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 Lori Newton, based in Idaho, who will share with us about her experience on Airbnb, and also give out some tips for other Airbnb hosts. This episode is sponsored by Airbtics, the only one analytics dashboard for short-term rental investors and managers, where you can find precise Airbnb data such as occupancy rate, revenue, average salary, and so on. So, without further ado, let's get into it! Can you tell us how did you get started on Airbnb?
We got started on Airbnb because I always wanted a cabin in the mountains. But I had teenagers and teenagers don't like to go on little vacations like that. So we had it and everybody would just always never wanted to go. So rather than wasting it, I told my husband let's go ahead and put it on Airbnb and see what happens. We didn't think anything would really happen with it, to be honest with you. And once he put it on there, the listing it just took off.
Good to hear it was a good start then.
Yeah, it was more by accident!
At least you started good by accident or not. So did you get started on Idaho as well?
Yeah, that's yeah, that's where we started was in Idaho. Yeah, it's a little town just outside of West Yellowstone.
Okay, I see. So in the area you're hosting, how is the seasonality like?
So winter time, is a very popular area to go snow machining people from all over the United States go there to snow machine. And in the summer they visit because they want to see West Yellowstone National Park. So it's busy, pretty much 12 months out of the year. There is one month they call mud season and that's when the snow starts to melt. And it dries up a little bit during that period of time, but you still get some people that are still travelling through that still book the Airbnbs we have there.
I see. So how is your average occupancy rate like in the high season versus the low season?
I would say in the high season summer we're probably 98% booked if not more and in the wintertime, probably 75%.
That's a pretty good number.
Yeah, it is a pretty good number!
What is your pricing strategy?
You know, my husband was the one that really came up with more the pricing strategy and he did a really good job of it. He basically looked at other Airbnbs in the area and the same size, but then he started out with a lower rate until we started to get the occupancies right and the reason his strategy for that was, he said nobody knows a year down the road what you're originally, you know, pricing those to still keep them full and people, you know, you're graded on your value for what you paid. So basically they would always say good values, so you we've never really had a problem with value because every year he creeps it up just a little bit more and then pretty soon, you do the smart pricing and then Airbnb pretty much is pricing it compared to the others in the area. So then after a couple of years, you're right up there with everybody else
So do you get to use Airbnb smart pricing?
Yes we do. I know, he got us hooked up on the Airbnb smart pricing. But when he very first listed the place, no, he doesn't do it that way. He undercuts the market pretty good to get them going.
So your experience with the smart pricing is good. I've been told from other hosts that their experience with the smart pricing from Airbnb is really bad. Like they don't like it at all.
I don't think we've really much had a problem with it. I've never heard him complain about it or anything and they seem to still, you know, stick within that range that we're asking. But yeah, we do utilise the smart pricing. But we've never had a problem and maybe that's because there's not a ton of Airbnbs in the area and maybe that's why, so they can keep them a little bit high.
I see. So have you tried using any other dynamic pricing solutions?
No, no, we haven't.
How did you perceive your revenue changing while using the smart pricing versus when you weren't using it?
I wouldn't say there's much of a difference, to be honest with you. The only time really smart pricing never kicks in, it seems like it's when there's a lot of occupancy in the area and then it'll kick in the under bid or keep under everybody else. It is just a little bit and you're not talking a lot of money, but people will always want, even if it's $1 less people still want to save $1, right?
Yes, I agree. So can you tell us throughout the years, what have been your top challenges while running Airbnb?
You know, I would say cleaning services can be tough because you've to have a good cleaner and you have to treat your cleaners right. You can't be cheap with them, basically, they call the shots when it comes to pricing the cleaning of it. And basically it's what I do, I always let the cleaner bid and then I always have a little bit of wiggle room there. So like right now with gas prices going up, right? Her fees are going up too because everything's more expensive, her cleaning supplies are more expensive, fuel to get to these places is more expensive and she just raised me not that long ago, but I'm still under the dollar amount that I charged for the cleaning fee. And that cleaning fee also includes snow removal, trash, that kind of stuff. So there's still some wiggle room there for the pricing of cleaning. But cleaning was probably my biggest challenge and finding somebody I could trust, because I was actually making that drive almost daily and it's about an hour and a half away from where I live. And I work a full time job and I also own other businesses. So it was consuming my time huge. And I would say that was probably my biggest thing was just finding a good reliable cleaning service that I trusted.
