🏠6/6 - How To Manage An Airbnb And Run A Team...🚀
We talked about it a little in the last blog, how managing Airbnb’s can definitely remove you from a job and give you a stream of income. But if you're not careful, you can easily replace your job with a job that had set boundaries to a job that never stops and can destroy your quality of life
The goal is to make as much money as possible and still having quality of life or being happy.
Replacing one job with a worse job is not so fun, but I see it happen a lot actually. Ideally, you want to create a business that can pretty much run with or without you.
At least for me, that’s one of the most exciting and even addicting parts of building a system that can make you money while you sleep.
What I see happen with most people is they start investing in real estate doing everything themselves thinking they are saving money, when in fact, it’s costing them way more time and probably money
What we are going over in this blog is the concept of scale. And think about running your property or properties like a business instead of a 1 off property that you hope will make some money.
Disclaimer - Outsourcing all of this to a Property Manager and just collecting a check is not a bad thing.
You guys know once in a while I will just put a buffer out in front of the whole blog and some of you can just leave after this concept.
And that's the concept of just letting someone else manage your property.
I know some people have a really strong opinion against this but...
I still think for a good amount of people, everything we're about to go over isn't worth learning
And the reason is that some people are not looking to become real estate investors and leave their jobs, they are just looking for a vacation home that will produce a nice cash flow
And that's totally okay because something that took me a while to understand is that some people are good at what they do and like making money in their job. And their time is better spent making money in their job and relaxing when they aren't working than being stressed out potentially managing Airbnb or rentals.
If you go to my YouTube page, you can see that my talking head videos are all about outlining the sliding scale of passive vs active income and the pros and cons of each.
But if you are hearing that and you're like naaaa I don't like my job, I don't want my job and I will be a full-time real estate investor then the rest of this blog is going to apply directly to you. And it’s broken down into 4 parts.
1. Technology
A big part of why you are able to purchase and manage property out of state has to do with technology.
See the way all this stuff used to work was, you would actually have to see the property before you bought it - Then you had to go to walk properties as they came on the market, and then make offers after you had seen them with a broker - and there was definitely no way to manage it from distance after you purchased it, it just wasn't a thing. There was no Zillow, there were no google maps, and there was no Airdna for data. Luckily for us being born with this thing called the internet - and new technology we can find, purchase, and manage properties from a distance.
That said, there are a few things to make sure you have set up at the property and also set up on your phone or your employee's phones to manage the activity of the property to make sure those run smoothly. Im going to outline basics like absolute minimums and then we will dig in deeper on each. They are:
Outdoor cameras
Noise monitor
Door Locks
Exterior Lights
The camera is sort of obvious but sort of not. It’s great to be able to see what’s going on at the property but this one piece of 'technology' has saved or generated the business. However, you want to look at it as at least 2-4 thousand dollars just in found fees this past year. Either when a guest is bringing in a pet that they 'forget to mention' or if a group has extra visitors in the property or overnight stays, those are all extra charges. And if we didn't have a camera on the property sending a notification when there was movement, those things would have been missed.
As far as the camera itself, it’s very easy to set up and will be either hard wired to the property or set on a battery. We use ring doorbells and If you are completely non-handy sort of like me, you can always hire someone to put it together and assemble it.
In this last property, we used Hmcity motion sensor lights
Next, the noise monitor - This is to ensure the group isn't getting too loud or potentially having a party and disrupting a neighbor. The sensors do not listen to what’s happening on the property, they just monitor the decibel levels to know when things are picking up. If we hear a noise level over our max level, we will follow up with the guest. It’s usually nothing but it’s very helpful to understand what’s happening in the property. We use minute
Locks - this is such an important part of your property. Especially being that you are out of the area. This might actually be the most important thing when I think about it more. Because if a guest has a bad check-in experience and then has a perfect stay after that there's a good chance they are still not going to write you a 5-star review. And even worse, if there was ever a chance that the guest couldn't get into the property someone would need to go out to fix the lock or let them in. Not good at all.
To prevent this, We have a backup system in place for this with multiple lock boxes and sets of keys at the property. It's still not fun when it happens but at least this way you are covered from a disaster.
We use Schlage locks/door knobs. I've mentioned in other parts of this series why we use Schlage instead of August so you can go back and watch those but we use Schlage for now
Lighting - I am a fan of motion sensor lights - they deter crime in general - but also when someone is coming and going with the ring doorbell - you want to be able to have a light on the entrance to see what’s going on. Also, guests have a habit of accidentally leaving lights on so it’s nice to have motion lights to turn on and off. With some types of lights, you can also schedule a timer.
