Download the full transcript PDF.

Sarah Karakaian:  [00:00:05] 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–

Annette Grant:  [00:00:14] 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. 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 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.

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

Annette Grant:  [00:01:05] My name is Annette Grant. And together we are–

Both Sarah and Annette:  [00:01:07] Thanks for Visiting.

Sarah Karakaian:  [00:01:08] We are so pumped to have you back with us today. Let’s get started like we do. Each and every week, Annette is sharing one of you who’s using our hashtag, #STRShareSunday. We will not only share you on our Instagram channel on Sundays, but also here on the podcast, in our emails, YouTube. So use the hashtag. We are looking for people to highlight every single week. Who are we sharing this week, Annette?

Annette Grant:  [00:01:32] Today we are sharing @Mostess.Host, again, that is @Mostess.Host. And this host is actually near and dear to our hearts. She is actually a coach inside our membership. If you don’t know what we’re talking about, just go to our show notes, sign up for our workshop. But this is formerly FlippinWendy. And we want you guys to please go and check her out on Instagram. And then we want you to check out her website. She has boutique vacation homes in Arizona, and her design is out of this world.

We want you to check out everything that she does in all of her property. She’s also a co-host. So we want you to go to her website, check out everything that she does, from her design, to her photos, to her copy, to the way she runs her co-hosting business. She is on top of it. She has been in the industry for a very, very long time. Like I said, she is a coach within our membership because she has that much knowledge. 

And it’s kind of a segue into today’s episode. I know that Wendy is also very involved in her local community because it is the Scottsdale Phoenix area. And there are a lot of short-term rentals there. There is a lot of chatter about regulations. And she shows up to those events. And so that is an important segue into our guest today. But please follow Mostess.Host on Instagram, take all of the inspiration that you can from Wendy because she absolutely is top-notch.

Sarah Karakaian:  [00:03:06] And maybe you can even DM Wendy, get in touch with her. She has not only transitioned from flipping houses to property management or short-term rentals but she’s also changed her brand. And so if you ever really struggled with pivoting in life, in business, know that yes, it’s scary, but people do it all the time, brands do it all the time when it makes sense for them. And so if you’ve been thinking about it, if it’s tugging at you that you want to change your brand or change the name of your business, there’s got to be a reason to do it. Wendy’s done it. She’s done it with grace. And I know that her business is flourishing. So, Wendy, thank you for using the hashtag. And shall we get on with the show?

Annette Grant:  [00:03:42] Yes, let’s do it.

Sarah Karakaian:  [00:03:43] All right, so today we’ve got Rent Responsibly on the show. We have David who fell in love with the short-term rental hosting in 2013. As a strong believer in the people of the short-term rental community, David co-founded– we’ve got the co-founder of Rent Responsibly here today. He co-founded it in 2019 to help harness the innovation and solution-oriented energy of hosts. And Annette and I love solution-based conversations. Rent Responsibly is a community building and education platform for local short-term rental alliances. David, welcome to the show.

David Krauss:  [00:04:18] Thank you for having me. And shout out to Wendy. I think I know who you’re talking about. She’s fantastic.

Annette Grant:  [00:04:24] Awesome.

Sarah Karakaian:  [00:04:25] She is fantastic.

Annette Grant:  [00:04:26] I do just want to rewind really quick, just so our listeners if you’re newer here. You guys, Sarah and I met at a city council meeting. It is important to show up. We want to let you know that. So not only is it important for your community to show up, it’s important to other hosts, and you never know who you’re going to meet because Sarah and I met there and now have an amazing business together three years later, so show up. It matters. It is important. And so, David, let’s get into your story and you creating Rent Responsibly, and why all these things are so important to our industry.

David Krauss:  [00:05:00] Sure. I would love to tell you the story of starting Rent Responsibly, but I think maybe the prior adventures I was on might be the better place to start. And I have to imagine there are listeners out there right now that feel like they’re potentially a little bit alone in what they’re doing or maybe they’re finding communities in different spaces. But I was one of those. 

I started hosting, as you mentioned, in 2013, during a transition part of my life, when I was moving from Boston, Massachusetts, to Dallas, Texas. And I didn’t want to leave an empty apartment in Boston, while I didn’t know if the Gala I was chasing was going to tell me to turn around and go home when I got there. So I was in a little bit of a precarious, late 20s stage, and just stumbled into hosting.

And it turns out, hosting satisfied some of the desires and urges I always had– the entrepreneurial bent. It helped me with the real estate that I was working on, find a use case, that was a stop-gap at the original outset. And then ultimately, as I settled into Dallas, I was like, I really enjoy this because I like meeting the people. If you don’t like people, you don’t like meeting people, or providing hospitality, probably not the space for you. You all two met at a city council meeting, but you weren’t born to go to that meeting. You are who you were before you got there, and you realize you had a lot in common.