I see that's a problem that I heard from many other hosts. How did you overcome that problem? How did you get to find the person or the cleaning team you trust for your properties?
You know, that's kind of interesting because basically, I don't belong to that community up there. And this is a very interesting community, they don't like outsiders. So what I did is I started joining their Facebook pages, their community Facebook pages and you know, comment on things that we stayed positive. Then pretty soon after about four or five months of being on there, I was able to just say, "hey, I'm in search of a good cleaning service that's reliable and I can trust" and multiple people had gotten in touch with me. But with those multiple people contacting me, I knew that they were probably just starting out because I had always heard in that area that it's hard to get a good cleaner, somebody that's willing to take you on because everybody was full. And this guy reached out to me and said this person is moving back to the area, she's originally from here and she's starting a cleaning service. And I thought, you know, that would be good to have somebody that knows the area, is involved with the locals, can keep me in the loop because it's great when she keeps me in the loop during fire season, she'll text me and say, "hey, I'm gonna put notes on the tables that says no open fire pits, we're in fire season". She's so into the community and just knows everything that's going on, it's so helpful. So that's how I did it, it's just became kind of a tried to become kind of a little part of the community and started asking questions.
That's good, good that you found a good one. So you told me that all of your listings are in Idaho?
Yes.
Are they in different cities or towns?
Yes, I have. I've always been a landlord of full time rentals, the long-term rentals and I slowly started to convert the long-term rentals over to the short-term rentals. So one of the ones that's in another town, it's in a really small dinky little town, it's the only Airbnb in town. And I got a lot of flack first from the neighbours and from City Council. But that house attracted bad people, I don't know what it was about it. It was a nice place, but it would always attract problem people. So I just told the City Council and I said "give me six months and if you're happy and the neighbours are happy, just give me a chance". And so in six months, I was able to show these guys because it's in a small farming community, but within this farming community, there's a resort, a local resort that's close by. But you're also very centralised in this area, you're an hour and a half from so many of the major attractions in Idaho. So it's basically it's a home base, it's in the middle of everything. It's also located near the Snake River, so I get a lot of fishermen. So that one does pretty good. And it also during the COVID time, that one was interesting, too, because a lot of people chose it because we put in really good internets. A lot of people chose it to work from there, while their families visited different parts in the area. But that was done pretty well too. The other one... I wanted to see how it would work out on my own property because I have seven acres right along the river and we're very, very remote. So I told my husband, I said, "let's just put the fifth wheel up". It's a two bedroom, two bath fifth wheel, it's a good size fifth wheel. Let's see if it's worth building another home on our property and doing like a farm experience. So we set that up back by the water in my house. First thing my husband said is "there's no way somebody's going to want to rent our backyard", but our backyard is the river, it's a forest and it's located in a wildlife sanctuary. That place is full all summer long, we of course take it down in the winter, but it's full all summer long. But now that we know that that will work, we're actually breaking off some of our property and building a new home on it just strictly for the Airbnb.
I see. Aren't any of those listings far enough that you need to do remote hosting? Like get to hire other people to manage for you?
No, I manage them myself now, when we start going out of state because the five year plan is to start going into other states because we also want to live in an area when we retire that is warm because Idaho is very cold. I mean, before we went down to go visit Florida last week, two weeks prior to that was 15 below zero, it's cold here in the winter. So when we do that and go out of state, we will more than likely possibly have a manager, if not, we'll be under contract for maintenance, pool service, all of that to make sure that everything's being done properly and cleaned properly.
Right. Sounds like a good plan. You told me previously about a listing that only attracted bad guests, how did you get to raise the bar for those guests? I imagined you got to get better guests than that?
