Welcome back to another episode of Into The Airbnb, where we talk with Airbnb hosts about their short-term rental experience. Our guest today is Jennifer Leroy, based in Cranston, Rhode Island, a super host who manages over eight listings in Providence and Prudence Island. Today, Jennifer will share with us about her hosting experience and also some 5-star tips to keep your listing at the top of the search pages. 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?
Well, I am a divorced single mom of three kids and basically, I got a chance to keep our rental property and my ex husband kept his office. So I was now left with a building of tenants that were off a little stressful and challenging. I ended up going on a trip to Ireland. I was looking at hotels, they were very expensive, then I looked into Airbnb and I decided to stay at a shared unit. And from there, I was surprised how simple it was to replicate. So that's shortly after I started my first unit, after I came back from Ireland.
And do you started with your first unit in that building you have?
Yes, that's my first one. I had a tenant move out and I cleaned up the apartment. I found a student who was a interior design student at our design school. She came over, she did measurements, she gave me furniture and wall decor, recommendations, bedding, everything, every type of recommendation to start an Airbnb and I followed her checklist. And that's how I furnished my Airbnb.
Oh, great! How many years ago was that?
Three years ago. I started in 2019.
Oh, great and over the course of the years, how do you acquire your other four listings?
The other two were occupied by tenants and as soon as I got the hang of one listing, I began to, you know, have them move out, they were transitioning to other apartments or there were some evictions and I just would flip them into another Airbnb. So my three family building is on a very original model, where I have three individual units, which are three separate apartments and my last listing, I list the entire building. Someone could rent the entire building all at once. That is my fourth listing.
Okay, I see how it works now. Since is an apartment and there are different people renting at the same time, how do you see that? Does it works for you? Are they comfortable with that?
I have to really screen all of my Airbnb candidates well. I ask every single one for their trip purpose. I stay away from things on Airbnb. They try to have you do instant book. I stay away from instant book. I like to ask my guests questions. This weekend, I have a family of three with a small baby. They're travelling in for the holidays, the Easter and everything else and I have another small family and I'm on another floor and I actually had an inquiry from someone else saying they would like to have a birthday gathering at my building on the third floor and I said no, because it's not a good match for the overall atmosphere of my Airbnb and it could cause a disturbance.
I understand that completely. Do guests ever get mad at you for making questions and stuff?
No, it's pretty easy. They have a very limited access, when they ask respectfully to use your house and they might say, that they like how it looks or something like that. They ask respectfully and you turn them down, sometimes it's obvious, but you've turned them down and and say, you know, this is not a good match and best of luck on your future searches. But this is a prop, you know, it wouldn't work out for the property.
Oh, it's great that they understand! And do you usually get the same demographic of people in your listings?
I feel like I do get the same demographics. It's to the area and it's also to what I cater to. In my slower seasons, I tend to cater towards maybe visiting nurses, maybe contractors. They're coming into town to work hard for a week, they're out in the morning, at 5:30 in the morning, to work and they come home at 5:30 at night. Same with the visiting nurses, they sometimes leave at 10 o'clock at night, come back at, you know, seven in the morning. Now, I do also have shorter term guests, maybe 2,3,4 days at a time and those guests are generally alumni to the university, there are people in for interviews to something in the city of Providence where we live and it might be just people, tourists, people who want to travel on a budget and just see a place they've never been to. So I try to cater to the widest amount of people for the demographics.
Okay, yeah, sounds great. Now, I'd like to ask you about the areas you're hosting in Providence and Prudence Island, right?
Yes.
Okay, so in those areas, how is the seasonality like?
