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Show Summary:

In this podcast, Scott and Paul discuss financing Airbnb properties and maximizing rental income. Paul, who handles mortgages, explains how lenders have become more accepting of financing Airbnb properties, and they can qualify for short-term rental rates. Scott shares a strategy of partnering with an executive furnished rental company called Welcome Home Relocations, which caters to high-paying executives in the area for three to twelve months. These executives prefer luxury furnished homes rather than hotels.

They emphasize the importance of maintaining the quality of linens, towels, and other amenities to create a positive experience for guests. Paul suggests having three sets of linens to handle quick turnovers and wear and tear. They advise against having cleaners clean during stays, as it's better to provide guests with a discount for longer stays and not interrupt their privacy.

Regarding marketing, Paul recommends using social media, Facebook groups, and marketplaces to reach potential guests and increase views on your listings. They also discuss the benefits of joining events in the area to attract more bookings and increase income. Paul shares his Instagram profiles, where he provides content on Airbnb rentals and real estate investing, and encourages people to contact him for more information or coaching.

The podcast wraps up with an offer to provide property tours and analysis of cashflow for investment properties, to help investors find good deals. They invite participants to join the hub for regular updates and interactions.

Contact Paul or Scott at LendCity Mortgages at 519-960-0370.

To Join our hub check out the links above.

Episode 55

So, For and actually as well, any questions that you have, put them in the chat. Okay. And we're gonna try to answer them. So it'll be really cool cuz usually podcasts, they don't have that interaction from the viewers. So any questions you have put in the chat because you are muted and your cameras are off.

But then what it does is it takes your audio. It makes it super crisp. So it sounds like you're in a studio. And then we publish that to Spotify and Apple and all those other things. So it's super cool. This is our first time doing this with an audience, so I'm really excited to, to try this. So what we're gonna do, everybody's here, there's a whole bunch more that are coming.

So we're just gonna get started. This recording, if you have to go, it will be posted within the hub. If you go under events and then past events, you can view the live recording if you have to go at any time.

Paul is one of our mortgage agents, but he's also a key expert on Airbnb property.

Paul Mcallister: So welcome Paul. Thanks, Scott. Thanks for having me. I like saying the Airbnb expert, but really I'm just a real estate investor. I'm very creative and I have a motto. It's called Make It Happen, whatever it is. So,

Scott Dillingham: I like it kind of sounds like Nike's, right?

Where they say, just do it. I love

Scott Dillingham: So, What we're gonna do, guys, I'm gonna let Paul talk about his strategies for Airbnbs for full disclosure. I don't do Airbnbs, but the strategy and the secret that I'm gonna share with you when Paul's done, can get you up to two times the income on your Airbnb because the strategy that I utilize is, it works perfectly for Airbnb properties because you need a furnished property to do my strategy and the Airbnbs.

Or a furnished property. So we're gonna touch on both of those things. But first we'll let Paul dive into his strategies, how he finds, you know, the good properties, good tenants, and all that good stuff. So I turn over to you, Paul.

Paul Mcallister: Thanks Scott. So the, I think I've been going through about five things here.

Website to, and it really a something to research the area that you want to start the Airbnb, it tells you the best, it's the best place for data. You know, it's like 150 bucks for an area for the year. You can keep searching. It has Airbnb calculator, it has your market research, smart pricing. It shows you each property in that area.

In terms of the revenue, the occupancy, and there's so much information. So when you're trying to strategize, oh, do I want a one bedroom or a two bedroom or a three, it will actually break down how all of those are doing in terms of revenue, in terms of occupancy, and even times of the year when it's gonna be slow or hot.

So then you can strategize on what you do, especially when you tie it to your marketing plan, which I'll get into in a second. The second thing, like hack that I wanted to share, cause I just did it in June we actually purchased a property for Airbnb exclusively. And we didn't even take possession of this property, so we got it in May or so.

We asked the, per the seller if we could store stuff in their garage. They allowed it. So all of our stuff was actually in the garage. Before we even took possession, and we already had five bookings before we took possession. We just blocked from June 1st to June 7th. And so we furnished it from June 1st to June 7th.

