Download the full transcript PDF.
Sarah Karakaian: [00:00:05] You are 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 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.
Annette Grant: [00:00:39] 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: [00:01:02] Hello, welcome back for another great episode. My name is Sarah Karakaian.
Annette Grant: [00:01:05] I am Annette Grant, and together we are–
Both Sarah and Annette: [00:01:07] Thanks for Visiting.
Sarah Karakaian: [00:01:08] All right. We’re going to kick off this episode like we do every week, and that’s sharing one of you, our amazing listeners, using our hashtag on Instagram, STRShareSunday. We’ll share you on the Gram on Sunday, but also to our email list, here in the podcast, we’re now on YouTube, so you’re going to get lots of love. Annette, who are we sharing this week?
Annette Grant: [00:01:25] Today we have @DunRavenRiverhouse, again @DunRavenRiverhouse, and they are in the Catskills in New York. And man, there’s so many things about this property, but I’m just going to give you a little bit of a highlight. They have a private creek, a swimming hole on two acres and a old barn that they use for dining or an event if you want. And it’s very just rustic but beautiful.
And so I really haven’t seen a property, I don’t think, in the recent history of our show, but please go to it because it’s a historic home. And instead of taking that barn and getting rid of it, thinking maybe potentially this wouldn’t be a part of the experience, I think they built the whole experience around that barn.
So when you first go to a property, think about what you want to keep, what you want to maybe accentuate, but if you go to their feed, you are going to see what they’ve done with this barn. You’re going to see pictures of weddings, families dining there in the barn. And just the inside, it’s a historic home, too. So they’ve really just leaned in to the barn and brought a lot of those elements into the inside.
So well done, @DunRavenRiverhouse. Mary’s the host there. I love this, too. They also put it in their Instagram handle. They are women owned and ran. So we all know majority of short-term rentals are women-owned and ran. We just maybe doesn’t get the shine. It deserves all the time.
So I think that’s a lead-in for our guest today who has actually– this is her second time on her show. That’s how much we respect, enjoy, and just want to share the message that our guest has today. So, Sarah, who is our guest today?
Sarah Karakaian: [00:03:10] All right. From 50k in debt to financially free in two years, y’all with short-term rentals, Airbnb, mid-term rentals. Zeona McIntyre has been an Airbnb host since 2012. After 10 years of managing short-term rentals across the globe, she has transitioned to selling real estate to investors looking to house hack or live for free. I will never forget where I was, Zeona, when I heard your BiggerPockets Episode when I was like, “Oh my gosh, there’s someone else doing this whole Airbnb thing” because that was back in the day.
Annette Grant: [00:03:40] Yeah, you just told me about this because we had a phone call with Zeona two weeks ago in the airport, and Sarah was like, “You know those moments where you remember exactly where you were when you heard something on a podcast and she took us back to it when she heard your voice on BiggerPockets.
Sarah Karakaian: [00:03:54] Because actually Zeona–
Zeona McIntyre: [00:03:55] Where were you?
Sarah Karakaian: [00:03:56] I was in– It’s not a glamorous.
Annette Grant: [00:03:58] Well, that we can’t tell. I’m just–
Sarah Karakaian: [00:04:00] So I had just sold our first, quote-unquote, “investment property” in Astoria, Queens, New York, as an operating short-term rental to take those proceeds. We bought it for like 470k. We sold it for almost a million as an operating short-term rental, took those proceeds to the Mid West and I pit stopped in my parents’ house before moving to Columbus.
And just hearing your episode, I was like, I’m making the right decision because we took that home and we were operating as a short-term rental in New York City and we were taking a huge leap of faith and I was hearing another female on the BiggerPockets podcast. It was just like, okay, I’m doing the right thing and I loved your story and your tenacity and your grit. And so Zeona, welcome to the show. Welcome back. What have you been up to?
Zeona McIntyre: [00:04:44] Thank you so much. Oh, my God, this is just like so full circle. First off, I have to apologize for the roosters in the background. I am a digital nomad, guys.
Sarah Karakaian: [00:04:53] We love it.
Zeona McIntyre: [00:04:53] And I am in Maui right now, and it is Rooster happy here. So if you’re an occasional clucking, that’s what’s happening. I think the reason I do this is to hear these amazing stories from people that at some point one thing launched into their whole next future. And so seeing you guys somebody that we admire so much say that like “Oh, they heard my episode” and they felt inspired. I’m like, “Oh man, that’s the coolest thing ever.” So thank you for letting me know that.