2. Building your team and backing them up
This part is so important it could probably be its own video. And ridiculously important if you are out of state or out of the area. As I've mentioned before - managing from out of state is definitely possible. And in my opinion, a lot of times managing from a distance can be easier or develop better skills than managing a property around the block.
People believe If you manage the property around the block, you are more likely to be there often to oversee and track things which should make it go better. In theory, this sounds good, but in my opinion, it’s way better if you can just get good at managing them from a distance with best practices and technology. It will save you time and be more scaleable as you add more properties.
The main components of your team are cleaner, runner, and handyperson (this isn't a contractor)
These people will help manage the day-to-day and will be your eyes when you are not there.
The cleaner will be doing the cleaning - but also documenting everything in the property between guests, and helping file claims
The runner will help in some cases where boxes need to be brought in or even install things (if they are handy - which is something we make sure to look for in a runner)
And a handy person is key as there will always be things that pop up on the property. They step in when things are beyond the runner’s capabilities
For this core 3 - you will want to have backups and backups for their backups as things tend to pop up with people
The best place to get resources for these sorts of things come from Google, yelp, task rabbit thumbtack and even Facebook
You also want to build out your hub of plumbers, landscapers, electricians, and others as sometimes a problem will pop up your handyperson cannot handle. It sounds complicated but can be done in a few hours of googling and planning and putting them into a spreadsheet or notion
Ultimately when you find these people you want to treat them well and compensate them well because they are essentially property managers if you self manage
Especially your cleaner - they will be able to help do your post-turn checklist and help with claims based on pictures and videos they take from every turn.
We haven't done it yet but some hosts even bonus their cleaners for every 5-star cleaning review they get
But we do give monthly bonuses and pay extra as we feel needed for 5-star help
3. Process - Automation and Operations
This really depends on what your plans are and if you plan to have 1 property or scale to multiple
If you have one property and primarily use Airbnb, a lot of this may not apply to you but if you plan to have more properties, then it could be a good idea to start learning about these tools
So ultimately you are going to want some level of automated messaging
Ideally, you want a first response message when someone inquires, this is where you thank them for considering or booking your property and ask them some questions about their visit. At this point, you want to boost your response time by replying quickly and you want to understand more about why they are coming and who they are
This is just an example of automation you can set up within Airbnb or a messaging software like Hospitable
I will probably give out some of these templates in future videos - but we will give out all of them and our automation in the mastermind and course on self-management
We still tinker with this and it’s different for everyone but we send a pre-check-in message, then we send a few messages after they arrive to make sure they are set up and that they don't have any problems. And when I say 'we are sending' I mean, within either Airbnb or hospitable depending on the property - we have a cadence of automated messages that go out
The other tools we use and you might want to consider
pricing software like Guesty, beyond pricing, or Pricelabs.
Smart home techs like a minute, Schlage, ring, or Nest.
All of these are part of your dashboard or tabs/apps to keep open during the day to ensure everything is running smoothly
This will depend on how hands-on you are and how many properties you have
Having a checklist for your cleaners each turn and having videos/pictures taken is really important. This makes managing claims much easier. If your cleaners can help you manage and start claims, you have a MUCH better chance of winning them
Also depending on your scale and interest in automation - you can sync your calendar with your cleaner’s calendar so they can just see when the guests are coming and going and you don't have to worry about scheduling with them
4. Learning as you go
Even as I am 6 years into the real estate investing journey and 2 years managing 9 properties, there are always things that pop up and always things that will be learned for each property/type of guest
Things from guests not being able to open the front door, to entering and experiencing a smell, to asking the most random questions you can literally ever imagine. like literally
So we tweak things constantly and look for improvements
Like something we started doing with automated messages was sending the guests a message before they got there letting them know they could add an extra day on the front end of their trip, if we had that day open on the calendar
we also started doing the same thing for the day after their scheduled trip. This has led to at least an extra 1k per month in profit in the last month. And hospitable is able to send the message based on seeing if the calendar can accommodate them or not
We also built out a very detailed process for each property to manage our inventory and supply closet with inventory management. It might not seem like a big deal, but inventory control can either be a big saving or a loss driver for your property.
And the tools are always changing - so there are always new things to learn.
So, is this for you and are you ready for it?
What it Really what it comes down to is your attitude. Having a growth mindset and being okay with problems/challenges that are bound to pop up it's kind of the definition of being a real estate investor. And if it was easy, everyone would be doing it.