We already had five bookings on actually June 8th. And that was all before we even took possession of the property. So like, there's little things you can do because speed is money, especially when we're talking about the summer in the area. Like, Windsor, Essex County is where you're gonna make a lot of your money.

Will I give them a link to my to the Airbnb? I say, the calendar is updated. Let me know if you have any questions. Standard message. Sooner or later when you're posting on marketplace, people are gonna say, I wanna rent this long term. I wanna rent this long term. I say, I have to think about it. This is a business.

Let me get back to you. I wait 24 hours. I already know what I'm gonna say, but I wait 24 hours. I come back in 24 hours and I say, boom. I have a preempted message that I know I'm gonna say, and I'm gonna talk about how this is a business. I'm doing really well. I wasn't planning on renting it long term.

Rent got the tenants out, and I was able to get somebody in there for $2,800 a month. Fully furnished. And then he actually, after a month, he said, oh, what about the toilet and the maintenance, the, those things that come with air bean Airbnb? I was like, oh, that's not included, but I'll give you $50 off.

And he was happy with that. So creating win-wins is the goal. And also note like. When you're doing the marketing plan, like I have something where I do Airbnb videos for people. You can DM me for that. Where we go through people's Airbnbs, we take a video basically for free for them. And then that you're able to share that with your network.

I know that a lot of people come to Windsor, Nessus County from gta A, so I'm in every gta, a group and surrounding, and I'm posting Airbnb and Amburg. I'm promoting the town. The next thing I wanted to touch on was processes. So setting up processes. So one, having a co-host is important, whether it be your wife, your partner, whoever it is, make sure you have somebody because your response time is important.

You're providing value to your guests. You want to make sure they know you're on their, you're on their side, and you're trying to be like better than a hotel. All you do is get. All preset messages so you can copy and paste more things. You monitor the questions. If they're similar, there's probably something you can do in your listing or in the space to highlight that information because less questions are better for you, but, and then better for them because they don't have questions, their stay is more clean.

Can you please make sure you get, get this and purchase this? Meaning cleaner. You go purchase it, not me, and I pay her, but you go purchase it and next time when you come, bring it. So that's how I make sure I don't go in the Airbnb. When she gets there, the cleaner gets there. She takes the same exact pictures every single time.

That we've already talked about. And then when she's done cleaning, she takes those same exact pictures. Those pictures I use to help with reviews of the people who have stayed, right. And I also know the conditions of my place. I see if anything's wrong. And the pictures, I would make sure that you are the kitchen, the dishwasher, the fridge, the bathroom, the bedroom.

So I know that I want pictures of those things. If you get comments from people, you wanna make sure that you. Ask your cleaner to have those types of pictures. So the goal for me when I set this up is I want to have Airbnbs all over the world. So, and I don't want to be able to travel all over the world to check on my Airbnbs.

So that's the importance of this little hack of pitchers. Boom, boom, before pitchers, after. I always know where I am. The last thing in terms of processes, and this is connected to the cleaner as well, taking full advantage that she's the one going in there. I leave gifts for people if they're staying more than two weeks.

Going on to my last thing, and then I'm gonna turn it back to you, Scott is long-term rental strategy. So when you're posting on marketplace those different people are gonna message you, and I'm telling you it is. I just want to harp on this more. Have that standard message that you are gonna respond to them.

And make sure you wait the 24 hours. Don't just say boom. Don't start that conversation. Don't give them what they want. Give time over and over. I've learned this over time is, and I've been successful a few times now, is just give time, give that message and let it sit. Okay. Scott, you have the cool approach that I've just learned.

I haven't got to use it yet, but I'm very excited for it. So how about you come back in and, you know, it's enough of my mouth. Go ahead.

Scott Dillingham: Yeah, so this is why, guys, I wanted to do this with Paul cause I actually thought this was gonna be perfect, right? So, Paul, you know, he does mortgages for us and he finances Airbnb properties, which I think is very important because a lot of lenders don't do that.

And I'm gonna share their details with you on this call because you're here. And what they do is they have executives that are in the area for three months, six months I've even seen up to one year, and they're paying top top dollar in rent for these executives. And these executives need to be in town.

There could be a project like locally, we have a bridge that's being built from Canada to the United States, so they're hiring these specialty engineers and just. Different people that are coming here. So every company might need somebody that has their professional degree in a different country, right?