Sarah Karakaian: [00:05:26] Oh, for sure.
Zeona McIntyre: [00:05:26] What I’m up to now–
Annette Grant: [00:05:28] Well, actually, Ziona, for people that potentially haven’t heard your first episode, can you give a little bit of a snippet of how you got started with short-term rentals? Because we also want everybody listening to know that you just got to get started because you never know where you’re going to end up. So can you take us back just for the people that might not know your story real quick, that first short-term rental and then where you are today?
Zeona McIntyre: [00:05:51] Yeah. So I started a long time ago. So 2012 was really early days for Airbnb. And so I heard about it from a friend in New York as well. So it’s like the big cities are where everything gets started. And this particular friend had gotten laid off from his job and had this really high lease. I think he was paying 3,000 a month and back then that was a lot of money. And so he was kind of freaking out, and he said, “Well, I heard about this Airbnb thing. I’m burnt out. I need to go travel. Let me see if I can rent out my apartment.”
And after he started doing it, he said like, “Oh my gosh, you have to do this.” He was really persistent about it. And it wasn’t until an entire year when he was able to come back to me and say, I made $50,000 off of this apartment that I didn’t own, that I was like, “Okay, I’m listening.” I’m not always an early adopter, but even though I started a long time ago, it took me a year of him being persistent to get going.
So I started with arbitrage. And nowadays that’s gotten to be really sexy, but I don’t agree with arbitrage. I don’t push people in that direction because I think having equity in a home is so much more valuable. But yeah, I started by just renting a room in a two-bedroom house that I was renting, a two-bedroom apartment that I already had furnished, and I had a roommate who left and I thought, okay, well, if it doesn’t work, I’ll just get another roommate. I have everything already, so no real investment there.
And it ended up being so good that I was renting her old room. And then I was renting my room sometimes and doing trades to stay on friend’s couches. I was just doing whatever I could until I ended up getting more property. So it took me a little while to be able to buy. And then I started buying out of state and it just evolved. So yeah, today I have 12 units.
Annette Grant: [00:07:44] And please, listeners, go back to Zeona’s first episode with us because she goes pretty in-depth on those out-of-state rentals that she purchased, and you will– it’s jaw-dropping what she was purchasing them for, what she was getting for those, and then how she took the proceeds from that and then bought some new builds in another state. So please do yourself a favor and go back to that.
Sarah Karakaian: [00:08:06] We will link to it on the show notes so that you guys can access that really easily. But, all right, Zeona, So what are you doing today then? What’s on your agenda? What’s going on? What have you been up to? What are you championing?
Zeona McIntyre: [00:08:20] Yes, the name of the game for me now is medium-term rentals. And you guys have a really great episode with Julie Gates. So if people want to go back and learn more about that, that’s a really fun one. I met her at a conference and just really liked her. She’s a real sparky woman.
Annette Grant: [00:08:34] She is.
Zeona McIntyre: [00:08:35] Yeah, she’s fun. But yeah, so I got into the medium-term around COVID. It was just like a necessity, and I imagine you guys saw this too, where it was just like from one day to the next all of the reservations were falling off the calendar. I think it was probably around March 8th.
And then I said, “Well, I’ve got to be creative here. What else can I do?” And I started seeing people starting to book longer stays, maybe two weeks for quarantining or different things like that. And so I was like, I’m going to try to tap into this market. And can I do 30 days plus from afar? Because that was the thing that I was really worried about with short-term rentals out of state is not that hard, but medium term I was like, are people going to want to tour the property? How am I going to make this work?
Sarah Karakaian: [00:09:21] Good point.
Zeona McIntyre: [00:09:22] But I quickly figured it out and it’s very doable still from afar. So happy to get into that.
Sarah Karakaian: [00:09:28] Yeah, I have some questions right off the bat. When you transitioned into the medium-term, mid-term rentals, were you doing that on the OTAs? Were you doing that on Airbnb and like VRBO, or were you taking that somewhere else to try to find like Furnished Finder? How did you transition to it?
