Hosting Your Home - Airbnb host stories

Join Debi Hertert and Michele Fitzgerald as they talk about Michele's vacation rental in Sedona (that is not on Airbnb). Debi and Rob traveled to Sedona, Arizona in early 2017 to find some sun, and stayed in Michele's wonderful vacation rental home. She teaches intuitive methods, leads tours in Ireland, operates on-line businesses and manages her beautiful and successful vacation rental. And, as you will hear in the podcast, she has big plans for next year! Michele doesn't use Airbnb – and explains why. (9:00) How did she get started? She'd owned this property for a long time and it was her first home in Sedona. She bought another house, and turned this house into a metaphysical center. In 2005 she began an on-line training program instead of the classes in the house – she was paying the mortgage and in 2007 she converted it to a full-time vacation rental. She had very relevant prior work experience training managers of long-term rentals. Michele has a 1-week minimum, Saturday to Saturday, and an 80-85% occupancy rate. She has a good closing percentage, which she attributes to her sales background and that she has the opportunity to make relationships with potential guests. She explains her process in some detail. (14:00) As soon as the inquiry comes in, she emails people directly. She doesn't use an auto-responder. All the bookings and payment goes through Michele. Guests are told by Home Away or VRBO that they will receive a PayPal invoice from Michele. Debi and Michele discussed the upcoming change to Home Away that had been announced that would prevent hosts from communicating with guests [ed note: as of July, 2017 this still seems imminent but has not yet been implemented]. Michele includes a rental contract as an attachment to her PayPal invoice, and it's part of the Home Away contract that guests sign. She dispensed with security deposits to simplify things, as she rarely had any issues. (22:30) Michele is moving! Far away! She will sell her main home in Sedona, but keep the rental and manage it from afar. (26:00) Tips for owners of vacation rentals: Michele strongly believes that her intentional clearing of space between sets of guests is responsible for much of her success in having pleasant stays. She plans on training her housekeepers to do this for her when she moves. (and maybe a webinar for listeners of HostingYourHome on how to do this :) We wish Michele great fortune in her move into the next phase of her life, and appreciated our time with her. Links: Cottage info: http://www.sedonaportal.com/senzar-lodging.htm HomeAway listing: https://www.homeaway.com/vacation-rental/p253278 My training business website: http://www.sedonaportal.com

Debi Hertert interviews Portland Superhost Evan Ross, owner of Cycle Portland. She visited Evan at his Cycle Portland business in downtown Portland. They first met at the 2017 Host2Host conference where Evan participated as a vendor. The two began with Evan's hosting experience in the popular Alberta Arts area. He began hosting in January, 2017. Evan does the cleaning himself – he initially thought he would see how it went by doing the cleaning himself, and so far just doesn't find it so difficult and can fit in other work like phone calls while he cleans. He has prior experience as a guide and finds that experience helpful in hosting. Bicycling – this is Evan's 9th year of leading bike tours as a business. He initially went to school in mountain guiding, whitewater rescue and other outdoor challenges. He had traveled in several continents and when he moved to Portland he found there was no one providing tours. Being entrepreneurial, he opened his own touring business. Their talk ended up with a discussion about Evan's involvement in Portland's transportation committees, his thoughts about the housing shortage, and the impact of the local Bike Share program "BikeTown". It's very clear that Evan stays involved in trying to help Portland deal with contemporary issues. One of our podcast goals is to help hosts connect with their local small businesses. People like Evan who do both roles can really help make this goal happen. Check out these links: Cycle Portland: https://www.portlandbicycletours.com Evan's Airbnb listing: https://www.airbnb.com/rooms/16255848

In this episode, Debi Hertert talks with Alanna Schroeder of "The Distinguished Guest", a vendor at the Host2Host 2017 conference in Portland, Oregon. Alanna started as a commercial real estate agent, then wanted to have another baby, so started renting out her house in Lake Tahoe. She recognized a need for a source of higher-end products for vacation rentals and started a business. She spent a lot of time sourcing products, finding those that looked good and are good. Alanna tries to source from large providers, so the same products will be available a year from now. She ended up getting so busy with her Distinguished Guest business that she put the Lake Tahoe property on long-term rental, and now has a place in Hawaii on short term rental including Airbnb. She has some clients that stay multiple weeks, even up to three months. Debi asked Alanna about her third business, "VR Mastered". It's something that Alanna is doing with Tyanne Marcink and Beth Carson of Vacation Rental Travel Magazine. VR Mastered is basically a boot camp to teach people how to get on social media of Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, Pinterest and Twitter to market their properties. Also helping people edit their listings on the main platforms. She found that most of the people in her first group were not familiar with social media and were excited to learn the techniques. Check out these links! Alanna's premier vacation rental supply company: https://www.thedistinguishedguest.com/ Her vacation rental "Bootcamp": http://www.vrmastered.com/ And Alanna's Hawaii vacation rental: http://princevillevacationrental.com/

Download Episode! Prior to the Host2Host 2017 conference in Portland, Debi Hertert of HostingYourHome interviewed Andrew Kitchell of Wheelhouse. Wheelhouse provides a pricing service for short-term rentals. They analyze the pricing of the local home-sharing listings, local hotels, and current events. Those three components affect pricing of accommodations, and Wheelhouse uses data scientists to make highly informed pricing decisions. The current product allows a high degree of personalization by the host, as Andrew discusses during the interview. Debi is a user of Wheelhouse and is highly interested in how it works. Here are some points that came out in the interview. Listen all the way through, for Andrew's special offer!