It turns out, there are a lot of character traits of people in our space that are similar. And so I’ll speed up a little bit to Rent Responsibly. After I got settled in Dallas, I started hosting. I started hosting my own property and then my neighbor’s property. You know how that story goes, just this small kind of single operator with a couple of people helping me. And after one incident where somebody had a noisy stay, and I found out about it after they left, which really angered me, but also disturbed my neighbors naturally, I started a company called NoiseAware. Well, actually, I built a solution with a guy named Andrew Schultz, again, meeting people through happenstance.

And he’s an electrical engineer. He built me a privacy-safe noise monitoring tool. And then we said, hey, there’s a lot of other people who might need this. And that led to NoiseAware taking off. And that was really this eye-opening experience for me. And the reason it was eye-opening was you realize there’s a lot of unmet needs of hosts everywhere. And there’s no factory, if you will, of these solutions coming out. Those are just host building solutions for themselves that sometimes work really well and they turn into something.

If you guys are in the education space– you guys are also in the community building space I know, that was something you probably tried, weren’t sure where it would go, and then you enjoyed it, and you kept doing it. That is in the DNA of us, of our space, of our communities. And so through the process that NoiseAware of going out and meeting all these people, you realize themes, and the one thing that kept coming up was, it should just be easier to meet other people on a local level because a, we want to learn from each other, we want to have happy hours and community building efforts, but mostly people just don’t have the story about who we are. And that leads to a lot of the stuff that might have led you guys to City Hall.

And furthermore, this whole idea of education. Where does education as a programmatic or systematic thing come from? In my opinion, it comes from experts. And guess what, we’re the experts. Why? Because we’ve been doing this. We’ve had our hands on all the levers and figuring out how to host and how to manage and operate in the wild world of the 52,000 things you need to do right just to get a five-star review and keep going and do that people piece that you love. So I just saw all this in a fire hose sense, because when you’re talking about noise, you end up getting pulled into the neighbor issues and the city issues.

But ultimately, it’s about education. And that led me to wanting to build a system and a platform for local short-term rental community building. So that’s what Rent Responsibly is. Rent Responsibly is a community building and education platform for local short-term rental alliances. And I will say it is been one of the most incredible and rewarding efforts so far because what you realize is people in this space, like I said at the outset, are solution-oriented, they’re willing to work, they’re willing to hustle, they’re willing to innovate, and we’re just trying to harness that power.

Sarah Karakaian:  [00:09:41] Into the episode.

Annette Grant:  [00:09:41] Mike drop. No, I think probably there’s so many listeners out there right now are like, you are talking deeply to my soul. Yeah, they are solution oriented, they do have 52,000 things that they have to coordinate to make sure they get that five-star review. Let’s get really direct, David. How can listeners– because we do want this to be a call-to-action episode, how can they get involved? It’s more important than ever. Before anybody gets strays away from anything else, how can our listeners get involved with their local communities?

David Krauss:  [00:10:16] Great question. And I will say in a matter of months and years, there will be no doubt that you will have already been added or exposed to your community day one. That’s the goal is you’re never without a community. Right now we are trying to help communities start and build themselves. So what matters is where are you? If you are not in a community that has an existing group, there’s probably one not too far away. And if there’s none in your area, Rent Responsibly has a DIY guide on how to build that.

Now, I don’t suggest everybody to just say, “Hey, there’s not one. I’m going to go build it right away.” It takes some thought and it takes other people. So I would say if you’re action-oriented, which I’m sure you are, because you listen to this podcast and you’re in this space, and you want to solve it, you just want to be in a group, hopefully, there is one in your group, go to rentresponsibly.org, we have a digest or directory of all the alliances around the country. If you know of one that’s not there, you can add it right there. Or if you want to start one, you can raise your hand to start one. We’ll help you do that as well.

And then at the least, sign up for free to rentresponsibly.org and you’ll start getting in this general information flow. We have leader groups, how to start, tools of the trade, and it goes beyond just community building. Oftentimes, we’re just taking questions in and building those resources as quickly as we can. So we are building a community of ourselves, but really that local community, that face to face. Sarah and Annette, I’m talking to two people who walked into a room and didn’t know you would come out with a friend for life and a business partner. 

That is just like a natural outgrowth. This isn’t just get together to fight the outside world or just something like that. In fact, we’re trying to get away from that. It’s really about building solutions for ourselves. And there are a lot of people who want to do that. You’ll find you have a lot of willing friends or future friends that will be willing to help you start your community if there isn’t one already.

Sarah Karakaian:  [00:12:07] But David, I have 52,000 things to do to get that five-star review. Why do I need to make room for Rent Responsibly in my list of things to do and to be involved in?

