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[00:00:00] Sarah: Hello. Welcome back to another great episode. My name is Sarah Karakaian.

[00:00:03] Annette: I am Annette Grant. And together we are–

[00:00:05] Both Annette & Sarah: Thanks for Visiting.

[00:00:06] Sarah: And this is the–

[00:00:07] Both Annette & Sarah: Hosting Hotline.

[00:00:08] Sarah: If you want to get your questions answered on the hotline, all you have to do is go to hostinghotline.com. Ask your question. We’ll answer it here in the podcast. The coolest thing is you guys love this show because you get to hear what other hosts are having challenges with and what our solutions are. Maybe you have a different solution. So it’s a really great episode. So if you’ve got a question, no questions are silly, truthfully, as long as it has to deal with hosting or the hosting business.

[00:00:33] Annette: Sarah, can I give a little story really quick?

[00:00:35] Sarah: Yeah.

[00:00:36] Annette: I want to share that I just recently had a phone call with someone, well, a Zoom call with Whitney, and she is a past Hosting Hotline caller. She’s now joined our mastermind, so shout out Whitney. This is great. I’m excited to start working with you, but she shared with us that one of our tips from our Hosting Hotline about a parent-child listing– if you don’t know what the parent child listing is, we have some YouTube videos.

[00:01:04] Sarah: We’ll put them in the show notes.

[00:01:05] Annette: Put them in the show notes. But she shared that her parent-child listing had made her, I don’t know if it was in one month, I’m not exactly sure of the timeframe, but at least already $5,000, by opening up that secondary potential for guests to book.

[00:01:22] So Whitney, well done for taking our advice from the hotline and putting it to work immediately. If any of you we’ve answered your questions and you’ve also done the same, please email us. I’d love to jump on a call with you too and hear the story, but listeners, please call in. Let us know because we want to answer this.

[00:01:41] We want to help you be more profitable and make sure that you are giving that best guest experience, but we’re here for you, and I just wanted to share that story because if you aren’t doing parent-child listing yet and your property would be a good candidate for it, definitely want you to watch those videos and get started with it.

[00:02:00] Sarah: All right. So again, hostinghotline.com, ask your question. We’ll answer it here in the podcast. Today we’re going to help Matthew.

[00:02:07] Question: Good morning. This is Matthew. Thanks for Visiting has been really helpful for me, so I just want to say thank you. But we are very slow in the winter ones and plan to try a midterm rental strategy. What is your experience with this? What websites have been best for leads? And I have to ask, have you ever been with a squatter situation? They’re difficult. I just want to know how you would address it, but I would love any info you have. Thanks again, ladies.

[00:02:35] Sarah: Thanks for listening, Matthew, and thanks for such a great question.

[00:02:38] Annette: Well, let’s start with where. He wants to know where to list.

[00:02:41] Sarah: Yes. So yes, Matthew, we do have experience with midterm rentals. I can share, Matthew, that you and I share this commonality that we have a short-term rental strategy and then we want to pivot to midterm rentals during certain season and go back to short-term. Because I think there’s a lot of buzz out there about where to look for leads and how much money you can make and how easy it can be.

[00:03:06] And that might be true if midterm rental strategy is your only strategy and you are building relationships with businesses and hospitals and insurance companies, and it is your full-time focus. But Matthew, if you’re like us, we like the short-term rental strategy during our high season, and then we switch to midterm.

[00:03:22] So I just want to preface it with that. And there is some legwork you have to do ahead of time with where we post to find leads because you are going to have to sift through some tire kickers. And when people talk about how sexy these insurance claims are, it has to match up with when we’re ready to accept them.

[00:03:40] Annette: But timing has to be impeccable. Actually, you just dealt with it this week, Sarah. Insurance is normally after something bad has happened at someone’s home. You had– was it lightning struck their home?

[00:03:53] Sarah: Yes. Not funny. That’s crazy.

[00:03:54] Annette: They need stat. They needed a place immediately. So that is one of those things of having those time up is a challenge. If you can get it to match up, it’s great, but just I want to make everybody aware that in theory it sounds super profitable, but again, there might be some lag and time where you don’t have anybody in your property.

[00:04:13] Sarah: And Matthew mentioned, and we’ll get to this Matthew, his squatter question, and that is also why midterm rentals are work. They are tenants after three days stays, I know we often say in most states. I don’t know what states it’s not, but if you guys can let me know, please do. So Matthew, you’re right.

[00:04:30] That is a concern. It’s a concern no matter what, but especially once they approach that 28-day mark. And so you do have to do work in terms of getting all the paperwork lined up to make them tenants and to have all of that in your filing cabinet so you can be prepared if you have that unfortunate situation happen.

[00:04:48] But your first question is, where do you find leads? We find a ton of leads, but also tire kickers on Furnished Finder. Airbnb is a great place. We do list our properties at a higher rate on Airbnb because Airbnb takes a larger cut. And we post on Zillow. Zillow is also a decent place.