Yeah, the long-term renters were the bad ones. But the Airbnb guests are awesome. They're phenomenal. They're normal, regular, good people that are just looking for a vacation. No, it was the long-term rentals that was causing troubles there, not the Airbnb. No, not those guests. Matter of fact, when I showed six months down the road, I did re meet with our City Council members and I said "I told you to give me six months or I asked you to give me six months, the six months is up and I'd like to know if you've had any complaints about the rental or if there's any problems". And one of the city council members said no and I drove by your place and it looks beautiful. He goes "your utilities are paid up to speed" because that was the other thing too, the people that were renting from long-term rentals, they were constantly ditching out on the utilities and everything else. He goes "your utilities are paid in advance" and then I showed him the reviews the place had. This is such a tiny little town, so to get support to the little restaurants and everybody said "oh, we ate a little Mexican restaurant every morning. We grabbed our breakfast burrito before we hired our fishing guide up in the canyon", which is another local guy. "We came back and we ate at the little restaurant on Main Street. We enjoyed the pizza parlour" and he was just like, "wow, these people are spending money here" and I said exactly, it's good for the community. Then the City Council member goes "how do we get others on board?". So there you go!
Oh, so you did to revive an entire community. That's so good to hear.
Yeah it was a very positive thing. And the neighbours said they love it. They have no problems with any of them. They go, your guests are never even around. I'm like, they're not here to sit and watch TV. They're here to spend money.
So you brought good guest there. That's good to hear.
Yeah, the long-term rentals and I do have other long-term rentals in the area, that over the next four or five years, I will have nine just in this area. So once I finish those, the next one we'll start looking at state.
Sounds like a good plan! Have you got any other listings? Or you got trouble guests from Airbnb site?
Oh, yeah. There's been a couple of those too.
Yes, I can hear you!
Oh, okay. We've had a few. We had one, she was new to the platform and didn't understand, it was the only time I ever allowed pets to stay in one of my Airbnbs. It was a brand new one, it was the one that I was telling you about that I converted from long-term to short-term. And I will not ever allow pets after that again. I had to go through that and it had brand new furniture and brand new flooring, and we had to deep clean that and that was a big one, that was bad. We did have another guest that tried to extort us. He had a good stay, he never had a problem, he never complained any problems. But about two weeks or about a week and a half after his stay just before, you know, your time's getting up on the review point. He says if you don't give me a full refund, I'm going to give you a one star review. So obviously he blackmails guests into giving him refunds because he threatens them with reviews. I reported him to Airbnb and they said that they don't have any more communication with him and we didn't. And when he put the bad review up like he threatened he would do, they removed it right away and they also compensated us for the problems that we had with him. So they were very fair.
Glad to hear that. Glad to hear that.
That happens, right? people's level of cleanliness compared to others is different.
Yes, that's right, I agree. Is there any other tips that you'd like to share for other Airbnb hosts?
Be patient and it does take a while. It's not like you're going to list your property out of the gate, being brand new and it's going to take off, it takes a while for that to snowball effect. Once that snowball effect happens, it's a good thing, then you can roll on to your next one and your next one. It's a great thing. I hope that some communities don't give people too much hassle, I think looking for places that are not in HOAs if you're going to buy is a really important one, people can change those HOAs at any time on you. I think trying to stay out of HOAs and out of states that it's a problem. But other than that I, and a good cleaner, like I told you and treat your cleaners good!
That's a good tip. That's a really good tip. Before we take off anything else you'd like to share? Any experience, story, any tips?
You know, there's some people that I have noticed on some of these Airbnb. They want to meet the guests and they want to spy on the guests with cameras and you know, or babysit in their properties. You can't be like that you have to let it be and let people enjoy themselves. Some people want to be your friend and talk. Others don't appear to be, you know, they're here to experience something with their families. Others do. I mean, I find that all the time on our own property, you see people that you may not ever meet and then you see people that come up on the back deck and want to have a conversation with you when you're sitting outside in the evening. So just make sure you feel free, you know, get a feel for your guests. Don't be overbearing and man stop watching the doorbell cameras!
Yeah, I agree and all of those tips. Those are really helpful. I hope they reach every Airbnb hosts out there.
Well, thank you!
That'd be it for today. Thank you for your time as well!
Have a good one.
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.