David Krauss:  [00:12:18] To be completely honest, you might not be the person to build that community. You might be a member. Look, members are as important as anybody else. But there are a lot of people who want to raise their hand. And this is the test. If I said, “Hey, listener, are you a leader?” There are some people who put their hand halfway up. And there are some people like, “Yeah, I love that.” And so those types of people, I think it’s a gene, I really do. It’s the leadership gene. And it’s not that you don’t have sometimes it’s cultivated, it’s turned on or dim, and maybe it’s all the way turned on. And there’s different reasons for that. But there are leaders everywhere.

And the reality is, we as a community need to support leaders who put their hand up and make it easier and easier for those people. So you’re 52,000 things, those are going to be your priority. But if there’s a happy hour, if there’s something happening at City Hall that you want to show up for or need to know about, the community is where those things are going to surface. I will challenge you. I think both of you guys are leaders, I know you are actually. And if it’s easy enough for you to just stick your hand up and it doesn’t feel like one more thing, I think that’s where we need to get to.

Annette Grant:  [00:13:27] Yeah. Obviously, we know that community building is important, but can you tell us some of the results that your communities like– talk to our listeners about some of the things that the communities that Rent Responsibly has built in cities. How has that directly impacted those markets? Do you have some stories you could tell us?

David Krauss:  [00:13:44] Yeah, I think it’s common that we Rent Responsibly and our team are working with people who desperately need help. So that often happens when a city or some other jurisdiction is saying, “Hey, we are looking at the rules and regs in the books, and we want to hear from hosts.” That’s where they always start. It’s like community input community feedback. So the successful groups that start in that moment, they show up, and they have a presence at those meetings, which really ultimately helps educate, not just the city council or the planning department or whoever, but also they’re in a room with all these other people who’ve never seen a host face to face.

So I think honestly, it’s very basic, but the success of groups is showing up and honestly engaging in conversations, which is happening overwhelmingly successfully in groups that are well lauded and well communicated to. And guess what, oftentimes those groups that may not have thought they would see eye to eye, they have these breakout conferences. Same way you two met in City Hall, that’s how it happens. We need to come out and have that conversation. So let’s put that aside because that’s the advocacy and regulatory stuff.

We also have leader groups that are throwing regular meetups and happy hours and planning sessions. And we just had in Hilton Head Island, the group that we work with just did a volunteer effort to help clear I believe it was oyster shells from a beach that were overgrowing. And so something really important to Hilton and they showed up and they were a big part of that and brought awareness to it. So these kinds of community activities, I think, go a long way to build community, but also to just show people the types of local folks that are operating short-term rentals. So let’s call that just general community building.

The last piece of it is education, I think. Right now, there are a lot of people who think they’re in good standing. They’ve never seen a pop-up saying, like, hey, you need to do one more thing or you’re nine out of 10 steps to the way there. One of the things we really focus on is just letting people know what it takes to operate a short-term rental in good standing, compliant, legal, checking all the boxes. Tax alone is a– God forbid, if anybody here is an expert in taxes, hit me up. We need a lot of help just explaining stuff simply. Shout out to Linda in Arizona who demystify Texas in Arizona, but let’s just make that simple. So education around what it takes to be compliant and then also good neighbor practices.

The first thing– and again, you’re talking x noise guy. NoiseAware opened my eyes to just how simple, proactive, and preventative and communication steps that lead up to a booking can actually prevent almost anything and you end up being a good neighbor just by the steps that you’ve taken and put in place. So good standing, good neighborliness, those are two areas where we’ve seen really people not only use and consume and adopt those resources but ultimately changes the conversation a little bit.

I’ll share an anecdote with you. I was thinking about before this podcast, I was like, what was that seminal moment where I was just like, God, what am I doing? It’s like it’ve been eating at me since 2016 until 2019 when I went full bore in Rent Responsibly. I was sitting in a meeting in City Hall, just observing in Palm Springs. And the gentleman on city council said, “Look, if you–” pointing to the general short-term vacation rental community, “If you guys had solved your own problems earlier, we wouldn’t be sitting here talking about banning vacation rentals.” So he basically put it back on us. He said, “Solve your own problems, and we don’t have a problem.”

And then you hear other folks, neighbors city council, whoever, saying, I love to travel and short-term rental. I just don’t know how this is going to work in my own town. Or when I travel, the neighbors don’t know. I’m just coming and going or if they do, it’s a friendly interaction. That should be our baseline expectation. Solving our own problems should be our baseline expectation. Who are we waiting for if we’re not going to do that ourselves? And so that was the fire that burned inside me. And so each step we take, I think, ultimately is trying to build what is our mission, which is a sustainable future for short-term rentals in every community.