[00:05:07] Sometimes a Zillow lead doesn’t understand they can’t tour the property before they decide to book it because usually our properties are either booked by another midterm renter or it just doesn’t line up with the short stays. So that’s a little tough to navigate, but Zillow. And then there’s ALE, which is an insurance housing provider company. They work with insurance companies. And so is CRS. So those are the five places that we find our leads.

[00:05:32] Annette: You said tire kickers.

[00:05:32] Sarah: Yeah.

[00:05:36] Annette: I want to explain. This was something we were just really going over in our mastermind this week too, Sarah. Let’s just share with Matthew so we can prep him how much different Furnished Finder is as far as communicating with the guest, automations, that there is definitely a difference and negotiations there also.

[00:05:57] Sarah: Right now, I don’t know of how many PMSs integrate with Furnished Finder. So right there, we’re taking outside of our usual flow of communicating with leads outside of our PMS software. It’s fine because we are in our email inbox at all times because sometimes guests email us there. So it’s fine.

[00:06:19] Those Furnished Finder leads come there. But it does change up our systems. And then, of course, these people are staying at a place for longer, so they really want to know about the neighborhood and just more specifics than someone who wants to stay somewhere for 2, 3, 4 nights.

[00:06:33] Annette: And the guest is different. So let’s say it is a nurse. They really do want to know, are there blackout curtains? Is it safe for me to come home at certain times? Things that a guest– we had someone that didn’t have any chest of drawers because they were having short term stays.

[00:06:47] And then once they went to midterm, they were like, wait, they’re bringing a lot of socks and underwear. They need a place to store it. They can’t just put it all in the closet. So there are some things there to think about, but yes, the questions are definitely going to be different because it’s a different style of stay.

[00:07:01] And they might be wanting to negotiate more because their contract work, Matthew, will warn you. They have housing baked in to their contract, so they’re actually trying to make money off of that part of their contract. So we just want to warn you about that. And I think it’s part of that Furnished Finder world of trying to negotiate the pricing.

[00:07:22] Sarah: And I will say, listeners, if you’re all interested in midterm rentals, your pricing isn’t like, oh, if my property is usually this much short-term rental, then I can do this random math to get what it would be for midterm. There is a marketplace for a furnished, committed lease, and it’s very different than your short term.

[00:07:41] It’s not like, well, okay, if I make $3,000 this month in short-term and it’s 60% occupancy, I’ll just figure out what it would be for 100% occupancy or vice versa where you’re like, oh, I’ll just cut it in half because I don’t have to find a guest now. You do have to do some figuring out of what that value is for you so that you’re not leaving money on the table or sitting empty because you want way too much because you’re used to that short-term rental money.

[00:08:03] Annette: The last thing on this part before we get to the squatter, Sarah, is let’s guide him on– we had talked about the dance. This is a dance between midterm and short-term, but making sure that he’s advertising in enough time for that winter season. So let’s advise on when you think he should start to open up the dates and have those conversations for the midterm stays.

[00:08:28] Sarah: Yeah, Matthew. For us, we made this mistake previously where we’re pretty good with short-term rentals occupancy and ADR are strong until right after Christmas. And then it dies a horrible staff here in Columbus, Ohio, in terms of occupancy. So we didn’t really start looking for people until right before Christmas. Maybe it was like December 15th, and it just wasn’t enough time.

[00:08:51] Annette: Especially with the holidays too, because they’ve got a lot going on.

[00:08:54] Sarah: Yes. So when we backed it up, changing the units that we do want to convert to midterms, we change the photo, the lead, the head photo that we have on all of our listing sites. We change the description. Hey, we are available for longer stays. Check out the awesome pricing for 30 days or more stays.

[00:09:13] You can talk in marketing terms there what you highlight, whether it’s a work-from-home space or how close you are to different construction projects, if you’re looking for a construction worker or a nurse who’s looking for proximity to a hospital, whatever.

[00:09:26] Whoever your midterm renter is going to be, Matthew, talk about that proximity, change your language that you’re speaking to your potential guest on your listings well before you think you need to. Because it’s going to take some time because also those tire kickers. I’ve had people get all the way to seeing my lease and then ghost us. And I’m like, gosh. That’s another thing too, Matthew. I say that we will not take this property off the market until we have a signed lease and an invoice has been paid.

[00:09:54] Annette: Ooh, that is gold. That is for everybody with the midterm rental because, like Sarah said, they will ghost.

[00:10:02] Sarah: They will ghost you.

[00:10:02] Annette: So until you have that lease signed, they’re ready to go. That’s a really, really great tip because that’s actually something, again, one of the members in our mastermind was up against that challenge this week that someone was all excited about, checking in. They were all gung ho, and then she came to do the credit check and then they went crickets. And she had put so much time and energy and trying to get this one locked in and then we had to coach her on how to stay even keeled and keep it on the market until it was actually dialed in.