Zeona McIntyre: [00:09:45] Yeah, so it was kind of early days for Furnished Finder. I think it’s been around a long time, but now it’s like really well-known. So at the beginning, I had a friend who had been doing it for a while, who was a nurse, and so she said like, “Oh, I’m doing Facebook groups.” So it was a little bit of a heavy lift because you’d have to go trolling these sites and posting around and try to see if people respond. So I did a bit of that on Facebook Marketplace. But now between even just Airbnb and Furnished Finder, it’s like really easy to fill all my units.
Annette Grant: [00:10:16] Wonderful. And have all 12 units transitioned over to the medium-term rentals or what’s the mix now?
Zeona McIntyre: [00:10:24] So I have five units that are long-term because I did buy those new construction and I’ve just left them that way. I’m pretty confident they would do better as medium, but it’s just not a necessity for me at this time. A few of mine are strictly medium because now they’re in markets where the short-term rental regulations have come in and you just can’t do them anymore.
And then a couple of others that I can do short-term. I do medium-term like in the slow season. And so that’s like a really great hack for me to bring it all together and round out my books.
Sarah Karakaian: [00:10:59] Okay. I want to get into more about your strategy and how you’re making medium-term rentals work for you. But before we do that, let’s talk about the elephant in the room or what I’m really excited to shout to the rooftops for you, Zeona, is that you co-authored a book about this. It is, correct me if I’m wrong, published by BiggerPockets as well. So talk to us about why it’s important to write a book right now on medium-term rentals and about your co-author, too. I want to know about how you guys came together and why it was important to have two minds on it rather than one.
Zeona McIntyre: [00:11:34] Sarah Weaver is my co-author and she is also a digital nomad. And she’s got, I think, 19 units, and most of them are medium-term. I got her started in that path. She was definitely interested in furnish rentals and when we met, she interviewed me for a virtual conference since back then there weren’t a lot of in-person things going on.
And so she was one of those people that I just latched on to right away. We had like really good banter. And so when she was starting to list her stuff on Airbnb, I was like, “Hey, let me see your listing. Oh, this is wrong. Let me rewrite it.” So we just clicked right away.
And when we first met in person, it was at Finn Con a little bit later that year, which was in September. And at that time I just really wanted to write a book. I had tried a couple of times and writing a book is like a spiritual process I’d say. It’s like, I don’t know. There was so much doubt and questioning and imposter syndrome and all this stuff. And she had ghostwritten a book. So she really came in with the confidence of like, you can do this, it’s easy. And it made me feel like this could be a project that could be good for us to do together.
So yeah, at BiggerPockets that year, which was like another couple of weeks after Finn Con, the idea sprung into my head because I was trying to think, What’s a book topic they haven’t already done? I just started to feel like they’ve done everything already. And so I just pitched them live there at the bookstore they had set up. So, yeah, it’s been a journey, but it happened really, really fast.
Annette Grant: [00:13:16] And it is available right now for preorder, correct?
Zeona McIntyre: [00:13:19] It is. Yes.
Sarah Karakaian: [00:13:20] Okay. So listeners, if you’re listening to this episode, number one, you don’t have to pull over and take notes because Zeona and Sarah have written a whole entire book. So rest assured you’ll be able to get all that. But please do us a favor and order it. Tag us. Let us know. Tag Zeona and let her know you found her through us. But please support them in this book.
So if someone’s picking up this book, what do you think is going to be like the aha moment for people? What was the one message that you wanted to get out to real estate investors about medium-term rentals? What was that message, that thing, people need to know about this, they need to know about this revenue, about this potential.
Zeona McIntyre: [00:13:56] Yeah. I think for your listeners, this is not going to be a huge surprise because you’re already doing short-term rentals. They’re already getting really great returns. I think that the aha for me has always been how can people do long term when you can barely cash flow, when you need so many units to be able to replace your income?
I just never understood that. And so when I started with short-term rentals, I knew I needed to keep that up. And so with medium term, I still get about $1,000 per unit of profit and I really try to stick to that where it’s like easy math.
So if you’re trying to be financially independent or retire, you can say, “Hey, if I need $5000 a month, I just get five units.” It’s not this heavy lift of saying I need 40 just to cover my baselines.