In Providence, which is where our primary listings are, our high season is May. May provides us the opportunity to host people coming into town for five different graduations, everything in like, all of Rhode Island. They are booking for these graduations and staying at units close by. Through the summer, it's just summer visitors for tourism, regular guests just trying to see the city. But after that my low season, it starts about just after Columbus Day, which is October and it goes right until about April 1 or around Eve Easter. Yep. The Prudence Island house is a little bit more challenging. During the summer, it is fully booked and these are very highly organised people. They come because they want to be secluded. They want to get away from everyday life and just be with their families cook on their own. It has one general store and one post office and people love the islands because it's almost a throwback to the 1950s. There is a hunting season in October and February, but after that, it does slow down a lot. Yes. We handled that, we lower the rates down a little bit on our Prudence Island house. We lower it just enough where if someone's somewhere else in Rhode Island and they just want to go away for the weekend, they probably would get it at almost half price or two thirds of the price, you know, just to get a little traffic into this house. The other locations though, I generally flip my demographics a little. I do cater to the travellers that are coming in town just to see the city. However, I also cater towards the visiting nurses and the contractors I was speaking of.
Oh, okay. I see, that's great. And how is your average occupancy rate like in the high seasons versus in the low seasons?
I always, at my highest in occupancy, it's about 76 to 80%. I use an optimizer, it's called. It's just a guy that is in Shanghai, China. I pay him per listing and he optimises my listing to appear near the top of the page.
Oh, I've never heard about that. Can you tell us a little bit more if it's not too personal?
Oh, yeah, obviously! Daniel is an owner of, I want to say over 10 Airbnbs is in Shanghai and surrounding areas. And I just tell him, "hey, Daniel, I need help optimising my listing" and he will go ahead and he will act as a co-host for a very short time. He will add things like emojis and little things to catch people's eye. I don't exactly know what he does, but he works with the algorithm and I always end up on one of the first or second pages of Airbnb when people do searches for Providence. Yep.
Oh, that sounds cool. It's my first time hearing about it. I know that you can help algorithm with some specific things in your listing page. But I've never heard about something like this.
Yes, yes. He's an expert with that and he's got, I want to say many listings all over the world that he helps to optimise. He's literally in China and I work with him on the hours, you know, on off hours. So as I am just getting up, he is winding down for bed.
Oh and if you don't mind sharing, how did you find about this person that does this kind of work?
Yes. I found out about Daniel through a website called Fiverr. It's a freelance website and you can find services for practically everything. I looked on that website just to, I was trying to look for things that might help me boost my business and I ran across Daniel's ad. At that time, I said, okay, I cautiously tried one listing and I saw the occupancy rate difference. He showed it to me and he was like, "here is your occupancy rate now" and after 30 days, he showed me my occupancy rate again and it went up by maybe 30%.
Well, that's a lot. Thank you for sharing that with us!
No problem!
I bet it's going to be very interesting because personally, it's my first time hearing about it.
Oh, okay. I can send you links later to Daniel. He's so easy and personable to work with. I asked him one year to add some Chinese characters into my listing to cater to more international travellers.
Oh, great then. Now I like to go back to your listings' question and if you don't mind sharing, what is your pricing strategy like?
Okay, so my pricing strategy is very simple. I was trying to use websites like price labs and other types of websites to see, "hey, they may know something more than me" or I might use smart pricing through Airbnb. Sometimes I look at the recommendations through Airbnb of what they feel that I should be charging per week. I will normally, if I see the recommendation says a certain amount of money, then I will adjust it to within 5%. But I really truly feel I have to do my own homework, I have to go on as a traveller and say, "hey, I want to stay in a two bedroom or three bedroom in the Providence area and I have to check my competitor pricing", I do this very frequently and from that, I adjust my pricing. My optimizer also will adjust pricing if I ask him to. But in my market, I know that, you know, he would not be aware of certain holidays and also certain big events like the March Madness basketball tournaments, Easter break, and the graduations I spoke of before. So I have to look and compare to my other colleagues. What price I should put down for my listing and I always go into it at least two times a week, no less than two times a week.
I've heard you mentioned about using smart pricing from Airbnb, is your experience with that good too?