• Andrew talks about how Wheelhouse started. His home was in the first 100 homes that listed on Airbnb. He co- founded the company after one of the principals attended a Y Combinator Accelerator meeting and heard about "Airbed and breakfast"; and now they have grow to about 23 people.
• They analyze the home space, like Airbnb, Expedia, and Trip Advisor; the hotel space; and the event space.
• They then analyze your particular listing and how it has performed in the past compared with other nearby homes
• Allow customers to customize how they want to handle special situations, like orphan nights, weekends, etc – the newest platform allows personalization on the part of the host.
• Debi mentioned the emotionality of setting your pricing. You don't want to give it away, but at the same time you don't want to set it too high. It sounds like Wheelhouse is giving the host a lot of control.
• Wheelhouse does recognize that setting prices can be emotional and in some ways it is better to remove some of that emotionality through using the software. But if you want to manage weekends, seasonality, etc., you can now do that. Wheelhouse really recognizes that there are many nuances to setting prices that hosts want.
• Debi asked about her Gull House rental at Seal Rock, Oregon. It's in the path of the eclipse, a once in a lifetime event. Debi wants to be in the middle, not too low but not too high. For now, she has just blocked it out. The Wheelhouse pricing for that month shows the eclipse time as an elevated price, but whe wondered if that set the price for the whole month? Andrew replied that the eclipse is sort of an "extreme" event; with cases like that, the impact should be limited to the days for that event. That's the challenge for the pricing engine, and it should be appropriate. But also, Wheelhouse allows the user to set specific rates for certain nights. It recognizes that they are not perfect, and that the host might pick up on something that Wheelhouse software hasn't found.
• Debi asked about special configurations, like max nightly price etc.
• She asked about Home Away and Trip Advisor and Airbnb; at this time, they show up as separate listings on the Wheelhouse dashboard. In the next few weeks, if you work with Guesty, or Booking Sync, you will be able to link to Wheelhouse.
• How does Wheelhouse differ from other dynamic pricing? Investment in pricing science: they have four data scientists on the team, three are PhDs. They feel like they will be able to do the best predictions. Part two is the control they give the hosts, offering last minute discounts, seasonality and other customizations. He has a lot of respect for other pricing companies, like Everbooked, but thinks they have produced a well-differentiated product.
• Debi asked about Airbnb's smart pricing. Andrew said he isn't sure of the long term role for Airbnb (or any other "marketplace" provider) in producing best pricing. He says they are a great team, have great scientists, but as they are the marketplace, they may not be the best in setting prices. He thinks pricing can be done best by third parties.
• Debi asked about cost. Wheelhouse charges about 1 percent of "managed revenue", and says that they return closer to high 20's percentage; and that they have never lost a paying customer (!). They also do not charge hosts for nights that the hosts end up setting their own rates.
• Debi asked then, how easy is it to cancel? She had an experience using a different company that entered prices into the calendar way into the future and had a hard time deleting it. Andrew said that hosts have full control.
• Andrew discusses a special offer in which new users can get 10 free bookings!

Check out the following links: https://www.usewheelhouse.com/ https://www.usewheelhouse.com/ personalize https://blog.usewheelhouse.com/ https://www.usewheelhouse.com/demo

Listen in as Nolan Mondrow, founder and CEO of LockState is interviewed by Debi Hertert of Hosting Your Home. LockState offers electronic locks for Airbnb hosts, and in a beautiful illustration of responding to hosts' needs, the codes for the locks are produced automatically within the Airbnb platform. The host does not need to change the codes for each guest. The product is integrated with Airbnb (and VRBO) and is called "RemoteLock". LockState also offers a lock that does not rely on having an internet connection at the house, yet still allows owners to remotely set unique codes for each guest stay using what Nolan calls an algorithmic method. That product is called "ResortLock". It doesn't have the direct integration with Airbnb but does have some different benefits. Nolan says he grew up in Denver, spent years in Japan and other places, and returned to Denver. He and his wife bought a house there and then bought a ski condo in Keystone. Without intending to rent it out, much less make a business of it, they eventually started renting it on VRBO and Airbnb and it is super busy. Nolan loves interacting with his guests, and the side benefit of giving him a personal connection with how well his lock products are working for hosts and guests. He shares a very funny story about how he ended up in the lock business, beginning with a shipping container full of safes from China that needed a home. He began LockState in Denver and now has over 20 employees and the company is growing rapidly, distributing their products worldwide. LockState not only attended the Host2Host conference that Debi and friends put on in Portland in April, 2017 but sponsored it. Nolan and his company are clearly aligned with the hosting community and they use that alignment to identify and solve problems that hosts need help with. Check out LockState's website at www.lockstate.com