Sarah Karakaian:  [00:18:10] Wow. Talk to us a little bit about, okay, when you get involved, like let’s say you were at Palm Springs and you were sitting in at city council meeting. I did debate in high school. So I thought I could write something up and say something that was meaningful, and it was going to get my point across of who I am as a host and how much I love caring for my community and those that I welcome into our homes. But I got behind that mike, David, and I’m going to crash and burn because I was so emotional about it because it meant so much to me. So is that the kind of thing that Rent Responsible could help our listeners with? It’s like, what to say, how to say it, what’s actually going to move the needle, what’s already been said, and we need to tweak it, is that the kind of work that Rent Responsibly is doing in that regard?

David Krauss:  [00:18:57] Well, yes, and no. You said the what to say piece, that is you. You know who you are and what you do. That’s the expertise you need. What we can help with and we do have a guide that’s basically what to expect when you’re up there. This is back to education. Oftentimes, it’s timed two or three minutes. And so you’re going to want to practice, you’re going to want to be brief and in some ways, either dial back on the emotionality if you’re trying to make some data-driven points. Our emotion matters. This is not emotion-free zone. You guys have built a life for yourself. And if somebody wanted to take that away based on things that you don’t agree with, that’s a different story. And perhaps that’s the right message that you want to convey. But that’s personal and that’s up to you.

I will say this too, is if you feel alone, and you’re not sure who else feels like you, there is this element of connectivity to one another that I think gives us all some confidence but also camaraderie. And then ultimately, I don’t think we want to be having these conversations at a microphone for two minutes in City Hall, once all this stuff is already on the table. I hate to say it, but we’re late. We need to have started sooner. And I’m a firm believer that this stuff will get sorted out. It’s going to take a little bit of time and a lot of hard work.

But you should not have to become a professional public speaker or feel that you have. Telling your own story is ultimately one of the missing pieces. People don’t know the humans behind short-term rentals are their neighbors already. We’re not like we just descended out of nowhere and now we’re here. It’s like we were here before, we have to explain it to people. And I think part of it is just stepping up to challenge. It’s not something many of us are used to be in City Hall, but it is a challenge at times for people.

Annette Grant:  [00:20:48] Do you have a resource on your website that– we get this question a lot of when someone just starts hosting, how to tell their neighbors, because we get to different people where they’re like, I’m just going to fly under their radar and hopefully they don’t know, and I won’t bring it up. And then we have the other group that’s like, I’m going to be super honest right out of the gate, let them know what I’m doing. Is there something on Rent Responsibly that teaches a host, educates them on the best way if they don’t live in a predominantly short-term rental area to communicate that to their neighbors?

David Krauss:  [00:21:22] Great question. Yes, we have a resource, but I’ll just say something about those two buckets. Everybody is a good apple until somebody calls them or they find out they’re a bad apple. And it doesn’t mean they’re a bad person, it means they may just be labeled something that they didn’t expect to be labeled. We need to, you guys as educators included, I believe, say that’s unacceptable. We need to be introducing ourselves, period, end of story. Why? Because those are your neighbors.

And in my case, I remember I started renting my house in Dallas. I was moving back to Boston– long story– for a couple of months. And I went straight to my neighbors on all sides and said, hey, I’m going out of town for a couple of months. This is how it’s going to run. I have noise monitoring, I have a ring doorbell, all the other neighbors, even the crossing guard, who I got to know because it was near school, he had my cell phone. That’s the approach, I think that it has long-term sustainability all over it. Number one, it’s the right thing to do. But number two is the golden rule, treat others as you’d like to be treated. Nobody wants a surprise.

And so in terms of the resource that we have, we do have a good neighbor guide. You can download it from our website. And it goes through all the things. Noise, trash, and parking are the three most common complaints. Noise is 75% of them. And here’s the things that you should do as a checklist. And then in the back is a cut sheet that you can print, put in all the information, it’s guest-facing, you put it on the wall, frame it whatever you want. And it’s information about quiet hours and emergency contact and parking rules, trash rules, like it’s on us to communicate that.

Sarah Karakaian:  [00:23:08] Yeah. I want to go back to a little bit about the community activities too because I like what you said the cleanup in Hilton Head. Listeners, listen, Rent Responsibly is a great resource for pretty much anything responsible hosting-related. But I like this idea of like, it doesn’t even have to be this meeting where we come and talk about law, or regulations or taxes. It’s this thing where we just get together as hosts and enjoy each other’s company or give back to the community, not as a way to maybe get that pat on the back, but just to do the thing that we probably wanted to do anyway. So what are some other ways that hosts are getting together to be involved in their community as a doesn’t relate to showing up to City Hall?