It is not good. I used smart pricing on my first year a little bit. I remember there was a concert called Phish. I don't even know what it is, it's P H I S H. I put my pricing out for one of my Airbnbs at about 125 per night and it was in my low season and all of a sudden, I was getting so many inquiries. I was almost about to book them as reservations. Then my local colleagues said, "we bet this concert is sold out" and I should be more likely at $225 a night because so many concert goers are coming up just for this. So I was almost very much shortchanged by the smart pricing and I would highly recommend to any person who has an Airbnb, what they need to do is find a collection of people local to them, very local, their fellow competitors in the area and I would start a small Whatsapp group. We have a small Whatsapp group and they tell us about special events. They warn us about guests that might be trying to throw a party, they will tell us about, you know, legislation coming up as far as government legislation that we need to be aware of, but we communicate together. This way I find out things like "oh, there's Brown University reunion weekend, you may want to raise your prices because you will get top dollar". So that's a good example of how we communicate together in our Airbnb professionals community.
That's so kind of them that they agree to do these kinds of communities.
Yes, so helpful!
Have you ever tried using any dynamic pricing solution and how was your experience with that?
The only one is price labs that I used and it was not a good experience because I loaded it up for a 10 day trial. I knew about how my month of May should look already, which is our largest month in Providence and the app didn't match the proper pricing that was out for the local community. It might have been a very general pricing or delayed, but it was not indicative of showing us pricing for five graduations. So I knew immediately, it would not work.
I see then, I see. Thank you for sharing that with us. And in all of these years running Airbnb, what have been your top challenges?
My largest challenges have been... My Airbnb, I consider it a artistic expression of myself and I try to every time improve on it and get new things to make it more comfortable or more travel friendly, luxurious. I want a situation where I feel that it has everything that a traveller want inside. So my challenges has always been, you know, sometimes you want to afford some big things, you're not quite ready. But I always take about 10% of my earnings and invested back into my property, buying things like new linens, nicer wall decor, maybe nicer lighting fixtures, nicer faucets. Those go a long way in making a person say "wow, they care about this property". My other challenge is the housekeepers, oh my gosh" They are my frontline and if they are not consistent, they don't show up or they're not dependable, it can change the course of my day very fast. Just yesterday I had three housekeepers and I told them all "we have one person renting the whole building for a bachelorette party event". I allow events for the whole building. So fourteen women came and you know, they used all the beds, towels, everything. So everything needed to be scrubbed down and cleaned. Out of the three of them, one showed up and they showed up a little late. So it's very hard, because I'd have to turn it over before 3pm. So I have to, you know, use my own resources on call a fourth housekeeper and ask "hey, will you come over and help clean and turn over 3000 square feet before three o'clock?" because if that unit is not ready, then I cannot get a new booking in and feel comfortable that they will get to check-in on time. So housekeepers are my issue as always, yeah.
Oh, so would you say that in your area is a little bit hard to get through a reliable cleaning crew?
I'd say in every area, you have issues with cleaning crews. Once you settle and find the right match for you, your job will be effortless. But when you're in between and in transition trying to figure out which housekeeper will work for the long-term, it's very challenging. You've to have a housekeeper who feels it's their vested interest to help out and on this house and they make it almost like their own. Doing things above and beyond.
I see and right now what is your strategy to find housekeepers?
Um, my strategy is pretty simple. Since I'm not a, you know, huge commercial company that does this, my strategy was very simple. I just got kind of fed up one day and I drove up to the hotels, I believe it was the Omni Hotels. I was right near a service door and I saw a housekeeper come out for like, a smoke break and I said "hey, would you be interested in earning some extra money on your off days?". She was very interested and she says, "okay, I even have another friend, if I'm not available, I can give you her number". Those are the housekeeper's that tend to really know the dynamics of cleaning an Airbnb and making it look like nice hotels.
Oh, okay, great then! Now, I'd like to ask you about your experience with rental arbitrage since you told me before you're doing some listings with this, right?
Yes.
Can you tell us a little bit more about it?
Yes, yes. With rental arbitrage, um, at the time, three years ago, I had a primary job and I was actually a banker in private wealth and I ended up starting a small, you know, cleaning business as a second income. So I went to clean somebody's move out cleaning and I ran into a landlord from Boston, which is an hour from me and I cleaned his unit, he was very impressed. I asked him "hey, how much is it if I were to rent this particular unit from you?" and he told me the price and I said "okay, I would like to be considered for this unit, I have, I own a building and I have my primary residence and I really think that this would be a good place for me to rent". So he owned a duplex and began renting half of the duplex and then he said that it was going so well, he was so impressed about seeing the apartment furnished and looking nice and how meticulous I kept it that he offered me a great deal in also obtaining the other half of the duplex. So that is my, the duplex is obviously two units, but sometimes I even have a third listing out of it, where I rent the entire building to one person similar to my three family apartment building that I own.
