Download the full transcript PDF.

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

[00:00:03] Annette: I am Annette Grant. And together we are–

[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. 

[00:00:08] Sarah: If you want to get your hosting challenge answered here in the hosting hotline, head on over to hostinghotline.com. Record your voice, share your question. What seems most specific to you will actually help thousands of hosts, not only in our country, but beyond. Today, Ryan was so kind to share his question with us about his lakefront property that’s really close to a downtown area.

[00:00:32] Questions: Hey, Annette. Hey, Sarah. This is Ryan from Minnesota. I recently discovered the TFV podcast, and have been enjoying it very much. Thanks so much for all your hard work. I converted an LTR to an STR last year with stellar results. I just went live with my second home, an executive lake home on 920-acre full rec lake minutes from downtown Minneapolis.

[00:00:52] Epic East views over the water and Minneapolis’ss downtown Skyline View. It has a game room, a hot tub, boathouse, all the bells and whistles. What I need is some guidance and information with respect to marketing, pitfalls to avoid, and the safety of the home and its guests when you have a lake home that’s so close to the metropolitan area. I can find information about lake homes further away from the metropolitan area, but not so close.

[00:01:16] The suburb is located in just past a six-guest cap on all STRs. This works great for this 3,400-square foot home since it only has three mammoth bedrooms. Any and all information you could help me out with would be so appreciated. Keep up all the great work, and I look forward to hearing your next podcast.

[00:01:34] Sarah: Ryan.

[00:01:34] Annette: Thank you.

[00:01:36] Sarah: This is a little pep talk from Ryan. Thank 

[00:01:38] Annette: We like it. We like it, Ryan.

[00:01:39] Sarah: Okay, so Annette and I were talking about his question before we pressed record today, and I think we can unpack a ton of stuff with Ryan. He’s got this awesome lakehouse with awesome views that’s very close to a metropolitan area. And I think he wants to know how he can be super transparent about its proximity to a metro market and considerations that he needs to take into consideration versus someone who might be further away from metropolitan area.

[00:02:09] Annette: It sounds here it’s about aligning the guest with the property. They’re going to have to make sure that meshes. 

[00:02:15] You said something that really stood out to me of executive property. I, right away was like, this is like a staycation or a workcation environment. And I think the first thing that I thought about was you direct marketing this via maybe there are CEO magazines, monthly magazines, certain periodicals. Yes, I said that, the Dewey Decimal system. But there might be certain periodicals, certain websites in your area to really highlight who could enjoy this home, home away from home, but really close to the metropolitan area.

[00:02:54] Because it doesn’t sound like, what you’re saying, there’s a lot of information about maybe lake stays in the summer, like, oh come for the entire week with your family. It sounds like it’s a little bit closer there. So I would just define who this would be perfect for. Start advertising there. Just a little bit of money.

[00:03:10] Start to take account. Really have a conversation with the current guests that are booking and loving their stays. See if you can find a similar guest. Where do they hang out? Why did they book your place? I would ask some of those questions, especially since you just launched this listing to figure that out.

[00:03:28] I know Sarah’s going to talk about– you have a six-person cap, so it sounds like you want to make sure you’re a great neighbor so there aren’t more rules and regulations. So we’re going to tell you about tech to use there. And then also about the particular guest staying.

[00:03:43] Sarah: Annette and I were trying to understand Ryan’s question and the undertones of his question, and I’m picking up on him being nervous that maybe it’ll be a place where people will want to come and have a party, an unwelcome party. So he didn’t say that directly, but wondering if that’s one of his concerns. 

[00:04:00] And Ryan, a couple things you can do. NoiseAware is a great piece of technology that we’ve used to help us automate the communication between you and the guest. If they start getting louder than a threshold you’ve set, it’ll automatically text your guest– it can call them too with an automated message and let them know like, hey, this noise level’s going above and beyond what the community allows. And then finally, it’ll notify you when you need to be notified, but it’s a really great way to just remind the guest had to be good neighbors here.

[00:04:33] Annette: And that technology can work inside and outside. And for a lake community, that exterior noise monitoring might be very, very important.

[00:04:42] Sarah: Yeah. And I also wonder if, Ryan, you have a process for making sure you are pairing the right guest with your property via the direct booking. So if you do advertise in local publications, or maybe you are calling, I think–

[00:04:58] Annette: Periodicals, Sarah.

[00:04:59] Sarah: Periodicals. I think if you call real estate brokerages and say, hey, I’ve got this awesome property, like an entrepreneurial Mastermind getaway, Ryan. 

[00:05:07] Annette: Mm. I like that.

[00:05:08] Sarah: But to do that, you still want to make sure that you are vetting your guests. And so we use, and there are other products out there, we just haven’t used them, but we use Know Your Guest by Superhog. And so Ryan, if you do ramp up your direct booking process via these periodical advertisements, you can use Know Your Guest as a way to make sure that hey, they are who they say they are.

[00:05:30] They’re going to really respect your property, and therefore be good neighbors to your community. So I think those are a couple things that you can do right off the bat. And let’s say you don’t want to ramp up your direct booking. Maybe you want to press the easy button and just leverage OTAs like Airbnb verbal and that sort of thing.

[00:05:46] Just go hard on your copy onto who you want to attract, like an entrepreneurial getaway mastermind here, all those sorts of things. Because I also think, since you’ve got three mammoth bedrooms and a limit of six people, you’re going to have to get the guest who is willing to pay more because I don’t know what your numbers look like, but right away, my mind was like, ooh, he can’t sleep a whole ton of people, so that pricing strategy has to be spot on. 

[00:06:11] And you might have to get that kind of guest who’s willing to pay more for all those amenities. And that view, like Annette said, a staycation. And I think executives are great. 

[00:06:21] Annette: Last, but not least, make sure to put in your house rules that it is a city ordinance six guests only. That way, if someone’s like, oh, I want to bring to our– I cannot allow more guests, that way if you get into that situation, you can call any of the OTAs and say, it is listed right here per city ordinance I can only allow six guests. That is breaking a house rule, off the rip.

[00:06:47] Sarah: And think about, if this is resonating with you, Ryan, and you do market to executives and entrepreneurs, what do they want inside the property? Every year, Annette and I, when we go and plan, whether it’s quarterly, every year, we always bring with us those whiteboard things from Staples, those pieces of paper that you can put on the wall. Maybe a dry erase board, somewhere they can truly mastermind and brain dump.

[00:07:10] Annette: Yeah. And we do the HDMI cord that connects to your computer. Make sure there’s like airplay, so they can toggle and put their computer screen on the television. But I would pay attention to who’s booking and who you’d like to book. Make sure the photos represent that for you.

[00:07:27] Sarah: You may have to do some message mining with your past guest, Ryan, to really understand what they want and need. And then you’ll be off to the races with matching your property with the perfect guest. With that, I am Sarah Karakaian.

[00:07:39] Annette: I am Annette Grant. And together we’re–

[00:07:40] Both Annette & Sarah: Thanks for Visiting.

[00:07:41] Sarah: Talk to you next time