Debi Hertert interviews Rod Fitts from AVROA, in her series of Host2Host 2017 Vendor interviews. AVROA stands for "Association of Vacation Rental Operators and Affiliates". Rod began this company in 2008, when the recession wiped out his education business and he needed to reinvent himself. The model of AVROA is to provide a free listing platform to members, so that owners can inexpensively gain exposure outside of shade cast by the large listing platforms. You will hear Rod's obvious enthusiasm for his association and mission. Visit AVROA's website at www.avroa.org

Join Debi Hertert for her interview with Portland's Becky Knecht (pronouned "connect"), owner of TBH Clean, specializing in Airbnb-style homes. Becky's company slogan is "Your Mess is Our Mission!" Debi is working her way through interviews with hopefully all of the vendors who are attending the Host2Host 2017 conference in Portland on April 22, 2017. Becky cleans for Debi and several other local hosts. She is so dependable that she hasn't ever missed a single clean for Debi, something Debi brings up in their interview. Becky says "The condition of your property is the first impression for your guests. TBH Clean takes pride in partnering with hosts to help maintain a clean space and make sure it's welcoming for guests, with all the small touches. We grow by helping you grow, and are committed to make sure that every detail is to your satisfaction. TBH Clean is ready to make Portland shine!" You can find Becky's company info at www.facebook.com/tbhclean

Airbnb host Debi Hertert of the HostingYourHome podcast interviews Carlos Rafael Camarena, a Portland, Oregon photographer who specializes in architectural photography and is expanding to add Airbnb and other short term rentals. Carlos is a professional photographer with a background in portraiture and real estate photography. In early 2015 he seized an opportunity to create images for and serve commercial architecture and interior design firms in Portland, which became a footing to make the move from Central California with his wife in late 2015. Debi and Carlos met two years ago and when the Host2Host conference came into being, Debi remembered Carlos and asked him to participate. He not only agreed to speak, but is doing photography for the day as well, and throwing in an amazing prize for a lucky participant. You can see images from the two Airbnb/VRBO homes he mentions in the interview: go to http://www.carlosrafael.photo/sellwoodairbnb and http://www.carlosrafael.photo/p883172008 To see examples of his architectural photography, go to www.carlosrafaelphoto.com

Join Debi from HostingYourHome.com as she interviews many of the vendors who will attend the upcoming Host2Host 2017 conference in Portland, Oregon. Vendor support is critical for Airbnb hosts who want to provide the best accommodations and hospitality for their guests. Insurance is a critical issue and not always understood by hosts. But it does not have to be difficult, as we learn from Geoff Dorn. Geoff is an insurance agent with Country Financial in Portland and has been serving families and small business owners for ten years. He uses his experience to help his clients choose the right insurance solution to cover their Airbnb exposure.

No interview! In this episode, Debi explains her dream of having a local Portland conference to support Airbnb and other hosts, and how it's come true: Host2Host 2017. If you don't see the links to the conference in your iTunes or whatever podcast listener you use, go to HostingYourHome.com and check out the show notes. This is a nice episode to just learn how one person's motivation to make something happen can come true, further made possible because of the tremendous contributions of time and knowledge by a dozen other local hosts who have brought this conference to life. And Airbnb has really stepped up and helped when we have asked them to. If by any chance, you can be in Portland on April 22, 2017 this conference is inexpensive and can help you out, whether you are just thinking about hosting or are a veteran. The local conference is called 'Host2Host" and so this year, it's Host2Host 2017. A non-profit organization was established, Host2Host.org and all proceeds from ticket sales and vendor contributions are to fund the conference. If there is any extra income, it will go to support the following year's conference, and if Host2Host.org dissolves, Central City Concern has been designated the recipient of any remaining funds. Debi talks about her initial motivation to just connect with other hosts, and from that desire, starting the local "HomeSharePDX" Meetup.com group. Our first meeting was right after the first Airbnb san Francisco Open, and 30 monthly meetings later, this group now has 212 host members. The largest meeting had 85 people attending. It greatly helps that Airbnb's North American Operational Headquarters is in Portland, because they are available to us for solving issues, doing tours, and just connecting with us to support the local hosting community. If you are not a member of Debi's HostingYourHome Facebook group, you should go to your normal Facebook, look for the "Groups" box and click it, then search for "HostingYourHome". It's a closed group, so you have to request to join and Debi will accept you. There, you will find discussions there that augment the podcast. Registration page: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/host2host-conference-tickets-31695336605 Information page: https://www.facebook.com/search/top/?q=host%202%20host%3A%20a%20sharing%20event%20for%20portland%20area%20airbnb%20hosts