Welcome back to the Hosting Hotline! This is an Ask Me Anything where each week we’ll answer your questions on Airbnb, STRs, real estate, and everything in between.

Suzanne asks:

I’m building a luxury short-term rental that sleeps 16 people. What tips do you have to make sure the entire space – not just the bedrooms – are ready for big groups of guests?

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

Resources:

• Use code TFV20 at IntelliHost.co

Thanks for Visiting is produced by Crate Media.

Mentioned in this episode:

Hosting Business Mastery Method | Join us for our live, free, host masterclass and learn how to OWN your digital real estate!

HBMM | Sign up today at hostmasterclass.com.

Hello.

Welcome back for another great episode.

My name is Sarah Karakaian.

I am Annette Grant.

And together we're--

Thanks for Visiting.

And this is the--

Hosting Hotline.

All right.

We're going to talk about large short-term rentals.

Hi, my name is Suzanne, and I am building a luxury short-term rental with six

bedrooms that has room for 16 people.

As I'm designing the space, I was wondering your feedback in terms of

the living and dining room spaces being able to fit all of those 16

people and how I should size furniture and dining room tables and chairs.

I love that Suzanne's asking that question.

Yeah, because she needs to.

We've been to places where you're like-- I mean, it sleeps four

people, and there's not enough places for us to sit or have a meal.

For sure.

We were just chatting with Jeff Brown from Intellihost.

If you haven't checked out Intellihost yet, we'll put a link in the show notes.

But he was chatting about how, um, it's very important if you are

sleeping that many people, that the main gathering area is something that

guests are really looking for when they are looking to book your property.

So think about it.

Yes, the 16 guests are going to need some place to sleep, but the

whole rest of the day, they're going to be enjoying the home.

So where are they going to do this?

And it sounds like you're building the home, so you can

get ahead of all of these things.

But I mean, there needs to be enough room for every single

person to enjoy a meal sitting.

Not in other spaces of the home, but together.

And then also being able to gather in one area to enjoy each other's company.

And again, that is also, maybe depending on the exterior too, what

you're going to do with the property.

So design-wise, Sarah, what are some ideas that we can give her?

Yeah, I have a lot of personal experience like managing a large home that sleeps a

lot of people, and here's what I learned.

For the living space, you definitely want to be able to sit 16 people.

They want to hang out together.

This is why they're looking at your short-term rental.

So if you're going to advertise that many people, they want to

be able to enjoy time together.

I've found that doing large, U-shaped sectionals--

Yeah.

I was going to say multiple sectionals.

Don't waste time on space between the chairs.

That space between two chairs is a place someone could have sat.

So we did the U-shaped sectional and then a nice, um, end table on either end.

You can do a sofa table behind the sofa as well as a coffee

table between the sectional.

For dining, same thing.

And this goes to all hosts.

I don't care how big your place is, this is the biggest miss when people design

short-term rentals, who have no experience with short-term rentals, running

them, not enough chairs for everyone you sleep, not enough plates, dishes,

silverware, and coffee cups, wine glasses.

Again, they're coming to hang out with you.

Make sure they can enjoy their time together.

AD BREAK

And hot tip, I would put in multiple dishwashers.

If you are, uh, getting ahead of this and have the luxury to be able to lay out

some things, that's one thing, is being able to maybe put in two dishwashers.

I would think about--

Two fridges.

Yeah.

I was going to say if you can't put two in the kitchen, if there's an

alternate, maybe a pantry or somewhere else in the home that you could

put another refrigerator for them.

And also, I'm going to put it out there, if you could, install some ice maker.

That's a huge issue for large groups of people.

So, uh, Susan, hopefully, this helps you and some other hosts, but really

do some space planning here and figure out how you can have all those people

sitting comfortably in all of the areas.

But great question.

And good luck with this.

Send us some pics once it's all designed.

I want to give Susan a couple of other pointers.

You didn't mention how many bathrooms you have.

I know you asked for kitchen and living room, but if you have three bathrooms,

four bathrooms and there're going to be people who need to get right at the

same time, create some vanity spaces in your bedroom where people can sit in

front of a mirror or stand in front of a mirror and blow dry their hair, etc.

Also make sure your exterior hangout spaces are ready for all 16 people.

So if you've got a fire pit, hot tub, picnic tables, make sure everyone

can enjoy their time together.

And then last tip is when people are searching for these larger homes, those

hero images, Jeff Brown shared with us, from Intellihost, that the hero images

that do best with these types of homes are the ones where you showcase this sitting

area, the hangout area, where all the people are going to hang out because that

is what they're most concerned about.

Where can they gather?

So with that, I am Sarah Karakaian.

I'm Annette Grant.

And together we're--

Thanks for Visiting.