Okay. So you guys are gonna wanna save that. You're gonna wanna Google it and you're gonna call 'em. So when you call them, you just say, Hey, connect me with your property manager in my area. Okay? They cover all of Canada, but then these guys, they will rent your unit for top dollar. So, I. I gave these contacts to one of my staff in Toronto.

In the basement of this duplex the main [00:13:00] floor has the main floor on the upper, so that's the unit that. You know, you would think would generate the income, but it's the bottom. It's her basement unit that's getting all of that income because it's a furnished luxury, you know, rental. So super cool.

So that's sort of my secret to maximize your income and you can do it with any furnished property. And there's a lot of demand for these furnished rentals with the executives coming. You'd be surprised, but I was worried, right? Like, okay, if they only rent it for three months, am I gonna be vacant for so much more time?

Right? And that's where you as an investor, you can leverage some appall strategies and you can rent it out from the Airbnb standpoint if there is vacancies. But these guys have been so good with my units that they line it up once they know they have the property locked down. They got another executive coming in for a different project, they line it up.

So we are gonna kind of wrap this up within our hub. We're gonna do webinars like Paul said, where we do deep dives and give a lot more information about this. But while we're wrapping up here, Does anybody have any questions? If you do, put them in the chat and then we'll answer them for you as part of the podcast here, and then this will be published next week.

So I'll give you guys a minute here to see if anybody has any questions.

Paul Mcallister: And as we do that, I'm gonna post some links of the Airbnb I was referring to in terms of Blue Breeze that we were

Scott Dillingham: able to. You know, that's a great idea. I'll put in the welcome home relocation one as well.

Paul Mcallister: Let's start posting some links. You know, as I said, more views equals more bookings. And you know, I just have to share.

Scott Dillingham: Montu. So Montu, I've known Montu for a long time.

He's asking where are the best places in the GTA to Airbnb right now? I think it really depends on what you want to do, Montu and the target market. What I'll do as a takeaway, cuz I know you probably know her too, Jillian, right? She's our, one of our mortgage agents to, she She's got some and I can help her connect with you on some of the places that she thinks is best.

So I'll let you recap that, Paul.

Paul Mcallister: Yeah. Well, The first thing to, the first question is Air d n a. I'm telling you, it's worth the investment of 150 bucks to learn the market that you're choosing. Sure. Do your research. Air D brings the data. And I'm a da, like I'm an engineering background. I like making database decisions.

So Air d n a is a good tool to use for your research. And in terms of how do you handle remote Airbnbs? It's, you know, it's setting up automated processes. You may have missed kind of the beginning, but it's just. One, you can have somebody manage. Usually people charge about 25% of the profit to manage an Airbnb.

That's like the standard that you'll see in the industry. So that's one thing. Having boots on the ground is important. So it's either you're gonna hire someone who's gonna have those boots on the ground and direct those boots on the ground. Really depends on how much time do you wanna put in this, right?

Clean the unit. Pictures of the before and the after. Making sure you're taking a picture of the checklist for all the supplies. You know, it's like a hotel. You have to figure out the a e b E, connect all of the dots and make sure that you don't have to be there. It's very possible.

We can definitely go deeper. I'd like to do a webinar. In the hub and I'll actually share my screen and I can show you how to actually set up a management system that is automated. You know, cuz right now it's in Amburg, but soon enough I have one coming in Guatemala and in Costa Rica and in Barbados and I play, can't be there, but I need one boots on the ground strategy in terms of maybe having somebody bang them the 25% or.

We're creating Airbnb videos and marketing materials for health in Windsor s County right now. We'll expand later, so if you have one in Windsor s County, contact me and I'll come and do a video basically free for you. But have of somebody, even whoever, you know, that is good. Do some drone shots.

Do some sh highlight where you are, your location. Highlight the features of the property. Get some like 22nd quick clips. I call it like crack, like it, it's, I call it like a drug because like you want it to be nice and fast. Highlight your space. Boom. That's an Instagram one, right? Have longer ones where you talk about it.

So once I get about a hundred, I know, okay, I need, if I got 10 bookings with a hundred views, I. Now I know that I need to go get a HU 10,000 views to get my thousand bookings. So it's a numbers game. So figure out the numbers, figure out what you need and figure out how you're gonna get out there and be consistent.

