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

[00:00:04] Annette: I’m Annette Grant. And together we are– 

[00:00:06] Both Annette & Sarah: Thanks for Visiting.

[00:00:07] Sarah: And this is the–

[00:00:08] Both Annette & Sarah: Hosting Hotline.

[00:00:10] Questions: Hi, Sarah and Annette. My name is Joanna, and I’m in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, and I have an opportunity to pick up a property that has a 2-1 on it, and it also has a 2-1 cottage in the backyard. And before I made a move on that, I was trying to figure out how to make it work, how I would do a listing for Airbnb.

[00:00:36] Would I list both properties together, or would people book those separately? I’m just not really sure how that would work out and if people would be willing to have someone in their backyard that they don’t know. So if you guys have some creative ideas about how to market something like that, and I know you do, just let me know. I’ll be listening. 

[00:00:58] Annette: This is exciting.

[00:01:00] Sarah: Oh, Joanna.

[00:01:00] Annette: Bring it on, Joanna, to us. This is an awesome scenario because you have flexibility. You have diversification. If you want to sell the property, let us know, but let’s help you out today, Joanna. Let’s give her some goods on this. Let’s go.

[00:01:20] Sarah: Okay, Joanna. Yes, you can do this. And the name of the game is clarity. Not only for you, because of course you have to be clear in what you are doing so that you can communicate with your potential guests what they’re getting into. This goes back to making sure when you do market these properties, that your listings are so crystal clear and simple that your potential guest knows what they’re getting into, so it’s the perfect match.

[00:01:44] So here’s the cool thing. You could, yes, sell the nights, sell the properties separately, and you can also sell them together. And so now, instead of having two properties, you have three products. Three different types of stays that you can offer your guests. And being clear in this, can take place in many places on your listing.

[00:02:06] So let’s just say that you’re listing on Airbnb. It’s the simplest way. And you have, obviously, the title of the property, which we like to change the titles to really cater towards who is booking at that time. I know you’re in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, so you’re a bit more South, so you don’t have that seasonality we do, but you have football season. And you have not football season. So for football season, maybe you make that product. You really push them renting the whole property, so that everyone can gather together for the football games.

[00:02:33] Annette: You might be able to get, sounds like, eight to 10 to 12 guests potentially, and you open up, um, when someone’s putting in their guest count, you are now showing up for that larger party.

[00:02:43] Sarah: Right. And then after football season’s over, maybe it’s your slower season. I’m not sure. I’m just guessing here. You can still sell all three products, but you make your pricing more enticing for the individual property. So you can really be as diverse as you can and meet whatever booker you can get.

[00:03:00] Because at that point, on our low season, we’re trying to get as much as we can get at that point to make ends meet. So it’s really about being pricing strategic, listing strategic, and being clear. So in your photos of those listings, whether it’s the first property or the back property, the properties together, in the photos, you can explain it. In the listing, you can explain it.

[00:03:21] And when a guest reaches out, they’ve got questions or they had just booked, make sure they understand what they’re getting at that point then. But I can tell you, Joanna, that we had a property that was a giant Victorian, and we sold the main house, the upstairs, the Victorian, separately. We sold the basement of the Victorian separately. And we sold the carriage house, the apartment above the garage, separately.

[00:03:46] And the carriage house, basement, Victorian all together, Victorian basement together, Victorian garage. Do you see what I’m getting at here? It doesn’t have to be that complicated, simplify it first, but the possibilities are endless. The important thing is that you are clear with your guest.

[00:04:04] Annette: And I think you’re in a really good situation here too because they’re not attached. A lot of times, when there’s a shared wall or like the situation that Sarah was just saying, sometimes there’s confusion. You don’t have any shared walls, so they are two separate rentals.

[00:04:18] You’re not having to explain, there’s a door that opens to both units. It’s like, no, they’re separate, or they’re together, but you could, obviously, if you’re renting that as a larger property, like Sarah said, since there aren’t shared walls, you are going to want to reach out to the guest.

[00:04:30] Make sure they understand, if they are booking it as a larger property, that they aren’t connected, so they’re not surprised when they check in. But I want to offer to everybody that’s listening to this too. Let’s say you have a carriage house, on your property, an ADU, something like that, and you live in what you consider to be the primary space. Why not? 

[00:04:51] If you’re feeling sassy, open your calendar up, like, hey, how many people could sleep in all of our beds? We’ve had people talking about, it’s football season. Taylor Swift’s coming to town. There’s this event coming to town. If you want to figure out a way to diversify your portfolio even further, why not have your primary added in?

[00:05:13] And look, it’s like you price it at a place that you would be willing to clean your place up completely and have guests stay, but definitely ways, if you want to get creative, you can. But Joanna, this is an exciting, exciting, um, thing because I already see this too, where maybe there’s two families that want to vacation together but don’t want to vacation all the way together.

[00:05:36] Or there’s the grandparents and the family. The grandparents get up early, and they’d like to have their own space but share the space. So I think also in that description, sharing that, who this would be great for. But I think you have an awesome opportunity on your hands to diversify that.

[00:05:52] Sarah: Before I sign off, you did ask the question about, are they willing– if they share a backyard with that, Joanna, something that you could decide, this is what we ended up doing, is like on my example, the Victorian with the basement, we decided that the big Victorian, because it was a higher nightly rate, they got the backyard.

[00:06:07] So when we sold the product separately, the big Victorian got the backyard. That way, we were very clear if they had rented to the basement and someone rented the carriage house, we told them, you don’t have access to the backyard. Put yourself in the guest’s shoes, do some test stays with some friends, um, have one pair of friends stay in the front house and another pair of friends in the back house, and see what works best. Sometimes you actually have to go through the motions of having a guest to understand. But definitely, I love that you’re asking those questions. You’re going to do great.

[00:06:36] Annette: And last but not least, you didn’t mention this, but what Sarah just said, do that pressure test. What’s the parking look like? Make sure people aren’t going to be blocking people in, that type of stuff. So pay attention too, if you were at full capacity with two different groups at that property, and they were both guests, how would you handle that? But excited for you.

[00:06:54] Sarah: With that, I’m Sarah Karakaian.

[00:06:56] Annette: I’m Annette Grant. And together we are–

[00:06:58] Both Annette & Sarah: Thanks for Visiting. 

[00:06:59] Sarah: Talk to you next time.