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[00:00:00] Sarah Karakaian: You’re 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– 

[00:00:15] Annette Grant: And Sarah’s extensive hospitality management and interior design experience, we have welcomed thousands of guests from over 30 countries, earning us over a million dollars and garnering us thousands of five-star reviews.

[00:00:28] Sarah Karakaian: 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] Annette Grant: 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. Before we dive into the content, let’s hear a word from our sponsor.

[00:01:01] Sarah Karakaian: Hello, listeners. Welcome back for another great episode. My name is Sarah Karakaian. 

[00:01:06] Annette Grant: I am Annette Grant and together we are–

[00:01:08] Both Sarah and Annette: Thanks for Visiting. 

[00:01:09] Sarah Karakaian: And we haven’t Ask Us Anything episode. We are doing this every Monday. Now you can participate. Go to thanksforvisiting.me. In the upper right hand corner is a red button that says, Ask TFV and yeah, we’ll answer your question. And I know Annette and I we had a lot of DMs and emails wanting advice and opinions. 

[00:01:29] Annette Grant: And we’ve been doing it for years and we’re like, wait a second. There are so many questions and some of them are so amazing. We need to share this with everyone, not just the person asking it, because almost all of the questions that we get pertain to all hosts in some way, shape or form.

We’re actually really excited about this episode. This episode can be a money maker for you. So please stick around to the end. This lovely listener Brandy, she actually gave us one whole question, but two separate parts. So we’re going to break it down into two separate parts, but please give it a listen, and we guarantee there is a money maker in this episode for you. So let’s get into it, Sarah. 

[00:02:08] Question: Hey, ladies. I have lots of questions, but maybe I’ll send these in one at a time. My first question, I think is, do you have a favorite or a go-to tried and true outdoor Wi-Fi lock or one that’s done via Z-Wave or Bluetooth? I’m really looking for something that I could hopefully do through Wi-Fi, probably not Bluetooth because then you have to be somewhat near it for an outdoor lock. That’s my first question. 

[00:02:36] Sarah Karakaian: We’re going to pause Brandy. Brandy, thank you so much for that. Do we have a favorite outdoor Wi-Fi-enabled lock? And let me tell you, listeners, I’ve gone through my fair share of locks. 

[00:02:50] Annette Grant: Just like I’ve gone through my fair share of boyfriends. Just joking.

[00:02:53] Sarah Karakaian: It’s a different kind of podcast, Annette. Anyways. Oh man, you date men. I’m dating locks right now. So I’ll tell the ones that I don’t like because some of you listeners might be shopping for locks. And if you have these locks, it’s not that you can’t use them. It’s just, they gave me too many headaches, and I’m trying to–

[00:03:11] Annette Grant: And you have to share that. We have to share that with you. 

[00:03:14] Sarah Karakaian: Yeah, because I’m trying to– I’m sure you have a saying for it, but when something takes up, it happens three times and it’s an issue, we got to get rid of it. We got to move on. And if that means selling a lock and buying another one, I’m here for it. That’s my personality, and so I need to move on, pivot, move on. 

The lock that I don’t like, everyone, is the August lock. The August lock is the bane of my existence. The reason I fell in love with it is because it used to integrate with– it might still– Airbnb. And so it was a great option several years back when Airbnb was number one, the only channel we leveraged and it was a great introduction to automating locks with the guest reservation, except it rarely did it well. And sometimes you’d go to program a code and it wouldn’t program the code and you’d have to restart it. Customer service is also not great. So don’t get the August lock. 

I also don’t love the Nest lock. Now if it’s for your home, I actually do the Nest lock, but if it’s for your short-term rental and you want to get team members to help you or you want to scale, it’s not going to be a great lock to scale with in my experience, because now it connects with Google home and you can only have so many quote-unquote “home members” on it.

So that’s also limiting because we’re over here trying to grow and scale. So I don’t like the nest lock either. I’m probably getting some feedback from listeners, which is great. We welcome that. But I actually don’t really love the Schlage on code. It’s a very popular lock in our industry because it is Z-Wave and it’s Wi-Fi-enabled and it’s really easy to program guest codes, but it has that same problem that August had, where sometimes I go to enter a code in and it won’t save it. And I’m panicking because a guest is checking in in a couple hours and I go to try the app again and it’s not working. And it’s like, what the heck? So that’s an issue. 