And honestly, try to automate it is the important part. Don't think that you're gonna be able to manage your Airbnb, manage your life, manage your investments. It's just not gonna happen. It's okay to pay 25% to not have to think about it and still see those

Scott Dillingham: profits going up and up. Yep. And one thing I'll share too, to further answer Monty's question, and Paul, you kind of did mention it in your presentation earlier, but was like little things like not leaving dishes in the dishwasher.

But like dirty linens and linens that are like, like stained or not good quality, really worn down. Like to me, when I stay at places and they have that, I'm like, they really don't care. Right? If you can't have towels that look and feel new and they're grimy, like who wants to use a grimy feeling towel or sleep in sheets with all these.

You know, human stains on it like that is disgusting. Right. So I think those things, the linens, the usable items, I think they have to be really well kept. And even little things, like Paul said, leaving things in the dishwasher. Some people are anal and I think that can ruin the whole experience, even though they might be clean, right?

The cycle might have been clean, but it's just like, People get weirded out by the littlest

Paul Mcallister: things. So Scott, for the linens, it's a good thing. So I like to have three sets of everything in terms of linens and towels. One because I'm turning over quickly. Two, I want extras to make it easy.

She's not just cleaning she's thinking, right? Like, when she sees those things, you want to encourage her to raise her hand. Okay, let's go get the other one. All right. And everything I get is usually from Amazon because I want it shipped to the place. The cleaner is getting the package. Boom boom.

I'm not going there. So that's really important to have on your checklist. Linens are really key. And spending more, a little bit extra money on your linen, especially in the master where whoever paid for, you wanna have them to have the best bed and the best linens because they're the ones you need to make happy more than anyone.

How are lenders treating Airbnbs now? How they come around and accept them, or are they giving them to l t r rates to qualify?

Scott Dillingham: Yeah, so I would like to answer that one. I know Paul, you're the expert on mortgages as well, right? We both, this is what we do as a living, so we can help you guys, but I do wanna touch on that because right, I know you well, mon too.

And before I used to, you know, I used to work at the bank and so the banks there's sort of two ways that these are being financed, to be honest with you. The client is just buying it and saying it's a rental, and then they're turning it into an Airbnb style property after the fact. Right? The lenders can't stop you from doing that after the fact.

You know, underwriting guidelines. But it's a great credit union, great rates. The one thing that's a little weird with them is they'll only finance 1.25 million per investor, and they're not in every province, but they are in most of Canada and they don't care. They will finance long-term rentals. And it's the same rates as, sorry, the finance short-term rentals at the same as the long-term rental rates.

So I think that answers your question, Monto, but they only lend 1.25 million. Then let's say we're capped out on there and we're a client and we don't wanna hide the fact that it's an Airbnb. We want to be fully transparent. Then we go commercial. So we've got a commercial department and they can do commercial mortgages, even if it's a single family property and commercial.

But if it's an Airbnb property generally they'll want a little bit higher down payment, probably around 30, 25 to 30% down. And then commercial mortgages, they have fees attached to them because that's how they get paid in the commercial space is by fees. That's their commission. So you can expect between one and one and a half percent fee if you're going commercial.

So I hope that helps that. And then I'll let Paul take over. I know Wayne's got a couple questions there as well.

Paul Mcallister: So Wayne's Wayne Lu's questions, how did you find your cleaner and management people boots on the ground, and how often do your cleaners clean during a stay? So, I found mine just cuz I'm local to the area.

Word of mouth. The main thing is you can find companies, you can find things on Facebook marketplace as well. You just need to find someone that you can trust. Now you gotta build that trust-based relationship. The cool thing is like you're not in a contract. They're not in an employee that you know you need to keep.

She's, she knows the process, she knows the system, she knows how to do it. She's not overwhelmed. So I've been good that way. In terms of your second question of how often do your cleaners clean during this day? I never, ever have a cleaner clean during a stay. You know the thing is like if you book a week, you get a discount.

One because you get a discount because you're staying longer. Good for you. I get a discount because I'm not gonna have my cleaner there two times in that week, or three times in that week. And if you're staying a month, again, you get another discount. But that discount comes with like, I'm not cleaning there.