David Krauss:  [00:23:47] Yes, I love talking about this. I feel like everything we’re doing for the next couple of years is really to build this future we want to be a part of. And we don’t need to wait a couple of years to get there. But I think the fundamental premise if there was a thesis it’s that short-term rental stakeholders, and this isn’t just owner, it’s also managers, think of all the ancillary business, service providers, the local coffee shops, we’re able to provide a central center of gravity for tourism and hospitality, but also for local small businesses and local service or hospitality providers that no other community or industry in the history of mankind has had that opportunity because the future is unwritten. There’s no gatekeeper if you will, and it’s a local question. It’s a local question because you can’t meet up consistently in person with people from the other side of the country.

So we were born during the pandemic. So everything we did for two years is virtual. But the reality is, I was a host for six years. I’m just going to go to a personal story here. I was a host for six years, and I truly didn’t meet another host in my own time, many, many all over the country. I was just working for NoiseAware. But I didn’t meet anybody locally. And at the end of the day, that was a total shame. There were so many resources we could have shared. There are just stories we could have swapped.

One of the best things I ever did was go to a vacation rental conference where you’re like, oh, my God, there’s a roomful of people talking about exactly what I do every day. And I didn’t know that people even existed. I thought they just lived on Facebook and sent pictures of messy rooms and like, oh, my gosh, this person moved the furniture

Sarah Karakaian:  [00:25:35] Real. Annette, taken out [Inaudible 00:25:37].

David Krauss:  [00:25:36] So yeah, look, there are a lot of us out there. There are 600,000 of us, I swear. And we all are building this thing that everybody wants. 80-plus percent of Gen Z has already traveled in the short-term rental, meaning they’re never going to know a world without it.

Annette Grant:  [00:25:56] Crazy. I have to piggyback. Everybody in our membership knows this. But I tell everybody, when I started hosting, I thought I would be friends– I’m a very outgoing person and network with everybody. I thought for sure that I would be best friends with all my guests. I totally thought that. I was so excited. Well, that didn’t happen. Now, it’s actually way better than I ever imagined. I’m besties with all the hosts not only in our city, but across the country now because of our membership. 

And that is mind-blowing to me. And it’s such an added benefit. And if you don’t have a hosting friend, you need to get into our membership ASAP because it is as great as you’re talking about. It is that amazing to be in that space with everyone that gets what you do every day. And so if you are listening to this, and you haven’t had the pleasure of having a host friend yet, you need to put that at the top of your to-do list stat.

Sarah Karakaian:  [00:26:49] What are some examples, David, of what people that you’re seeing when they get together because of one thing or another or Rent Responsively, other than the Hilton Head example, what are some other examples other than a meeting talking about regulations that you see hosts are doing that are fun?

David Krauss:  [00:27:06] So short answer is each group I think has a different flavor. There’s something like 70 short-term rental alliances across the country at the moment. They have different cadences in different meetups. So I know in Portland, Oregon, for example, Debbie, her church and her group Host to Host they do I think, Tuesday coffees. And so they bring a challenge or item to talk about and they’re meeting up for coffee. That’s one thing. I think that’s cool, Oregon, Portland. So it’d be a little tough for me to get to that frequently.

Sarah Karakaian:  [00:27:36] Portland has great coffee though, so I would maybe fly there to just go have it. Go ahead.

David Krauss:  [00:27:40] I’ve also seen groups come together and do neighborhood walks. So they’ll go to a commercial district, maybe something that a lot of their guests are going to, and they’ll walk around and talk to the different small businesses and say, hey, we’re with the Dallas short-term rental Alliance, or whatever they’re with, and go say, would you like to connect with the travelers and tens of thousands of people we bring in on a weekly, monthly, annual basis? Yeah, we’d love to. Cool. How do we do that? Oh, sign up for this, so and so forth.

So it’s really a little bit about wearing the hat, I think oftentimes, when you say, hey, I’m going to put this hat on. I pretty much don’t take this off because I work from home. And I wouldn’t know if I’m working or not. So when I stop working I literally take off my shirt just to be like, okay, you can chill for a little bit here. But now I realize this is a uniform. And there’s something behind that. You see these hats right here. There’s something behind that. And I think people like that. And so this idea that they can get together and be like, hey, we’re all wearing the same hat. We’re all hosts. We’re all ambassadors for this short-term rental space that we happen to stumble into. But it’s hospitality, it’s community-oriented, and we’re able to connect out into the community further.

The last thing I’ll say, which I thought was really interesting was there’s host groups that have invited people who may or may not like short-term rentals in their community, I’ll just say they don’t, these particular people, and they’re like, I’ve never stayed in one. I just don’t like it. I don’t like the change or the feel or what have you. They’ve invited them to actually come in for a staycation and stay in the rental, go through the whole process, get all the communications, and maybe it’s actually putting up their family when they came into town or discounted stay. So short-term rentals are massive resource to local communities. So different ways to express that– I’ve seen a lot of groups get creative.