And also there are some softwares out there, listeners, that are short-term rental savvy, vacation rental savvy, apartment building savvy, and as you grow, you might want to tap into these softwares. Two of them are RemoteLock and PointCentral, and they don’t work with the Schlage on code. And what those companies do for you is again help you tie into a guest reservation so it is hands free. You do not have to set guest codes. Every guest code–

[00:05:40] Annette Grant: Is super safe. There’s redundancy. 

[00:05:42] Sarah Karakaian: Is new, has extra code and it only works for literally the moment the reservation starts and ends the moment the reservation ends. So it’s really nice hands off approach. There’s also lots of fun things you could do if you’re– maybe you’re in a Metro market or you are quote-unquote, they call them corporate rentals, but whatever, if you are leasing out rentals in an apartment building, these are nice because they can have a common door, have the same code for your guest as apartment one. And then guests staying in apartment two has a common door code, but it’s different than apartment one’s common door code. So it’s in depth if you will, but the on code does not work with these softwares. So there’s that.

[00:06:25] Annette Grant: Let’s get to what I do. [Interposing voices].

[00:06:26] Sarah Karakaian: Let’s stop talking negative stuff. 

[00:06:28] Annette Grant: By the way, this is probably a quote you’re thinking of, fool me once shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. Fool me three times, shame on both of us. So that means you and the lock. So get rid of that. All right. Yeah, but give us the tried and true. 

[00:06:40] Sarah Karakaian: Here’s the lock that I like. I like the Yale Assure lock touchscreen, A-S-S-U-R-E. A-S-S-U– 

[00:06:49] Annette Grant: Why are you spelling that one again? We’ll make sure that it is linked in these show notes also. 

[00:06:54] Sarah Karakaian: It does work with both PointCentral and RemoteLock if you are thinking about leveraging those softwares. It does work with other smart home technology, so you can still program it and control it from your phone. And they’re pretty. I know a lot of us these days are really into the whole black thing like matte black or they call it, I think a satin black color. But if you like black versus a oil rub bronze or a polished nickel, they have black and it’s really pretty. And here I’ll give you this tip too, and we’re going to talk more about this, but they have a keyed version where yes, it’s a smart lock, yes, it’s a key tab. There’s also a key in it. And we’re going to talk more about that as we move on through Brandy’s question. 

[00:07:36] Annette Grant: And we would again be doing you a disservice, if we did not tell you this, Brandy and every single listener, yes, we want you to have a smart lock, but you have to have a backup physical key on property, very nearby so that the guest, if there is any issue with Wi-Fi, maybe they just can’t figure out the smart lock, you need to have a lock nearby that they can access 24/7 rain, sleet, snow shine. You have to have that super nearby. So please, you will save yourself a ton of time, heartache and help a guest out. This, again, we say this all the time, it’s not if it’s when this happens, when your guest is going to need that backup key.

[00:08:17] Sarah Karakaian: I was going to always tell this story about [inaudible 00:08:19]. So this is not very long ago. So miss experienced Sarah just failing fast. I had a smart lock on a door and it did not have a key– 

[00:08:27] Annette Grant: It was not smart.

[00:08:28] Sarah Karakaian: Not smart. It was smart, but it wasn’t smart. 

[00:08:30] Annette Grant: You weren’t smart. 

[00:08:30] Sarah Karakaian: It had like a juice power everything. If the battery died, you could put a nine volt to it and it was supposed to re-energize, but sure I didn’t have a nine volt nearby. But even more importantly, of course, the smart lock died on Christmas day. My guest– 

[00:08:45] Annette Grant: Always something like that, by the way.

[00:08:48] Sarah Karakaian: My guest was in his shorts. We are in Columbus, Ohio. So he is walking his dog in his shorts for a quick– take the dog out for a quick pee. 

[00:08:55] Annette Grant: Potty. He got to go potty. 

[00:08:56] Sarah Karakaian: The lock died at that exact moment. You guys Christmas morning my inspector frantically called me. She was like, “I don’t know how to solve this without you. You need to come help me.” And I went to the property. Didn’t grab a nine volt. Why I didn’t do that I don’t know. But I didn’t have a key for it. It was a building, so we tried to call other guests on Christmas day. How terrible is that? It was terrible. So I learned that lesson the hard way. Make sure you get your smart lock has a key option. 

And then, listeners, here’s your next tip. Annette says store the key nearby. We saw some other hosts do this and we thought it was brilliant. They mounted a lockbox to the door jam. 

[00:09:37] Annette Grant: And you put emergency, like you can have a label that says emergency lock because you don’t want guests going straight to that, but it is right there. 