Sarah Karakaian: [00:14:44] I think that’s it. You reverse-engineered it like, hey, this independence isn’t as far off as you think. People all the time are like, “I have 29 units and I’m cash-flowing 100 bucks a month.” I’m like, okay, but do that math and not that $2,900 a month isn’t great, but you’re probably not able to quit your job. And it’s going to take a long time. Incrementally, how much can you raise those rents over time? So that’s your golden number right now is per unit. You want to make an additional $1,000 per month and then obviously you to ever take.
Zeona McIntyre: [00:15:15] It’s a loose rule of thumb because if you’re buying $1,000,000 property and you’re only making 1,000 bucks profit, that’s not going to work. So you still want to have a good return. I usually look for a 15% cash-on-cash return when I’m doing medium-term, and that’s a little harder with the high-interest rate.
So I think if people find a 14%, don’t just throw it out. It’s okay. You might be able to refi a little bit later and get a cheaper rate or something like that. So I think when people get really stuck on these hard and fast rules, it’s like you have to be flexible at the times.
Sarah Karakaian: [00:15:52] Yeah. And know that you buy real estate and then you wait. You don’t wait to buy real estate. And so I think even that counts for today as our interest rates are rising, which everyone there’s still not that crazy town. I’m not saying they won’t get a little higher these months. Go on.
But truly it’s like the time is now. So what markets, Zeona? And not just maybe a geographic market right now but do medium-term rentals in your experience work better in more metro areas that house nurses and people coming for business for longer term or what are you and Sarah seeing when you’re reaching out and you’re doing your research for the book?
Zeona McIntyre: [00:16:30] Yeah. So I’m big on urban markets now across the board because with a pending recession, I feel like short-term rental-only markets, they scare me a little bit. So it’s like if you are in a place like the smokies or something, having a $4,000 mortgage, which is what a lot of those properties are going for, the people that actually live in the smokies, which are not that many, they’re cleaners, they’re restaurant people, they have these cheaper jobs, they’re not going to pay $1,000 a bedroom or $4,000 a month for a house. So what is your backup plan if that house is not rented? And that scares me.
So what I like more are urban markets where you’re just outside of the city. Denver won’t allow you to do it, but in the neighboring cities, you can. So stuff like that makes me feel safer. And so with the medium-term strategy, I think you want to be a little more urban so you can be by hospitals. It’s not absolutely necessary, but it’s a really great way to make sure you do have those other types of clients that you can count on, some nurses being in your rentals. So it’s just good to have as a plan B, even if you’re just doing short-term rentals.
Sarah Karakaian: [00:17:42] Are you mid-term rental first or will you fluctuate those properties that are mid-term rentals and do some short-term between mid-term leases? How are you navigating the medium-term rental leases and in between?
Zeona McIntyre: [00:17:55] Yeah. So I can only do it in some of the properties that still allow it. So like Colorado Springs, I’m grandfathered in. So I got an early permit and so I’m lucky there. But if I ever sell that property, that goes away. So there are certain properties where I can still do it. But a lot of them– I imagine you guys have seen this. It’s just the cities are starting to just tick it off where you just can’t do short-term as much.
Sarah Karakaian: [00:18:20] Yeah. So how do you do it? How do you fill your pipeline with medium-term stays? Is it once you know of a check out for a current guess that you’re already trying to fulfill the next one? How do you navigate that? Give me tips and tricks for our listeners who might be thinking about how to do that.
Zeona McIntyre: [00:18:38] Yeah, calendar management is really important for this. So the thing is that you don’t want to have it open for six months and then have someone book three months from now and just have a weird gap in there. So what I try to do is as soon as I know a guest is leaving, and a lot of times my month-to-month guest, they’re going to extend. So I really check with them. Hey, do you know this is your hard date or are you flexible? In which case I need like two weeks’ notice. And so we play back and forth.
But once I do know that date, I’ll only open five weeks. And the reason for that is I just want someone to book a month plus or minus. And so if I’m on Furnished Finder, it’s opposite of the marketing platforms like Airbnb. It’s just lead gen. So it’s showing you a list of clients with their dates and all that and they’re usually a little bit flexible. So we’ll email all of those people and see if anybody fills in. But if it’s just going to be Airbnb and a random booking, I put at the top, we’re available month to month, but I just don’t want somebody booking it in an awkward way.
