Welcome to another Ask Me Anything (Ask Us Anything?) episode! Each week we’ll answer your questions on STR, real estate, OTAs, and everything in between.

Kitty asks:

We have a great property, but because the town is extremely seasonal, it’s very difficult to rent. Should we sell? 

Thanks to everyone who submitted questions. To hear your voice on the show and send a question to Sarah & Annette, visit Speakpipe.com/ThanksforvisitingAMA

Thanks for Visiting is produced by Crate Media.

[00:00:05] You are listening to the Thanks for Visiting Podcast. We believe hosting with heart is at the core of every short-term rental. With Annette's background in business operation--

[00:00:14] And Sarah's extensive hospitality management and interior design experience, we have welcomed thousands of guests from over 30 countries, earning us over $1,000,000 and garnering us thousands of five-star reviews.

[00:00:28] We love sharing creative ways for your listing to stand out, serve your guests and be profitable. Each episode, we will have knowledgeable guests who bring value to the short-term rental industry.

[00:00:39] Or we will share our stories of our own experiences so you can implement actual improvements to your rentals. Whether you're experienced, new or nervous to start your own short-term rental, we promise you'll feel right at home.

[00:01:03] Hello, listeners. Welcome back. My name is Sarah Karakaian.

[00:01:05] I am Annette Grant, and together we are--

[00:01:08] Thanks for Visiting.

[00:01:09] We have an Ask Me Anything episode today where you can, listeners, go to thanksforvisiting.me. In the upper right hand corner is a red button that says AMA. You click on that red button and get ready to record your question and we'll answer it here on the podcast.

[00:01:25] Bring them on. All right. Who do we have? I actually I'm very excited about this one because I love this woman's name.

[00:01:31] Her name's Katie Bird.

[00:01:32] Let's do it.

[00:01:33] All right.

[00:01:33] Hi there. My name is Katie Bird, and I just ran across your podcast site, all the things that you offer. I don't even know how. I think was through Instagram a couple of days ago. And so I attended your webinar, thought it was great. Since then I've been getting emails, and the content is really helpful. And I have a question and I'm debating on whether or not to take your course. But my question is currently right now we have a short-term rental property in a small Texas town. It's very seasonal. I'm actually here now. There's not a person in sight, but it's the most beautiful place you've ever seen on top of a mountain, 180-degree view, and we just can't get it rented. We are now contemplating selling it. And I just think I'm going to kick myself after we sell it and find something just like it, and then realize that we could have done X, Y, or Z to get this place rented. Anyway, I don't know what I'm looking for answers on the decision to whether we should sell it or not. I know you can't do that, but I just thought I'd ask because it says ask. So thank you so much. Hope to hear from you.

[00:02:54] We love that question. We do say Ask TFV. We will weigh in on this one, Katie Bird.

[00:03:00] We have a lot of opinions. Before we weigh in on, Annette, can we comment on-- she says she got to our website. She watched our workshop. She doesn't know whether she wants to join our membership or not. So let's just do-- in case listeners are wondering what that's about, let's share with them what we do offer people behind a paid membership.

[00:03:17] Yes. And I think Katie Bird even used the word course. So it's so much more than a course. It is a community. It is a membership. Yes, there is a course hosting business mastery method. There is a course inside, but we have a ton of learning there. But it's not so much about the learning. It's about the result that you get. And the result is being amongst hundreds of other hosts that are next-level across the country who have access to Sarah and I, to our team of experts. We have coaches inside of there on a daily basis. We have an accountant in there on a daily basis. We are crushing it. But Sarah, if you want to give a breakdown of that stuff, maybe bullet point it.

[00:03:54] Yeah, I was going to say-- and not just I mean people-- we can say rock stars, but what does that mean to us? What that means is people before joining, we call it Hosting Business Mastery method, before joining, and then after being in it for about six months, they've added 148% revenue to their business, people who have decided to take off the entire month of January because their numbers are rocked it so much and they decided for their family that was important to them. They're doing this. They can have freedom and flexibility and they take off January, people who are adding 10, 15, $20,000 after one tip that we've shared. And then they're, of course, sharing their own ideas. I mean, we're completely in awe every day by the brilliance these people bring. And there's something special about being a part of a community where everyone puts some skin in the game. So it's not a free Facebook group. It is a positive atmosphere. But we do have four live calls every month. We do some business coaching in our hot seats. We have our expert short-term rental bookkeeper and we go over numbers for your business. We have a networking call, which is our favorite one-- I think most of our members' favorite calls. We break them up into pods and we've had people do business deals together, visit each other. I mean, the magic that happens there is extraordinary. And then we have an insider series call where we connect you with our expert friends in our network of amazing people. And you can ask them questions. So if you like listening to the podcast, but you want to ask these people and talk to them, you can do that. So it's a really wonderful thing. And it is--

[00:05:24] Yeah, it's basically the podcast in person, I'd like to say, or via, you know, Zoom, but it's amazing. But Katie Bird, this question, this is something that we would definitely let's do a pretend hot seat here for you. We're going to take this from a place of we talk about this a lot inside of our membership. We always talk about numbers and how important they are, but we also talk about a couple of things that a spreadsheet will never, ever be able to calculate for you. And so that's kind of the amazing thing about real estate and with short-term rentals specifically. We're going to let you know there aren't cells on the spreadsheet that you can fill in about what you just said it's the most beautiful place on earth. There isn't a cell for that for you to be able to add there, a place for you and your family to enjoy when there isn't a single person around. So I think the very first thing that we need to start with is your why. Why did you buy this property? Was it specifically for the revenue? If it was just for the revenue, then we probably have an issue here. But were there some other added advantages of you purchasing this amazing property with these amazing views?