Many people don’t know this, but during the pandemic, March 2020, everybody’s calendar was just vaporized. There was no booking. So it was phenomenon as wild as COVID itself, in my opinion, but they didn’t stay vacant the whole time. What they did is they filled in with the types of people who needed private space to stay in during the pandemic. We did a survey. 450 somewhat people responded and 50% of them said they had a pandemic-related stay.

So another thesis is short-term rentals make for more resilient communities through different trials and tribulations. We’ve started emergency accommodation programs in Texas when there was a massive freeze in February of last year. We were helping people find warmth, safe housing for locals, and that was the thing. So that’s the kind of stuff community can bring forth. 

And I think unless we’re connected, unless we’re organized, unless we’re actually building these solutions, and then replicating them for other groups that don’t need to start from scratch, I think we’re not moving forward fast enough and I do see us starting to pick up steam and solve our own problems. Back to what that guy said, in Palm Springs in 2016, we just have to do that. It is just a non-negotiable in my mind.

Sarah Karakaian:  [00:30:50] But I love this idea that, yes, we need to be talking about those legal issues, but it’s just like building a team within your community of other hosts is a great first step. I’ll tell you, listeners, I manage a condo and a four plex, and the upstairs neighbor just kept complaining about noise. And so I kept going over there every time personally. I wouldn’t send a co-host. I would go myself. And there was never an issue. You know what I mean? 

And I would even message the guest like, hey, it’s an old building. Finally, the city ended up reaching out, and they’re like, we’re going to have to shut you down because we keep getting complaints. And I knew that our guests were wonderful guests. And so I actually ended up putting a NoiseAware in there not to noise aware my guests, but as data to give the city about, hey, we’ve got great people in here and I think this neighbor is just being grumpy.

And building that relationship with the city that when I did have an issue, they gave me more grace because I was just involved as a host and I was proactive, I was solving my own problems, instead of just being a doormat and just letting this– I just mean to say it’s both ways. Sometimes we do have guests who don’t understand how to behave in a short-term rental, in a community-based rental, but there are also community members who understand that we are legal, and we are compliant and responsible.

And so just having those community efforts, oh, my gosh, I saw the hosts at the local fair, and they were just doing a walk or they’re meeting at the coffee station or what have you, now your community officials are seeing that you’re involved community members, not as a relates to issues, it’s like your preventative maintenance of your home, it’s like preventative maintenance of our industry and your communities. And it can be a fun thing too where it’s not this serious thing all the time. It’s just building an alliance within your own host network that you’re going to have to either build or join and Rent Responsibly is helping to facilitate that.

David Krauss:  [00:32:36] I’ll add one thing too. I wouldn’t even say it’s preventative maintenance, it is the right thing to do, first and foremost. And second of all, it’s an opportunity. We learn more from each other than you could ever learn online because there’s this mutual experience that we’re all going through. We all had to build our own listing for the first time or even just decide to do this, like that why? I ask people all the time, why did you get started? And most people are like, they almost scratch their head and it’s like, for me I was moving to Texas, and so on and so forth.

And the reality is, there’s a lot of people who start and then take the exit ramp at some point. But if we want to, for five to 10, to 20 to 100 years from now, build the vacation short-term rental, whatever it will be called in the future, this world that we know is like effectively right there, or is already here. But I don’t think many people understand the ins and outs and the nuts and bolts of it all. Who else is going to build that but us? And I think you know the answer to that. But the reality is those who build it will have more influence over the future of it.

And you guys are influencers, you guys are educators, you are community builders. So I’m preaching to the choir on this. If anybody’s listening to this, and you want to be that leader, I’ll ask the question again, do you want to be a leader? If your hand’s forcing its way up, that’s your gene telling you, you are a leader, try. Go find some other people locally, and we can help you do that, build your local host group. And magic will happen. We’ve actually taken a ton of the repetitive redundant, unnecessary labor out of it to make it easier and easier for you to just succeed and do the good stuff, the local stuff, the outreach, the community building that only you can do.

Sarah Karakaian:  [00:34:32] A great topic you brought up is previous to hitting Record was why is company culture important. So can you elaborate on how company culture is related to your efforts at Rent Responsibly as it relates to the host community as a whole?

David Krauss:  [00:34:50] Sure, yeah, I mean, I’ve now realized that I’m an entrepreneur because I’ve started a couple of things. My first startup, I didn’t expect to answer this way, but I’m going to do it anyways, my first startup was a charity. It was something that I was just so passionate about. And my co-founder, my best friend at the– he’s still my best friend. But at the time, we were just trying to solve for a loss we had, and we knew we needed to do something. And so we built this culture of, we’re going to have fun and do good at the same time. And the proceeds from our efforts, we’re going to go to a hospital to buy toys and games for kids at that hospital. It was in memory of somebody who passed and very circular and washed itself in terms of satisfying the goal with things we wanted to do.