Isee thank you for sharing this with us. Finally, I would like to ask you, are there any tips that you would like to share with other Airbnb hosts?
Um, yes, yes, definitely. I read a lot about how to market myself and how to be the best host I can on Airbnb. I actually take 15 to 30 minutes before bed and when I wake up to research. I know people looking to get into Airbnb, they number one, have to check with their city government, go to the city hall and ask about short-term rentals. Certain cities have very difficult restrictions and you're wasting your time if you go into a city that is about to eliminate Airbnb altogether or they have numerous amounts of restrictions that will make it difficult for you to launch your business on your first listing. In terms of marketing, they say there is a shortage of what's called mega Airbnbs. These are Airbnb similar to my three family where I can sleep up to 22 people in one building. Just this past weekend, I rented it to some, you know, women in their late 30s for their event and they rented my house, maybe my three family for $800 a night. So rather than dealing with three separate guests, three separate families, essentially, I rent it to one person and that's it. People just want to gather together. I host weddings, wedding parties there, bachelor parties, bachelorette parties. I host tasteful events like multi family, multi generational gatherings like reunions, book clubs, women's gatherings, those are very lucrative and they are hard to find in my city. I believe there's only three of them. Also, when you are setting up your Airbnb, another area that Airbnb is having a shortage in is also handicap accessible buildings. You want to make sure that you cast a wide net. In the questionnaire for Airbnb you'll see, is your Airbnb handicap accessible? Do they have a security, you know, a security bar inside the shower so someone doesn't fall? How many steps do they have to go up? Can a wheelchair get inside the unit? those things. That's a hidden market that is untapped and people are looking. I have people that inquired saying they recently had a surgery, a knee replacement surgery, they need to stay in my unit for six weeks, so they can recover, they are a phenomenal market to work with. Another is just make sure you read through those amenities that Airbnb has on their website. If you see, "hey, does your unit have a pack in play?". It's only $50 to $100 to get a pack in play, to get a high chair, to get baby dishes and cups and cutlery, some some kid toys, that opens your market. Another thing might be to cater to business clients. Do you have a good workspace for them to conduct a zoom conference, for them to set up laptops and other paperwork at your Airbnb? Cast the widest net possible. This past winter was my most lucrative year in the down season. I was a little bit nervous going into it. However, another hidden dragon is the, Airbnb has a section called airbnb.org, please opt in to that! I hosted over 60 Afghan refugees. I was at 95% occupancy during my lowest part of the season. They pay through Airbnb on the market they are aware that there are current market rates out there and they say you name your market rate and it's lower than what you have your house that, you know, already advertised for. Then you are able to get on refugees. I hosted the nicest most respectful people and they didn't need anything. I would go in and clean every 10 days, change linens, see if they needed anything. I was so pleased with that arrangement. They had very large families, but they were so grateful for me to be available for their interim housing before they got their long-term housing. The US allowed 10,000 refugees into the country from Afghanistan and right now, on their Airbnbs page, if you search as a traveller in big red, it says "please assist us in hosting", over 100,000 refugees are coming to the United States. So please think about that. I will be ready and available with space for that, but I really encourage people to tap that market. A lot of people overlooked it or didn't care.
Great, thank you for sharing all of this with us. This has been very helpful information. So that will be it for today. Thank you for your time!
Okay, thank you for having me! If anybody has any questions for me, my name is Jennifer and my last name is LeRoy like L E R O Y. You can reach out to me on Facebook, on messenger and on Instagram is Jenniferaleroy. I would be glad to help you and support you and be there to ask any questions. Yeah, I have a very good business model I love and I have been able to leave my full time job and do this short-term rental business full time for my entire family.
Thank you. That's so kind of you, I'll be including that! 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.