And then I don’t do Instant Book. That’s a sad thing that we had to let go of. But I tell people, hey, make a request. And then I usually tell them, can you come two days earlier? Can you come a day later? And they’re usually pretty flexible because often they’re driving out. So it’s a little bit of a different clientele.
Annette Grant: [00:20:04] Oh, so that’s a hot tip right there, is that you don’t have to pull your properties from Instant Book. Zeona, what do you define as a medium-term rental? Is it anything over 30 days or 28 days? What’s your definition of it?
Zeona McIntyre: [00:20:20] Yeah, our book is called 30-day stay because it is anything over 30 days generally. I think a couple of counties or whatever they might consider 28 days or more because of February. But that’s just like a real persnickety. For us, we find that traveling nurses, generally have a 13-week assignment and so they’ll often rebook for one extra assignment and so you can sometimes get that three month or six month from a traveling nurse.
Other than that, if you’re serving more like digital nomads, I’ve gotten people that are exactly a month and they’re like a month in Boulder, then a month in Austin, and they’re just bopping around the US. So it just really depends.
Sarah Karakaian: [00:21:01] And I’ll say too, I’ve seen an uptick. So we’re in a metro market. In Columbus, Ohio we’ve got almost 2 million people. Right now at one of their houses in German Village, we’ve got a guy who was like, “Hey, I’m staying with another host, a medium-term stay, and I need a wait a few days for it to open up.” So these travelers are flexible like you said, and they don’t really have a problem finding a shorter-term stay before they get into their more committed home.
So that flexibility is exciting to know that unlike people for shorter term stays who won’t be coming for an event or they need it for these nights that they’re willing to work with, Zeona. But that working, how much more of a time suck do you think managing medium-term rentals is versus being on Instant Book shorter stays? Do your system still flow? Do you just figure it out and that time communicating with the guests to find out how we can accommodate their travel plans? What does that look like for the host?
Zeona McIntyre: [00:21:58] Yeah, so it’s still early days, I think, for the medium-term rental space. And I don’t know when you exactly started in short-term rentals, but at the beginning, there was no software. And then after a while, all these cool things came out and all these automation and they just got better and better. And so I think now those companies that are making softwares are saying like, ooh, medium-term rentals is thing. How do more automatic leases and how do we just make it a little bit easier?
So I think there’s good stuff coming, but right now it’s still a little bit wonky, so maybe you’re spending a little more time. But the cool thing is that you’re getting these longer-term stays. So one of your properties might be good for three or six months. You don’t really have to think about it for a while. So I still find it easier, even if you’re spending an extra 30 minutes doing a lease or something.
Sarah Karakaian: [00:22:47] And let’s talk about that. So do you have all of your medium-term renters sign a lease with you above and beyond, let’s say they are booking on Airbnb or Furnished Finder?
Zeona McIntyre: [00:22:59] I don’t do it through Airbnb. I think there’s a little bit of a discussion back and forth about that. But I feel like because it’s on Airbnb, there’s this sort of protection that comes through Airbnb. And so I’m not so worried about that.
But coming from Furnished Finder, they’re a little bit more unknown. Furnished Finder already has pretty good guests because most of them are medical professionals and most of those are really background-checked. So I feel good about the quality of guests versus like a Craigslist or Zillow. So basically only if it’s coming through another channel, but an Airbnb or VRBO, I just don’t.
Annette Grant: [00:23:36] Okay. And then I know our listeners are going to want to know, do you do cleaning for them? Do you require cleaning because that is one of the great things about short-term rentals is you’re in your property a lot, you know how it’s being taken care of. Do you just cross your fingers and let it fly or just say a part of the leases that we’re going to come in and perform cleaning, biweekly or how do you deal with that?
Zeona McIntyre: [00:23:58] Yeah, that’s a great idea. The way that I deal with it is I don’t accept pets because I’ve learned that, especially with nurses, because they’re just gone all day long, so it’s a little bit rough. I do find that sometimes with three months, people do not clean at all, and that’s a little bit scary. So the way that we work that is we do a one day turn. So instead of doing a check-in and check-in and check out same day, we usually leave a gap just in case.
So you can still do auto messaging and everything. So you can manually enter their email into something like Hospitable and get all your messages out. So we have a message that says, hey, if you’re wanting cleaning during your stay, this is our cleaner and her rate and you can reach out to her. And so we try to encourage that behavior. But it doesn’t always happen.