[00:09:44] Sarah Karakaian: If you put it on a door handle, sometimes guests will think, even though you tell them it’s a smart lock, like they’re on vacation brain and they’re going to go for the lock box. So if you’re hanging up from a handle, definitely put a label on it that says, emergency backup on it. If you put it on your door jam, it’s less of a– your brain doesn’t go there like that’s how you get into the home. So that’s why I like that option or on the wall up right outside of it, or if there’s a railing nearby. But just that way, if you’re messaging the guests, you’re talking to the guests– you’re like, oh, I’ve got you. Here’s the key.

[00:10:12] Annette Grant: Easily direct them because they’re already flustered. So if you’re like, it’s the third grassy node to the left, they don’t want to hear that. You know what I mean? They want to find that key fast because they can’t get in. They just want to get in.

[00:10:23] Sarah Karakaian: So take that lesson learned and then also you got to have a key on your– 

[00:10:29] Annette Grant: There’s a key on property and there’s a key on your–

[00:10:31] Sarah Karakaian: Key off property, yeah. So you’ve got multiple keys, yeah, but back up here, back up. 

[00:10:34] Annette Grant: Great question. And again, we’ll make sure to link to that lock. 

[00:10:40] Sarah Karakaian: You ready? 

[00:10:42] Annette Grant: Let’s do it. 

[00:10:43] Question: My second question as it relates to locks is do you have one that you like for indoors? So let’s say you’re going to section off your house and during the week you only want one of the rooms to available or you want to have basically two different listings for one house, because it has multiple rooms and you can do that. So what lock do you recommend for indoor and trying to set that up? Would it be the same lock like a Yale, or how do you say that? Schlage or is it completely different?

And the reason I’m asking is I like the idea of those locks so that you can set your short-term rental up as two different listings or maybe even three different listings based on the person looking for the house, what they need, how many bedrooms. 

And then also finally, my last thing is, is there any reason why you wouldn’t use these locks indoors, for example, like if you were going to allow someone to use it and use the lock, so that way maybe like if they had like– I’m just trying to think why someone would need it and want to use the lock, but is it possible that someone can get locked in or locked out like if it’s a child or a infant napping or something? I’m trying to think of a reason why you wouldn’t use inside a house. The only thing I can think is like, if electricity went out or Wi-Fi went down and you couldn’t get a child out, that’s what I’m thinking of on the inside locks is if like a child could not get out. Would the lock still work if the Wi-Fi went down?

[00:12:10] Sarah Karakaian: Brandy, good question. Such good questions. Do you want to talk about–? 

[00:12:14] Annette Grant: Yes. We did a whole episode. We want you to please go back and listen to it if you haven’t. It is Episode 165. It is from late May, 2022, and it is double your bookings with this STR listing strategy. And we have gotten so much feedback from this episode that people have taken our advice in this and they’re making it happen. And so we’re going to leave you hanging with that one. Go listen to that episode because– 

[00:12:47] Sarah Karakaian: That’s your money making–

[00:12:48] Annette Grant: That is the moneymaker. It’s a way to have– 

[00:12:50] Sarah Karakaian: And it’s exactly what Brandy is talking about. 

[00:12:53] Annette Grant: Multiple listings under one roof and not having it be a multi-family. 

[00:12:57] Sarah Karakaian: We’re not talking hostile style. By hostile I mean where people just rent a room out and there’s common spaces. It’s different products that you can link to each other and just get more exposure on the listing sites ethically. 

[00:13:10] Annette Grant: A larger and smaller listing. So your four bedroom home could turn into a three bedroom and then to a two bedroom and then a one. So please go listen to that and you can change the setup of your home, you can change all the pricing of your home, that way you’re catering to more potential guests that are looking for the pricing and the exact amount of guests that they need during their stay.

And this was really good for off season, shoulder seasons, during the week, for instance, that’s when this was really popular for us. So dig into that episode. 

[00:13:42] Sarah Karakaian: And digging deeper in that episode, which we didn’t do probably too much because of the other content, but the lock situation, what lock and Brandy asks a good question, do I need to be careful at which lock I pick so that we don’t have a situation where someone is stuck in a room? And, Brandy, absolutely, I will tell you another story. This is not my story, thank goodness. But I have a friend who is a host and she put– you know those doorknobs that the keypad is on the doorknob? 

[00:14:11] Annette Grant: Mm-hmm.