[00:06:32] Right. Is it the advantage of your family using it? So we haven't talked to Katie Bird. She's not here in the show right now. But the good thing about that is that if you're listening right now and maybe you can relate to Katie, we're going to help you think of some different levers that you can pull. And that first lever is going back to the reason why you bought it. And if it was to take your family there and just to have like a quote-unquote, "free vacation" property, okay, let's look at those numbers and see what that does. Is it a tax shelter with some really, really interesting ways to have some write-offs for your business? Maybe the cash flow is the most important. It is that tax shelter. And maybe you need to dial in with your CPA and come back to square one and see what you need to do to make it be that thing that you want it to be. But let's get into if it is just revenue. Annette, what are some levers Katie could pull? We don't know what she has and hasn't pulled, but I think that's good. We'll go through all of them.

[00:07:25] So two things. Facts over feelings. Data over drama.

[00:07:29] Boom.

[00:07:29] Don't know how long you've had this property. Get it down on paper. What have you spent? What have you made? Where are you at? What are the historics? What are the forecasting? I would start their data over drama. Let's get it down. You're having all these feelings. You've got the fields going on. Let's really look at the financials of this property. And you mentioned, Katie, like, oh, I'm scared we're going to sell it and then we're going to buy something else. So think about the future, you two. Do you always want to have another property? It might be best served to keep this one. So again, facts over feelings, data over drama. Let's really get it all out on paper, what the purchase price was, what you're bringing in. And you didn't let us know how long it's been listed for. So I hope you have some historical. If you don't, this is an opportunity. You've got to look at your competition in the area. What are they doing? This might be an opportunity to go into like an AirDNA and look at what's going on around you. Is there a demand there? What are the nightly rates that other hosts are getting?

[00:08:26] Let's dig into that a little bit deeper too, Katie. Are you looking at this just in terms of November, December, like this siloed view of your revenue? Vacation rental properties, everyone, short-term rental properties, they are a business. And so, yes, we need to look at our months and our quarters, but truly to get a holistic understanding of that business is health, we need to look at it on a yearly basis because especially if it's seasonal, you're going to have these ebbs and flows and a lot of vacation rentals make a majority of their revenue in a certain amount of months. It's not 12 months of the year. So maybe you're panicking for no reason. We're not sure. Let's go into some other things. For some reason, people don't know about this amazing view. For some reason, you're not communicating clearly with your potential audience or your potential guests how life-changing, how much this can rejuvenate their soul.

[00:09:19] Yeah. You said it was the most beautiful place on earth. We want to know-- and this is for all listeners. Please do not put the marketing on the backs of--

[00:09:28] The Airbnb.

[00:09:28] The OTAs. You are your marketing team. So are you letting your friends and family know? Are you letting your network know? Have you posted on LinkedIn or Facebook? Anywhere. Personally, let people know that you have this property. And are you maybe guerilla marketing around town? Are there coffee shops? Are there other places that you could network locally to let people know about your property?

[00:09:50] What about connect with realtors? Connect with wedding venues, connect with event planners. I mean, we have [Inaudible] reached out to us. They have a beautiful home and they're like, how can we connect with people who are looking to have a home to mastermind and to have chef parties and like, how can you really just drum up and you're going to have to put your boots on the ground a little bit and do that. And you can also leverage paid ads. That is a possibility. You don't have to, again, solely rely on these OTAs to bring traffic to you.

[00:10:17] I want to bring up-- this is a random tip, but this was a tip that was given at our live event by Meghan Morgan. She's a wonderful host in Texas. And Katie Bird, you also said you're from Texas. She actually puts old-school ads in her high school's football program. What? And it was like so inexpensive. And she said she's gotten so many direct bookings from that. So there's a hosting hot tip for you straight from down south in Texas from Megan Morgan. But also I want to offer a couple of other things. Maybe you bring in a partner. Is there someone financially that could help you offset just the investment of this home, a friend or family member that you could share some of the financials with? And then in that data over drama, before you just throw your hands up and like want to sell it, have you done market research of if you want to resell it right now? I don't know when you bought it, how you bought it, if that would make sense. But Katie Bird, I'm just going to say I hear it in your voice you want this property, you want to keep it, you want to share it with others. So I'm just going to ask you to dig deep for a little while, see if you can make it work.

[00:11:21] I got one more tip for her.

[00:11:22] You've got it in your voice that you're passionate about it.

[00:11:26] Strategic influential partners. So reach out to travel influencers, people who have really creative ways of using video and drone footage, especially if it has that like--

[00:11:36] 180 views.

[00:11:37] Right. Those views, Katie. We have a lot of people who are singing the praises of influencers who know what they're doing in this space.

[00:11:45] Yeah, and those Texas travel influencers, they're about it.

[00:11:49] Well, I personally have managed a property where an influencer came, did a beautiful video on it, his YouTube video did well on its own, and then UNILAG picked it up and it went viral. So again, you have to think outside the box of just listing it on these OTAs and thinking you're done and that's the fate of your rental. It's a business. Put on your marketing cap. Get creative with that passion for those views and how much you love this property and see there's some other levers you can pull. And like Annette said, draw all this down because if you can try all these things out, then you have to measure their success too. So if people call you or email you, where do they hear about it from? How did they get that booking? And give it some time to get some legs too.

[00:12:30] Yep, let's do it. Katie Bird, you got this.

[00:12:32] All right. And again, if you're interested in joining our Hosting Business Mastery membership, you can head to thanksforvisiting.me\workshop. You can DM us on Instagram, you can email us, we'll point you to it. We give you a little education, we give you behind-the-scenes look, and we'd love to have you as a member going into this new year here. But Katie we wish you luck. And with that, I am Sarah Karakaian.

[00:12:54] I am Annette Grant, and together we are--

[00:12:56] Thanks for Visiting.