Annette Grant: [00:24:52] Got you.
Sarah Karakaian: [00:24:52] So that’s a lot of people in 2020, 2021, they were buying in primarily vacation rental markets, Ziona. And it’s a big topic of discussion. Number one, they say I feel like my bookings are down. And so we do encourage everyone listening–
Zeona McIntyre: [00:25:09] I know they are.
Sarah Karakaian: [00:25:10] And it’s like know your data It’s like okay, but what is your average daily rate? What is your profit margin? Really understand that so you know where you are and where you need to get to make your vacation rental profitable.
But, Zeona, should these hosts who bought a home in 2020, 2021, should they buy your book, and should they see if there’s a way for them to implement this strategy during their off-season? Maybe there is someone traveling who wants a beautiful view of the smokies in between jobs, or maybe they’re a digital nomad. Do you think this could be something that they can try and see if it works?
Zeona McIntyre: [00:25:46] To be honest, I think it would be a little bit hard. So I’m like, “Yeah, everybody buy my book.” I want to be real about it. And so we have a place. So I have a good mix. And I think that’s what I encourage in general, is I have places that are solely vacation rental markets and then I have places that are more urban and I have some that are short term and medium term. And that’s the way to diversify.
So nothing’s wrong, but maybe don’t do everything in one basket. And so for my Panama City Beach townhome, which is basically a vacation rental market, I still try to get a medium-term rental in there because it’s like, wouldn’t some cool snowbirds want to be there from Canada or something like that? And so it is a little bit more work for that if you’re really trying to fill that space because I’ve got an assistant, she’s just on Snowbird Chats, on Facebook and trying to find some things she can post, but it’s worth it.
That market is super seasonal and so normally people just have March through November and then it’s nothing the rest of the time. And so instead of getting maybe one weekend in four months, we’re like, let’s try to at least just break even those couple of months. That brings up our numbers so much. So that’s what we’re trying for this year. We’ll see.
Sarah Karakaian: [00:27:05] And I’m going to challenge you then. I do think host of vacation rentals should buy your book because honestly, even if I have no desire to buy storage containers or whatever or other real estate strategies, they still are on my bookshelf because I think it’s good to know I can get a snippet out of different strategies and different niches within real estate. Because I agree with you, Zeona, there are so many of these down seasons that people who are in vacation rental markets prior to the inception of Airbnb in 2008, what did they do? You know what I mean? And is this new surge of people traveling differently? Maybe it’s time to see if the need is there.
Annette Grant: [00:27:44] Right. And that’s something that might change over time, too, with jobs being more out of the office might continue like start now because one of the things that’s just like a light bulb went off in my head is Sarah and I always encourage you to be collecting email addresses of all your guests. So like Zeona just said, she has a her assistant maybe on Facebook chats. This is a way like, why don’t you send an email to all of your past guests and just say, “Hey, we have availability from November to March. If you’re interested, let us know.”
And it doesn’t take that long to create an email and it takes one person that’s ready to go and they’ve already stayed at your place. They already know the location. So maybe it’s something you just test that way and see if there’s a taker on it, especially if someone they’ve already been in your home. They know where it’s at. They know what amazing space you can give them for an extended period of time potentially. So that’s something that would be interesting, Zeona.
Sarah Karakaian: [00:28:39] That’s a great idea. Yeah, because you can utilize these little soldiers that can go out and tell their friends.
Annette Grant: [00:28:47] I’m just thinking like it’s someone that’s like maybe they came in town because they were visiting a family member and they’re like, “Oh my gosh, it’d be awesome just to go and stay with them for like two months,” and maybe share with them, but like with them, near them.
But definitely, everyone, if you have those down times and you want to make that offer, send that email, maybe block your calendar for 48 hours just so it doesn’t accidentally get booked. Send it out and just say, “Hey, if anybody’s interested” and make them an offer, like a great offer of like, hey, I’m going to give it discounted for the 48 hours if you want to book for a longer term stay and you can have that chat with them and see if you can get some longer-term clients.
Sarah Karakaian: [00:29:22] And now’s the time to be thinking about the off-season. Now, in September, October, as a lot of markets get into their slower season of December, January, February, March. Now is the time to be thinking about what average daily rate you want to try to get, how you’re going to get it, what occupancy rates you need at that rate to be able to break even. Zeona, is breaking even failing or is that just being a smart investor?