And I think culture ultimately is what the result of that was. It attracted people who felt the same way. And culture to me is something that it’s going to form. And if you don’t think about it, and are purposeful and thoughtful about what kind of culture you– and I say you to the leaders out there, culture stems from leaders, culture is defined by the behavior that the leaders tolerate. So if you have bad behavior, and you tolerate it, your culture will accept that. If you don’t tolerate bad behavior or things that just aren’t up to your values and standards, you know how it goes. It’s something that will take on a life of its own eventually.

So I really think– and Alexa, my co-founder, and I thought a lot about culture and values and mission before we even put a website up. And I think that’s served us really well because everybody we’ve attracted into the organization, the leaders that we work with closely, they all dedicate themselves to the greater good, the long-term future, the broader needs of the community, not their own interests. Those are all things that are in the DNA of our organization and our culture. So we’ve been very thoughtful about that.

I will also say, burnout, wellness, self care that is in our culture. And almost because I would blow a gasket if I didn’t like take time off myself and I want everybody on my team to be happy, healthy, well, all these things, enjoy what they’re doing every day, and I take that as a personal challenge to create a culture that celebrates that, and also provides tools and different ways to do that as a team. And as a group, I believe there’s a lot of value in that. 

So if you think about your own culture, whether it’s your family or just even the vibes you put out, your aura, that is ultimately something that becomes almost institutionalized when you start an organization. And I really think it’s something– we talked it about a lot on our Rent Responsively summit a couple of weeks ago. And it was like people really took to that and I think it’s not talked about enough.

Annette Grant:  [00:37:43] I want listeners to know too, when he’s talking about culture, you as a host, you have your own company culture, even if it’s just your turnover team or your maintenance staff. This is applicable to you as every home. You are the CEO of that home. You have your own company that’s attached to that. So whatever those service providers are that you use, and then also your clients who are aka your guests. But, David, I want to wrap up this episode. I want to go back because I want there to be some action here. Number one, we know they’re going to go to rentresponsibly.org and they’re going to check it out.

You mentioned three things, noise, trash, parking. Listeners, I want them to look at those things in their homes today and analyze them and make improvements. Obviously, we talked about NoiseAware. You heard Sarah’s example. That is something to get ahead of. We always see a lot of times in the marketing for NoiseAware, it’s always after, people are interested to get the device after the fact. Let’s get ahead of that, like Palm Springs. Let’s solve our own problem ahead of time. So obviously noise, there are sensors out there. We’ll link to those here in the show notes. But parking and trash, what are some things that you see help alleviate those for hosts?

David Krauss:  [00:38:53] Sure. I think philosophically, there are four stages of a booking or host journey to be proactive. Number one is your actual listing. So like you’re getting started, you’re putting up a listing, how are you communicating the rules? Parking is an easy one to address in this regard because depending on the occupancy of your home, you can take a pretty educated guess about how many cars might show up. If you think there aren’t enough dedicated spots for that many cars, think about the guest. Are they going to know? They’re going to ask the question, well, if we have three cars and there’s only space for two, where are we going to put this other one? Answer that question upfront. So it’s about communication and the listing at stage one.

Stage two is you got a booking, what communication are you sending to that guest? I think one of the most important things to do is get acknowledgment that they’ve read whatever you’re trying to share with them. And so that is step two. Step three is actually check-in day. I’ve found after posing 1,500 reservations that check-in day is the end-all-be-all day. The area’s excited. They want to unpack, they want to do whatever they came to do. You’re not going to have a ton of attention span. 

So some sort of outreach or check-in whether it’s automated, “Hey, how’s everything going, you’re checking in and I want to make sure everything’s great.” That’s something I instituted as soon as there was any automated messages. And I never had a quarter it wasn’t an Airbnb, super host. It was just checking day alone where you need to make contact with the guests and make sure everything is all good, especially things like understanding the house and the home and parking and things of that nature. 

And then the last is in stay, which to your point is sometimes it’s a little later, even prevented it if there’s an issue in stay. But by the time the stay is over, the opportunity to be a good neighbor is over. So that in stay peace, I will also say hosts have a spidey sense. If you have a spidey sense that you need to check-in–

Sarah Karakaian:  [00:40:50] You probably need to check in. Yeah, that is correct.

David Krauss:  [00:40:54] I will say it’s honed over time, but I will also say that you are operating something that is very important and meaningful. And like you said, you’re the CEO of the home. You can’t just ignore that spidey sense, or you shouldn’t. It doesn’t have to be you, but think about can somebody go check on the property for you? Can somebody go check in? There’s a million ways to do this. We could go on and on about it. 

