Download the full transcript PDF.

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

[00:00:02] Annette: I am Annette Grant. And together we’re–

[00:00:04] Both Annette & Sarah: Thanks for Visiting. 

[00:00:05] Sarah: And this is the–

[00:00:06] Both Annette & Sarah: Hosting Hotline. 

[00:00:07] Sarah: All right. We’re going to talk about large short-term rentals.

[00:00:11] Questions: Hi, my name is Suzanne, and I am building a luxury short-term rental with six bedrooms that has room for 16 people. As I’m designing the space, I was wondering your feedback in terms of the living and dining room spaces being able to fit all of those 16 people and how I should size furniture and dining room tables and chairs.

[00:00:38] Sarah: I love that Suzanne’s asking that question.

[00:00:42] Annette: Yeah, because she needs to.

[00:00:43] Sarah: We’ve been to places where you’re like– I mean, it sleeps four people, and there’s not enough places for us to sit or have a meal. 

[00:00:49] Annette: For sure. We were just chatting with Jeff Brown from Intellihost. If you haven’t checked out Intellihost yet, we’ll put a link in the show notes. But he was chatting about how, um, it’s very important if you are sleeping that many people, that the main gathering area is something that guests are really looking for when they are looking to book your property. So think about it. Yes, the 16 guests are going to need some place to sleep, but the whole rest of the day, they’re going to be enjoying the home. So where are they going to do this?

And it sounds like you’re building the home, so you can get ahead of all of these things. But I mean, there needs to be enough room for every single person to enjoy a meal sitting. Not in other spaces of the home, but together. And then also being able to gather in one area to enjoy each other’s company. And again, that is also, maybe depending on the exterior too, what you’re going to do with the property. So design-wise, Sarah, what are some ideas that we can give her? 

[00:01:59] Sarah: Yeah, I have a lot of personal experience like managing a large home that sleeps a lot of people, and here’s what I learned. For the living space, you definitely want to be able to sit 16 people. They want to hang out together. This is why they’re looking at your short-term rental. So if you’re going to advertise that many people, they want to be able to enjoy time together. I’ve found that doing large, U-shaped sectionals– 

[00:02:24] Annette: Yeah. I was going to say multiple sectionals.

[00:02:24] Sarah: Don’t waste time on space between the chairs. That space between two chairs is a place someone could have sat. So we did the U-shaped sectional and then a nice, um, end table on either end. You can do a sofa table behind the sofa as well as a coffee table between the sectional. For dining, same thing.

And this goes to all hosts. I don’t care how big your place is, this is the biggest miss when people design short-term rentals, who have no experience with short-term rentals, running them, not enough chairs for everyone you sleep, not enough plates, dishes, silverware, and coffee cups, wine glasses. Again, they’re coming to hang out with you. Make sure they can enjoy their time together. 

[00:03:07] Annette: And hot tip, I would put in multiple dishwashers. If you are, uh, getting ahead of this and have the luxury to be able to lay out some things, that’s one thing, is being able to maybe put in two dishwashers. I would think about–

[00:03:22] Sarah: Two fridges. 

[00:03:23] Annette: Yeah. I was going to say if you can’t put two in the kitchen, if there’s an alternate, maybe a pantry or somewhere else in the home that you could put another refrigerator for them. And also, I’m going to put it out there, if you could, install some ice maker. That’s a huge issue for large groups of people. So, uh, Susan, hopefully, this helps you and some other hosts, but really do some space planning here and figure out how you can have all those people sitting comfortably in all of the areas. But great question. And good luck with this. Send us some pics once it’s all designed.

[00:03:58] Sarah: I want to give Susan a couple of other pointers. You didn’t mention how many bathrooms you have. I know you asked for kitchen and living room, but if you have three bathrooms, four bathrooms and there’re going to be people who need to get right at the same time, create some vanity spaces in your bedroom where people can sit in front of a mirror or stand in front of a mirror and blow dry their hair, etc.

Also make sure your exterior hangout spaces are ready for all 16 people. So if you’ve got a fire pit, hot tub, picnic tables, make sure everyone can enjoy their time together. And then last tip is when people are searching for these larger homes, those hero images, Jeff Brown shared with us, from Intellihost, that the hero images that do best with these types of homes are the ones where you showcase this sitting area, the hangout area, where all the people are going to hang out because that is what they’re most concerned about. Where can they gather? So with that, I am Sarah Karakaian.

[00:04:54] Annette: I’m Annette Grant. And together we’re–

[00:04:55] Both Annette & Sarah: Thanks for Visiting. 

[00:04:56] Sarah: Talk to you next time.