Zeona McIntyre: [00:29:48] No. God, no. For us, I think our mortgage is like $3,900. And so if we just get a $200 booking that sucks compared to if you can get someone in there that’s going to pay $3,800, whatever. It’s a little bit less, but we made $90,000 during our high season or whatever, so it’s fine. It’s all just extra anyway. But why not get a little bit more if you can get it? So that’s what we’re trying to do. No, every dollar counts, ladies.
Sarah Karakaian: [00:30:21] Sure. As you’ve been doing medium-term rentals, Zeona, do you feel that snowball effect of getting better at it, getting people reaching out to you versus you always going out and getting the lead? Talk to us about being a medium-term rental business owner, what does that look like the longer you stay focused on that strategy?
Zeona McIntyre: [00:30:44] Well, my game has upped in furniture, I have to say. So I’m feeling sad about that because one thing you find in the medium-term rental space is it’s still like back in the day. So when Airbnb started, it was just kind of like people just had photos from their phone and they know it was a little dark and awkward and minimalist. And now the beautiful designers like Sarah come in and make it so amazing that you can hardly compete.
So there’s just these boutique hotels and a lot happening. But if you go to Furnished Finder, you’ll see that it’s still mom-and-pop. So there’s a lot of room to compete there if you’re somebody who has been doing this as a professional, just having professional photos or having cute or stylish furniture can really make it for you.
And what we’ve found, too, is that people will actually say, I’m going to go get a short-term rental or a hotel for these couple of days so I can stay at your place because it’s the best one I’m seeing in the market, and I’d rather pay more and I’d rather work around my schedule to accommodate that.
Sarah Karakaian: [00:31:50] Okay.
Annette Grant: [00:31:51] Again, so, listener, what Zeona is saying is now is the time to- I don’t know. I feel like sometimes you correct me or not correct me, but maybe I just about I call it like throwing spaghetti on the wall, like just trying a new strategy, writing down how it goes, pivoting if you need to, but we’re in the early stages of medium-term rentals and there is time for you to help us shape the industry.
Sarah Karakaian: [00:32:14] Or here’s the deal, Annette, I know everyone listening, everyone on the podcast right now, hosting is exhausting. You can get burnout. This is a way if you’re like, “All right, I just want a break of the messaging of the turnovers, of all of it.” If you’re at that breaking point of hosting burnout, it’s like, wait, why don’t I get somebody in there for three months or six months?
And that’s what we love about short-term rentals. The calendar is your calendar. You get to control it. So we want to offer that to you too. That might be just something like, hey, I just need some time for me or I want to go on a vacation, something like that. Say if I could get someone in there for a longer period of time, I could just take a little bit of a break from the hosting back and forth.
Or maybe you have a multitude of properties and you want to just scale back a little bit. And you have those short-term ones that are just bangers and making you’re like, “Hey, let’s do a couple of mid-term.” So you’re not doing all the things. So I know hosts out there want to do all the things they want to make all the money, but there are other ways to diversify. Give yourself a little bit of a break and have this other clientele coming in.
Ziona, let’s say a listener is inspired and they have yet to get involved in any sort of furnished rental situation. They get your book. They’re like, you know what? I like this strategy. I want to do the medium-term rentals. And then they go out and they try to find a real estate agent to help them find that property.
As an investor yourself and you’re a real estate agent, what advice do you give people who don’t know anything else? This is their first investment property. How important is the real estate agent in that search?
Zeona McIntyre: [00:33:56] I think as you get more experience, then maybe it doesn’t matter as much. But I always like to have a real estate agent that either owns an Airbnb or manages one. So it doesn’t really matter if it’s short or medium-term, but they need to get that. And what that means is like they’re getting what the regulations are because sometimes it’s very specific to like, “Oh, this is commercially zoned and that’s not.” So it could be street to street. It’s getting the seasonality, it’s getting how to run the numbers. You get so much from someone with the actual experience.
And then they’re also going to potentially have your cleaners and maybe a stager for you. So there’s a lot of resources that you can get. So I just think agents are set up differently. There’s ones that are solely for investors that are doing long-term or kind of more commercial investments. There’s ones that do short-term, and then there’s ones that just help people find their forever home. And it’s just a very different animal.