But I really think those four stages if you haven’t thought about how you’re communicating and what your practices are in each of those stages, you’re being proactive, reactive, do you have technology, are you validating your spidey sense, things like that. At the end of the day, time will tell whether you’re doing a good job or not, but I don’t think we have the luxury, if you will, to just trust that everything’s going to be great and learn as we go. That’s old news. That’s the old way to do it. Now you got to step up.

Sarah Karakaian:  [00:41:45] I think that’s what helps Annette and I get up every day to do what we do, listeners, is because there’s a lot of set it and forget it education out there. And we talked about the importance of education. But I think it’s the kind of education that’s going to carry you through years and years down the road. And the set it and forget it sales tactic that we’re often fed is dangerous to our industry because if we have this mindset of just finding a cleaner and then piecing out, that’s a great way to sabotage the longevity of the short-term rental industry. 

It is work, it is rewarding work, but it takes– and even once you set your house rules, or you discover the parking– city parking patterns change, things change. So it’s important to revisit your listing, revisit your messaging before there’s an issue and just have that be a habit of yours. You can always tweak and be involved and update your business operation.

Annette Grant:  [00:42:37] That’s why your guests count. Sarah and I are anti-heads in beds. That’s why normally if your place has two bedrooms, you’re not sleeping 10 people because that’s cars, and that’s a lot more trash. So that’s also why this anti heads and beds thing it’s like it’s all a trickle down of the way what the house was built for and intended for originally. So yeah, those are the trickle-down things that when you see a listing that has an exorbitant amount of guests being able to spend the night, can the rest of the home, aka the outdoor parking and trash facilitate housing that many people. 

So I think that’s something that people forget about if they see an apartment that can sleep eight people and it normally have two those are those trickle-downs that are very important there. This was awesome. David, I know that there are some hosts hopefully, that are rethinking their noise, their parking, their trash, and how to connect with other hosts, and you have given them so many action items. Please reach out to Rent Responsibly, everyone. But if you have one final call to action or one final comment, the mic is back over to you. What would you say, David?

David Krauss:  [00:43:46] I would say this has happened before. This cycle of what feels new to many people, but a new emerging dare I say disruptive technology that has enabled something that people want to do has happened before and it took a while for the rules of the road if you can guess where I’m going with this rules of the road, that it took a while for it to shake out till I really agree that these are the rules of the road. So in the automobile when it rolled off the assembly line, the Ford Model T in 1908, there were 200,000 cars on the road, there were quickly 2 million cars on the road seven years later, and there were no rules built for the automobile. So they were now side by side with horses and buggies, which went five miles an hour, automobiles went 20 miles an hour.

It took a while for them to realize, hey, we need speed limits, we need Driver’s Ed, driver’s test, we need stoplights, and so on and so forth. That is that moment that we’re in right now. NoiseAware is seatbelt, let’s say. Rent Responsibly is ultimately just getting the professional drivers or the experts or the auto enthusiast or the gear heads as they call them back in the day into a group so they can say, hey, let’s just solve these problems, innovate, and build tools and figure out how to educate the next newest driver. And all of the sudden, if you read CDC websites like I do, please don’t make fun of me, automobile public safety efforts are lauded as one of the best things United States did in the entire century. And guess what, we had Detroit, we were the motor capital of the world.

I really think we haven’t figured out the rules of the road till the point where we don’t have to visit them again. But it will happen. And in the next three to five years, it took 30 years for the automobile, but we have three years is my estimation to get this right, figure out the education, figure out the standards, figure out how we get together. And ultimately, the future is very bright. Then we can have a lot more happy hours, a lot more block walks, and community group events, and charity events and things like that, volunteer events, and less and less City Hall having you panic, or whatever, feel uncomfortable with a microphone trying to tell your life story in two minutes. That is not our destiny. Believe me, it’s not, this has happened before and it is up to us.

Sarah Karakaian:  [00:46:14] David, is there a specific way you want listeners to reach out to you or is it via the Rent Responsibly website?

David Krauss:  [00:46:20] The Rent Responsibly website, I’m happy at david@rentresponsibly.org to take any questions that your likers and subscribers have. But also join Sarah and Annette in their group. I hope to be a part of that too. Ultimately, the answers are out there. They’re not always on listicles. They really reside in people who’ve had this similar experience. And look, if you’re a leader, look in the mirror and there are other people like you who are making it easier to start building community at a local level.

Sarah Karakaian:  [00:46:48] We appreciate everything you and Rent Responsibly is doing. David, thank you so much for your time. My name is Sarah Karakaian.

Annette Grant:  [00:46:56] I’m Annette Gant, and together we are–

Both Sarah and Annette:  [00:46:58] Thanks for Visiting.

Sarah Karakaian:  [00:46:59] We’ll talk to you next 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.