[00:14:11] Sarah Karakaian: And so she put it on a basement so that she could lock it off, but if she needed guest to go down there, like, I don’t know, maybe a circuit, they still go in easy. A guest did that. They went down to the electrical panel and the door closed behind them and it locked them down there.

[00:14:30] Annette Grant: Oh no. How’d they get out? 

[00:14:31] Sarah Karakaian: Well, and he was by himself too, so he didn’t have no way to call her.

[00:14:35] Annette Grant: Well, wait, how did he get out? Broke the door down? 

[00:14:37] Sarah Karakaian: I actually don’t even know. Maybe he was staying with someone when finally came back. I don’t know, but regardless we don’t want that to happen.

[00:14:45] Annette Grant: So let’s give this lock that will be able to have a key and– 

[00:14:51] Sarah Karakaian: So it’s the same advice, make sure whatever key you get or lock you get, it has a keyed component. And for this lock, I don’t think you need to go smart lock route. You can just do the keypad route. And they are battery operated, but they will– well, I think most all of them have the option to recharge it with a nine volt, but again, I would have a key component. Let’s just go old school. Keys have always worked. Let’s just stay with it and have a backup key very, very nearby, easy to find so that if there’s ever an issue with our first backup, which is the nine volt recharge, you can unlock it with a key.

But I don’t think you need to go smart lock, Brandy. Save yourself for money. Here are the locks that I like. I like the Schlage B as in boy, E as in Edward 365. And that is the keyed version and they have two different styles. They have Plymouth, which is a square look. So it’s a little bit more modern. And then there’s the Camelot and they have beveled corners, so a little bit more of a traditional look. 

[00:15:49] Annette Grant: BE365 Schlage. And who can commiserate with Brandy on how to say it? 

[00:15:55] Sarah Karakaian: Why did they name their company that? They have great product. Everyone’s like Schlage. 

[00:15:59] Annette Grant: That one looks like someone last name. 

[00:16:00] Sarah Karakaian: Yeah. Right. Sorry, whoever it’s paying homage to. The next one, there’s another version though.

[00:16:05] Annette Grant: Yeah, so this version is F as in Francis. Well, you’ve always used men’s name with that. So those are Francis.

[00:16:11] Sarah Karakaian: Francis can be a girl name. 

[00:16:13] Annette Grant: Francis [inaudible 00:16:15] FE695. Now that is not a keyed version, but it does have that nine volt boost on it. So you could put a nine volt battery in a lockbox super nearby. Just get the key though. 

Just get the key one, but that one’s nice too. So there you have it. We like the Schlage keypads for the indoor doors and we like the Yale assure lock, touch screen for your exterior doors. They’ve been working for us for almost two years now and I don’t hate them. So that’s saying a lot. 

[00:16:48] Sarah Karakaian: Also let’s put the lockbox in the show notes too.

[00:16:50] Annette Grant: Oh yeah. We’ll do that. We’ll put the lockbox in the show notes.

[00:16:54] Sarah Karakaian: I have two that I like, and I found that I really like that mounts to that door jam, and it has this little cover that goes over it.

[00:17:01] Annette Grant: Yeah, it’s sleek. 

[00:17:01] Sarah Karakaian: It’s very sleek. And again, I don’t think guests have not yet confused that with like, oh, I’m supposed to take this thing off and get no– 

[00:17:09] Annette Grant: It is really handy. It’s right there. It’s awesome. So we’ll link to that too.

[00:17:13] Sarah Karakaian: And listen to episode 165.

[00:17:16] Annette Grant: To make yourself some Money. All right. Let us know your thoughts. Again, ask us all the things. We’re here for you. 

[00:17:23] Sarah Karakaian: Yeah, participate. Please go to thanksvisiting.me. Find the red button at hand corner, ask us your question, ask us anything regarding short term rentals or business growth. I don’t know. Or ask us something off the wall. It might be fun. That could be fun. I guess we only publish it if it’s safe. With that, I am Sarah Karakaian.

[00:17:44] Annette Grant: I am Annette Grant, and together we are– 

[00:17:45] Both Sarah and Annette: Thanks for Visiting.

[00:17:46] Sarah Karakaian: Talk to you later this week. Thanks for listening to the Thanks for Visiting podcast. Head on over to the show notes for additional information about today’s episode. And please hit that Subscribe button and leave us a review. Awesome reviews help us bring you awesome content. Thanks for tuning in, and we look forward to hanging out with you next week.