Annette Grant: [00:34:53] Sure.
Sarah Karakaian: [00:34:53] What kind of questions should someone ask if they’re interviewing their real estate agent? Do they say. I need to find someone who is an investor themselves, or I need to find someone who understands mid and short-term rentals. How important is it that they’re involved in it themselves and what kind of questions do they ask that person to make sure that they’re the kind of agent that might be able to direct them, especially if they do it– so many people now are doing that remote investing and so they call someone they don’t know them from any other–
Annette Grant: [00:35:23] I’m going to answer this. I say, first of all, if they say they’re a host, show me your listing, send me your listing. You probably see this all the time where it’s like, “great Airbnb investment.” It’s like, okay, well, why do you say that? That’s my number one thing. I would say, okay, if you’re a short-term rental or a term rental has some of your listing, I want to see the pictures, I want to see the breakdown. I think that right there will give you a lot of clarity if they show– “Hey, you show me yours.” That’s what I would say to them.
Sarah Karakaian: [00:35:50] What do you think if someone asked to see yours?
Zeona McIntyre: [00:35:52] I totally I agree. No, I think that’s good. Literally, the first question I ask because I’m like vetting agents for other people a lot when I’m sending a referral somewhere and it’s like, yeah, do you own or do you manage? So that’s like the first thing. And if you’re in some obscure market and you can’t find any agent, then yeah, you go beyond that. But those are the first.
And then it is really nice to see their actual listings and see some of the reviews and see how it’s presented and you get an idea of what caliber that’s going to be. So yeah, I think there’s so many people doing it now that you can find agents that will get it. But I definitely think running the numbers is important and asking them, “Hey, can you help me with that?” What are you willing to do as part of your services?
Sarah Karakaian: [00:36:39] Without giving away all the tips and tricks and secrets that are in the book, Zeona, is there anything else you want to make sure our listeners and our audience know about the book and what you’re trying to do and get the message out about medium-term rentals that we haven’t covered yet?
Zeona McIntyre: [00:36:54] My favorite thing about the book is that we do a lot of case studies, which you guys are in one, so that’s super fun. But what I wanted to do is not just make it a dry how-to book. And of course, it’s step by step. You can really start to finish, figure out your location, how to furnish it, everything is there, but we added a lot of investor stories to just make it like a fun read to get people inspired. And most of the investors are women. And so we really tried to focus on that too. And I just think that real estate can be so male-dominant, and I just like to support the women that are out there because they’re doing it
Annette Grant: [00:37:30] Love it.
Sarah Karakaian: [00:37:30] They are doing well.
Annette Grant: [00:37:31] Well. On that note Zeona, tell everybody, tell all of our listeners where they can not only find your book, but we know you have a podcast, you’re on social. Give us all the things right now. Let our listeners connect with you. Where can they all do that?
Zeona McIntyre: [00:37:45] So the book is at BiggerPockets book store, so it’s biggerpockets.com/30daystay. So you can go pick it up now. And if you get it early, there’s a bunch of good bonus materials. So definitely check that out. I have the Invest2Fi podcast. So we talk a lot about financial independence through real estate, so come check us out. And then Instagram is my easiest one to find me. You can DM me there. It’s Zeona MacIntyre.
Annette Grant: [00:38:11] Awesome.
Sarah Karakaian: [00:38:12] Zeona, thanks for everything you’re doing, not only for the real estate industry but for being another female voice. We are rocking it, we’re killing it. And there’s just something about having a lady real estate investor on the show that just gets us excited to go run some numbers after we hop off and see where our next deal is. So thank you so much for your time.
Zeona McIntyre: [00:38:28] And next time hopefully we’ll be in Maui with you and have a chicken.
Sarah Karakaian: [00:38:31] Do we even say that you’re in Maui?
Annette Grant: [00:38:32] Yeah. She mentioned it and the chickens or whatever. They are back there.
Sarah Karakaian: [00:38:37] But you go have a good rest of your day. Awesome. Well, thank you so much. We appreciate it. All right, listeners, I am Sarah Karakaian.
Annette Grant: [00:38:45] I’m Annette Grant, and together we are–
Both Sarah and Annette: [00:38:47] Thanks for Visiting.
Sarah Karakaian: [00:38:48] We’ll talk to you next time. 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.
