what's up YouTube it's Richard founder of short-term rentals secrets.com and
Airbnb super host on this week's Q&A we're gonna address the questions that
we've received over the last week and if you have a future question go ahead and
leave a comment below if you haven't subscribed to the channel take an
opportunity right now we'll pause so that you get notified because in the
future we're gonna do some of these live and you want to get that notice when
we're going live hi Richard thank you for your cool videos can you please tell
us what your Airbnb vs. VRBO slash HomeAway ratio like in percentage what
is the percent of deals you get from Airbnb and what is it for VRBO slash
home away I have certain properties where I don't list on VRBO at all like
for instance the properties that I have in New York City it's an urban area I
have a lot of success with Airbnb I have super ho status I'm as busy as I need to
be and so therefore I don't need additional bookings and so I don't have
it at all I have other properties that are more
traditional what I would consider VRBO and VRBO is vacation rentals by owner
couldn't excuse me so I have traditional properties that are historically VRBO
listings in say like Colorado and there I have listings on both VRBO and Airbnb
I do business on Airbnb but not nearly the same amount that I do on VRBO
so if I had to do one or the other there I would choose VRBO slash home away and
turn off air B&B but I list them both because I do get an occasional Airbnb
listing and then I have another property down south in Alabama again I listed
both on VRBO and home away and also Airbnb and while the split isn't 50/50
it's close enough it's like 60% VRBO home away and 40%
Airbnb and that 40% is really meaningful so I can't answer the question as it
relates to your listing or where you are but what I can suggest is if the RBO and
home away is in fact charging a 5% fee there's really no harm or foul in
listing it you might as well go ahead and list it and figure out whether or
not it does very well for your listing type in your community in your region
etc before when they have the flat rate it was a real barrier to entry like
who's gonna pay 400 or 500 dollars to find out if it works
but if you pay for performance try them both and figure it out
considering the cost of renovation how much should I spend on entertainment a
television in both the loft and bedroom or just in one location a TV in the loft
area would mean that my family and I would be able to hear what they're
watching so here's my answer to that I don't know what your budget is and I
also don't know how much you rent for or how often you want to rent but it sounds
like this is a shared environment and your family's living there and you've
got the spare loft that you're renting out now my number one thing for me
personally and for people that want to do this sort of as a perpetual side
income a steady stream of income is that it has to be sustainable and repeatable
and what I mean by that is it doesn't really make any sense to go out get more
rentals with the television and spend more money and then get really annoyed
that there's somebody living in your loft because you can hear the TV and
your kids can't listen to their TV and so on so my very first suggestion would
be figure out what your priority is is this something that's like a meaningful
set of income and you'd like it rented out 52 weeks a year is this just a side
thing where you're on vacation or once a month you want to rent it out and you
can live with it so before you worry about how much to
spend and how much money to rent really go back to your fundamental why like why
are you doing this if the money is the primary reason and you and your family
are willing to sacrifice whatever it is because you want rental income you're
trying to save up for another property you're trying to save up for vacation or
school or whatever it is and you're willing to listen to that noise then I
would definitely suggest getting a television in the loft televisions are
relatively inexpensive you can get a smart TV that streams Netflix and
YouTube and other things for as little as $400 or $500 if you increase the
number of bookings and/or the amount that you're able to get per booking
it'll pay for itself relatively quickly again I wouldn't do that though if it
turns out that you start to like dislike having people there and you get turned
off against air B&B and you go out of business that makes no sense all right
here's a question it's kind of lengthy so I'm gonna try and paraphrase it but
basically this person's property is on a tropical island in Mexico people save
for their vacation long in advance and if they cancelled with too little notice
it's unlikely to get booked again so she's actually reached out to Airbnb
requesting this super strict 60-day policy and Airbnb
basically turned her down and she wants to know why and so here's my answer to
that think about the fact that Airbnb in a very short period of time has gone
from like this you know what people used to think about couchsurfing and
Millennials and shared rooms and so on to being the largest hotel company in
the world and while they're doing this right now and they own no real estate
they want to get even bigger and so the way for them to get bigger is for them
to encourage more people to stay in Airbnb ease and the only way more people
are going to stay in Airbnb ease is if the terms become even more competitive
and more similar to a hotel so if you think about what Airbnb is doing like it
or not and whether they say it or not they're trying to take people that would
stay in the Marriott or a Hilton or a Comfort Inn or whatever and put them in
your home and I've never checked into a hotel that has a no cancellation policy
or 60 day policy and either has Airbnb and so the reason that they're trying to
restrict all that and the reason they're encouraging things like instant booking
and so on is to get people that haven't stayed in Airbnb is to not fear Airbnb
is to try air B&B recognize how great it is and the more people that do that and
the more people that talk about it the more people that book a second time and
a third time the more people that become hosts the bigger the whole pie becomes
and what they need is host to cooperate with that and say okay you know I might
take it on the chin for this one week but I would rather have a smaller piece
of a larger pie than have a really great income for that one week and have a
smaller pie so what Airbnb is trying to encourage everyone to do is turn instant
book on have more lenient cancellation policies and if I had a crystal ball and
had to look forward 10 years from now I would say everything is instant booked
and everything has a very flexible cancellation policy and it's probably
not even 10 years it might even be 10 months or 10 quarters all right here's a
great question it's super important especially if you view Airbnb and
vacation rentals is like a primary source of your future income and you
want to grow with it and the question is thank you for all your videos I've
learned a lot so far quick question do you own all your properties under your
name or an LLC also do you carry an umbrella clause insurance now I'm not a
lawyer I'm not a CPA I don't tend to be and so I can't give legal
advice or financial advice but what I can do is tell you what I'm doing
personally and I'm reviewing all of this right now I've actually spent a fair
amount of time on YouTube filming on YouTube I believe in YouTube and so one
of the things that I found is a great resource he's also a youtuber check out
Clint Koons he is in fact a lawyer and does have some advice on how to set up
LLC's and protect your assets and so on check it out see if it helps you if it
resonates with you and then go ahead and make your own decisions but I can't be
the right party to be you know giving advice but I can point you in the
direction where I'm finding some answers I hope you find that helpful hope you
enjoyed this session if you have questions for us go ahead and leave a
comment below and if you haven't subscribed please do so now because
we're likely gonna do these things going live on a forward basis and you want to
receive that notification so thanks so very much for your questions it helps
not only the channel but also the entire community and the more that we do this
the better we all are so please ask your question there is no
such thing as a dumb question we want to try and help everyone thanks so very
much have a great day