[00:10:34] Sarah: And that gives a sense of urgency to these leads. We’ll say, hey, as it says in our listing description, we do keep this on the market until we have a signed lease and a signed invoice from you. So if you are excited about staying with us, make sure to get these things done so that we can take it off the market for you. That’s just what works for us. With this whole episode, everyone, if anyone has mastered going from short-term to midterm and has anything to help me out with anything that I’m saying, I am all ears.

[00:11:02] Annette: Yeah, but when we say that, we mean toggling between the two, not just going full on midterm only.

[00:11:09] Sarah: If it was my focus, you better believe those systems– my systems are still dialed in, but it’s just different when you want to go back to short-term and maximize revenue.

[00:11:16] Annette: During the dance. Oh, one thing Matthew didn’t mention, because we’re still going to get to the squatter, let’s talk about what happens, Sarah, when you do have that midterm guest during those winter months and then trying to get the algorithm and the guests back into the flow on Airbnb after you’ve been crickets for 90 days, maybe 120 days. We need to mention that.

[00:11:41] Sarah: That’s another good point. Just like what you want to be ready to go midterm before you think you need to, you need to start being active on your listings before you think you need to. Change up your photos, change up the description on your listing. Reach out to past guests and give discounts to– hopefully you’re collecting their email addresses.

[00:11:58] Look at your impressions and your click rate where you can, on Airbnb, on your website, whether it’s Google Analytics, and see like, oh, is this picture getting people excited to come back? Oh, it’s not? I’m not getting clicks here. Change it fast. Get it figured out. What is the title that’s going to work? Do it before you think you need to because that is another thing, is, yes, your property lay dormant– on our biggest lead generator is still Airbnb. Our direct bookings are definitely rising, and it’s great, but that’s a great point.

[00:12:27] Annette: And then last but not least–

[00:12:31] Sarah: The squatter.

[00:12:31] Annette: The fear of the squatter.

[00:12:34] Sarah: I will lead with this, Matthew, because I’m with you. I was like, this is why– the only time that I’ve ever had a long-term tenant was when we bought a fourplex and we inherited two tenants. Actually we inherited four. Two pieced out right away, and we kept two. And the whole time we told them like, the only strategy I understand and know is short-term rentals.

[00:12:50] So we told them we’d be happy to work with them until they wanted to move on, and that’s what happened. We didn’t kick them out for our short-term rental strategy. I don’t want anyone getting mad at me there, but because I don’t know anything about that world and I was always afraid of squatters.

[00:13:04] But truthfully, Matthew, anyone can refuse to leave your property, and getting local authorities to help you remove someone who doesn’t have a lease and they haven’t even been close to 28 days at your property, someone in our mastermind actually had this really unfortunate event happen where they just wouldn’t leave after a weekend.

[00:13:21] She needed to really explain to the cops what was happening before they would help remove this person forcefully from her property. People in the property damaged her– it was terrible, and it’s so rare, but it is a risk that we face when it comes to squatters.

[00:13:37] This is why it’s important to make sure that you do a thorough check of their credit, of their background, of their employment, and of their income. And make sure you have a system for this Matthew so that you can document all of it, keep really strong files, and do your best to make sure they will be really great midterm renters.

[00:13:57] And in your lease, check with your attorney in your state, but we outlined the eviction process there, and we have an initial next to it, so they understand we are on top of our stuff, and should you choose this route of not leaving when you’re supposed to, these are the things that we will go through. And we know how to go through them, and we will act promptly.

[00:14:17] You don’t want to permit it and promote it. So would never tolerate late rent or anything of that nature. So just be a stickler about the rules that you both agree to in the lease agreement, and then if it happens, Matthew, your attorney will assist you. Your friends who are in real estate in your area will assist you. And you’ll just take it step by step and you’ll move through it. And when you’re on the other side of it, you’ll have done it.

[00:14:41] And I’ve got a friend who owns 60 properties. We actually had her on the podcast, Jessie Lang, and she only does long-term. And she was like, it’s just something you learn how to do and you get through it, and it stinks, and it costs you money. And once you’re on the other side of it, you pick yourself up and you move on.

[00:14:58] Annette: And what we love about you wanting to test midterm is once you’ve tested it and it works for you, that winter, that cold, dark winter might not look so bad the upcoming winter. Everything has a learning curve. You can work through it this winter, and then hopefully you’ve got it down.

[00:15:18] Maybe you’ll get some repeat guests for next winter, but it can really be something that can be a part of your overall strategy and profitability moving forward. So we wish you the best of luck, and it has worked for us, and we know it can work for you also.

[00:15:32] Sarah: With that, I am Sarah Karakaian.

[00:15:34] Annette: I am Annette Grant. And together we are–

[00:15:36] Both Annette & Sarah: Thanks for Visiting.

[00:15:36] Sarah: Talk to you next time.