, that's right, that's right! And you told me that you try to make your listing like a year round listing, you can join it in winter, you can join in summer, do you see any particular seasonality for your listing? Is it like more popular around the winter or more popular on summer?
Yeah. So again, with this being our first year, it's a little bit difficult to judge, but we're getting a pretty good sense and we quickly realized that winter, we thought would be a quiet season, but it turned out to be, I can't imagine that we'll have a busier season than winter. And for our winter months, especially January, February and March, we're up over 90% occupancy. So it was, you know, nonstop, those months. We saw a bit of a low in November, you know, the fall colors, they had come, they had gone, things were cold, but there wasn't a lot of snow, so not a whole lot of things to do. And currently here in June, we're experiencing our slowest month right now, which I absolutely can't blame people for because June in the north is bug season and it's just horrific. So I don't blame people for that, but as we look to our calendar and as soon as July hits, it looks like, you know, we're hitting the ground running again and you know, there's gonna be a couple months here and there where things are a little bit slower, but yeah, we haven't noticed big lows or seasons, where things slow down just short little chunks of time.
Okay, that's pretty good then! And what pricing strategy, do you keep the fee the same all year round? Or do you alternate sometimes?
Yeah. So with fees and our pricing, that's one that we've struggled with a little bit and we've wrestled with. So to answer the question quickly, we basically keep the same price across the board. We have it a little bit higher for weekends and when holidays come, the price of course goes up a little bit for those days too. Pricing in general though, I recognize that many hosts have different approaches to how they decide to price and some people, you know, you want to maximize your earnings, it's about making as much as possible, this is a business. And then other people, you know, they're in it solely for that hospitality experience, money kind of come secondary, if they can make a little bit of money on the side, that's just a bonus. And so I view it kind of as a spectrum and we fall somewhere in the middle there. Yes, this is a business, this is my main source of income right now, but we also want to, I guess, ethically decide our pricing. And while we know that our unit could fetch, you know, significantly more than what we priced them at, we also wanted to make them accessible for normal people. So that was kind of our ethical dilemma that we had to work through and so we said, you know, "if we're covering our expenses, if I'm making, you know, what we need to be happy as a family, then I don't want to just jack the prices up as much as we possibly can just because we could get that much money". So again, knowing that, you know, at 90% occupancy, we probably could raise the price another $100-$150 a night and we would still be getting bookings. But we don't want to cater only to the wealthy people, you know, we want to be able to cater to everybody who wants this experience. We're happy with the price point that we've landed on, you know, we believe that guests are happy, it makes it an accessible experience for them. And we're happy at the end of the day too, you know, we're making good money out of it. So, yeah, that's been a journey for us is, you know, what is the right pricing strategy?
Yeah, that's right and I believe it's really nice that you keep it accessible for everyone. Can you talk a little bit about that price point you have for your listing?
Yeah, so in general, I would say we're probably around $200 a night and that's with Airbnbs fees. So we get a little bit less than that. And then you know, some of the slower months, we might drop it down a little bit. So typically, our take home pay, what we get, usually varies from, you know, between $150 and $180 a night and we've got two units going that are almost always full. So really our take home is feeling like, you know, $300 to $400 per night is what we're bringing in. So we're happy with that and I thought like for myself, you know, like "what would I be comfortable be paying?" and, you know, I'm myself am a little bit on the cheaper end of the spectrum and so when I would book a hotel, it's always like, "I can't believe that these are over $100!". But I think for most people when they go on Airbnb and they see around $200 per night, you know, a good amount of money, I think to pay per night. But it's still an amount that people are willing to pay. I've seen comparable places, when you go on Airbnb and you search by tree houses or something, you know, it's not uncommon to see the average price being $400, $500, $600 per night, and people are still booking them. And so I get that you can charge more. But for us around $200 a night, we're happy with that, the guests are happy with that. There's no need to, you know, try to squeeze every dollar out of somebody. In our mind that's possible.
Yeah, that's right! I also agree with it and it is very, you know, kind of huge think about your guests as well, there is a high possibility that you might lost a little bit of your guests if you raise your price, like really, really high, right? That's right. So two last things I would like you to talk me about is, any particular challenges, not necessarily with the tree house, you have as an Airbnb host? And also some tips that you could give out for Airbnb hosts?
So I fortunately have not had too many challenges with the platform. I've had to work with Airbnb and their support team, on a couple of occasions that I've fortunately had some good experiences with them with prompt replies. And I think part of that just kind of lends itself to the guests that we've had, you know, we had our first air cover claim somewhat recently, as a guest accidentally caused some damage and, you know, we put that claim through and we were able to work with Airbnb and the guest and it was quickly resolved. So we were really happy with the outcome. So yeah, at this point, you know, we're, we're pretty happy with Airbnb and the support that we've received from them. If I were making suggestions to hosts, I think, you know, from my experience, I would say do something unique, do something fun. I get that houses, residential homes are kind of the bread and butter, but I think especially as we see more and more towns and municipalities putting restrictions on Airbnbs and some rules and legislation around what that looks like in those communities, I think it makes more and more sense to kind of do something a little bit more unique. I know in towns, there's housing shortages and that's what you know, kind of drives a lot of the concern. I'm not hearing anybody talk about, you know, the domes or the cabins or the tree houses. So it's like, I like it from that perspective, doing something unique because I feel like I'm not contributing to some of the challenges that municipalities are facing. Also though, I think that's the bread and butter of Airbnb. So for hosts, it's residential homes, but I think for guests, guests like unique experiences, something that they're going to remember and if they can go away, I think that 9/10, they would pick something unique over something cookie cutter. At least that's the experience that I've had with guests. So yeah, I make the recommendation anytime I talk to somebody, do something unique, do something different. Don't try to be just like every other Airbnb out there because then you have to compete with every other Airbnb out there. Whereas I'm not competing, I'm the only one around here that has a tree house. It makes it easy.
Yeah, that's right. That's a really amazing tips and I agree with it. Airbnb is more of a experience than anything. So thank you so much for your time!
No problem. Thank you.
Thanks for listening to Into The Airbnb. We're looking for hosts and other people in the short-term rental industry to interview. 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.