I mean, sorry. Then a thousand a night. Maybe it's gonna be 1200 a night, but you're gonna charge for it. Are you mainly using Airbnb for bookings or do you utilize word of mouth and other platforms? I. Are you using Airbnb for bookings or do you utilize word of mouth? I'm not

Scott Dillingham: sure. I think what he's saying like, cuz you kind of mentioned it that you have your Airbnbs in Windsor and Essex, but you market in Facebook groups everywhere.

Yeah. In Toronto. Right. So I think what they're saying is, are you listing on the Airbnb website? Only or are you using word of mouth? Oh yeah. For other

Paul Mcallister: platforms. Oh yeah. Okay. So I talked on this a little bit. Having a marketing plan is so important. Having that, you know, that click bait Instagram and all that stuff is so important.

I go in those groups and I'm posting every other weekend, especially in the summers I'm posting and I'm saying, oh, even when there's events in my area. So I know, like I live in Amburg right now and there's events downtown all the time. I know the calendar and I'm saying, oh, check out this event.

Staying my Airbnb. I'm promoter of this town. And the events, because I know the more events in your area, the higher the smart pricing of Airbnb goes up. The more demand, you know, supply and demand, the more demand for Airbnbs in the area because of an event, you're gonna charge obviously more for those times for New Years.

More views equals more bookings equals more profit. That's what you need to keep in your mind. Win, win, win. And

Scott Dillingham: just to follow back on Mon Two's earlier question cuz Montu asked where would be a good location in Toronto to purchase Airbnbs? And I think you kind of said it there because you're saying follow the events is pretty much what you said.

If there's lots going on in the area. You can leverage that to rent out your place. So that might be great for you, Montu, cuz I know there's lots of different areas within Toronto, there's different sub-districts and they all have their own little things going on. So find out one, you know that you're.

But if you don't know the area, it will give a grade of how does it do an Airbnb? I'm not sure exactly how the grading is. Again, you can look into that. We can go into that in the webinar. But seeing the grade on air d n a is another,

Scott Dillingham: Indicator. That's awesome. Perfect. Does anybody have any questions before we end this podcast?

And again, it'll be scheduled for this week coming up so you guys can listen to it. On there for the recap, or again, we'll post the video version with your questions in the hub.

Okay. Now Paul, I'm not sure what you're typing. I think I know what you're typing,

Paul Mcallister: but what I was gonna say is,

Scott Dillingham: What are your details? How can people contact you if they want financing, if they have extra questions on Airbnbs, whatever, how do they get in touch with you? Is that what you were typing? Oh

Paul Mcallister: yeah.

I'm just starting that. And then the turnkey macally I try to provide a lot of content there. And then I'm gonna be on the hub. So, I mean, the hub is a good place cuz I'm gonna be doing regular live, like my goal and, you know, our goal by the end this month, I'm hoping to go live on the hub at least once or twice a week.

So that's where we can interact. And then you can always send me an email. To Paul m lend city.ca. And yeah, any, anyway, I'll put my phone number. You can come to my house. We can go for it. Doesn't matter, like, I'm a very personable person and I love talking, investing more than just getting you mortgages.

I I also do real estate coaching real estate investing joint ventures Airbnb, ho super host, Airbnb management, whatever it is, like, you know, this is. What I do, this is what I wake up in the morning and I roar. So, yeah

There's a whole bunch. Wayne, we can take that offline because I don't want to put that in the podcast here. Obviously we're working with you on what you're doing. So, I'll touch base with you and share some agents with you. Okay.

Paul Mcallister: Awesome. Thanks. Any other questions guys, before we before we head out?

Awesome.

Well,

Scott Dillingham: I appreciate it. You guys got to see a podcast being created live, and then you'll get to see it on Spotify and iTunes and all that good stuff. So it's super, super cool. Thank you guys for visiting and make sure you do check back to the hub. Next week you're gonna see some properties, so we're doing property tours and we're gonna come back and analyze the numbers of these properties, show you how much cashflow they have, if it's a good buy or not.

We'll, we can do a tour and put 'em on there. But thank you guys and I hope everybody has a great day. Thanks for having me, Scott. Thanks everyone for joining. Cheers.