Interview with Eugene OFC

Jae Seok An14min

Delia

00:02

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 Eugene Muller, based on Clanwilliam, South Africa, who owns and manages over 10 listings in two different towns. Today, Eugene will share with us about her Airbnb host experience and also give some useful tips for those who might be interested in hosting in South Africa. 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 daily rate, and so on. So, without further ado, let's get into it! So can you tell us how did you get started on Airbnb?

Eugene Muller

00:55

I was first into permanent rentals. But in South Africa, the law doesn't protect the the landlord, it protects the tenant. So the tenants start to be a problem because they don't pay and the law doesn't worry about that. But now I believe in property, I love property, so now I had to make something out of the property. So they know see, this guesthouses in Cullinam, Cullinam is quite a tourist town in South Africa is one of the 10 best rock climbing places in the world. So I see the guest houses are full and I thought maybe I'd just start with one and one became two and two became three. That's how I started. The main reason was because the landlord's in South Africa aren't protected at all.

Delia

02:06

I see, I see and in the areas you're hosting, how is the seasonality like? Is it like occuped all of the year?

Eugene Muller

02:18

Normally, before COVID. Everything is before COVID. May month for some reason in our town, in Clanwilliam, is not the best and most of the guest houses are close or some of the guest houses close and go overseas holiday and stuff. But then the small guest houses are open. So I have a bit of business. So May is our bad financial month, but 11 months of the year, we are quite full. So Clanwilliam is very populated or very popular place in the world and in South Africa.

Delia

03:05

I see that's great. So around the high season versus the low season, how is your occupancy rate like?

Eugene Muller

03:13

Okay, low season about 40/50% and the high season 100%.

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