Dive into the world of vacation rental success with our latest episode of the STR Intel Podcast! In this engaging session, we explore the crucial strategies to boost your rental revenue, featuring insights from industry veterans, Craig and Killian. Marketing Mastery: Discover cutting-edge marketing strategies that can set your property apart in the competitive vacation rental market. Learn how to leverage digital platforms and targeted advertising to attract the right guests and keep your bookin...
Aug 10, 2024•1 hr 24 min•Season 1Ep. 36
In this episode of the STR Intel Podcast, we dive into Colorado's SB33 Lodging Tax Bill. Following up on our detailed analysis from Episode 34, we discuss the recent capital hearing, the reading of the bill, and its final outcome. Our guest, Craig, shares his firsthand experience from the capital, providing valuable insights into the legislative process. Don't miss this informative episode as we unpack the implications of SB33 for the short-term rental market in Colorado. 🚨 Subscribe to this ch...
May 06, 2024•33 min•Season 1Ep. 35
***The 20 Feb. hearing is postponed stay tuned for updates 🚨 Phill and Craig dive into Colorado's SB33 Bill on the STR Intel Podcast, discussing its impact on short-term rentals. They share insights on opposition efforts, personal stakes, and the bill's potential effects on financial security and the local economy. Tune in for a compelling conversation on advocacy, market challenges, and preserving opportunities for passive income through short-term rentals. 👉 Senate Bill 33: https://leg.color...
Feb 15, 2024•47 min
In this episode, Phil and Killian delve into the vacation rental industry's evolution, focusing on AI and technological advancements. This discussion unravels the tech-driven shifts in the vacation rental landscape. Highlighting the pivotal role of AI and modern tech, it uncovers challenges faced by property managers in a market blurring the lines between traditional hotels and rentals. 🏡 STR location for this episode: 👇 https://hostestay.guestybookings.com/... 🚨 Subscribe to this channel her...
Nov 14, 2023•1 hr 9 min
Patience and Strategy: From Hands-on Experience to 'Get Rich Slow' — With Luke Carl of Short Term Rental Management Podcast — STR INTEL Episode 32 In this talk, our guest unpacks the 'get rich slow' approach to real estate, emphasizing the power of patience and long-term thinking. Drawing from decades of experience, he sheds light on property management best practices, navigating guest challenges, and the lasting value of investments made in the past. Join us as we dive into the world of vacatio...
Sep 22, 2023•52 min•Season 1Ep. 32
The Importance of Specialized Property Services Within Short-Term Rentals — With Jonathan Wick of Well & Good Property Services! Every proprietor in the realm of short-term accommodations seeks enhanced property management standards. Our guest, Jonathan Wick of Well & Good Property Services illuminated the significance of specialized property services in this field. But what underpins these essential services? How do they elevate the guest experience? A parallel between the evolving stan...
Sep 22, 2023•1 hr 8 min•Season 1Ep. 31
Every host of a vacation or short-term rental wants to mitigate risk. Guest screening is one way to spot potential red flags, from guests who are more likely to throw wild parties, to hardcore fraudsters using properties for sex trafficking and drug smuggling. But how does guest screening work? And how can it be done fairly? Get extensive insights from our guest Ela Mezhiborsky, Co-Founder and CPO of Autohost. Autohost provides an identity and fraud prevention platform to hosts of Airbnb and sim...
Feb 04, 2022•37 min•Season 1Ep. 30
Meet Paul Zukauskas, Global Vice President of Customer Success at Guesty. Guesty is property management software for short-term and vacation rentals -- an end-to-end solution, simplifying a property manager’s daily tasks: distribution across online travel agencies, automated guest messaging, collecting payments, calendar management & more. How many booking channels should your properties be on? Are smaller, niche channels worthwhile? Paul shares his input. We also discuss new players in book...
Jan 28, 2022•36 min•Season 1Ep. 29
How might you increase your short-term vacation rental revenue by 13%? By making your AirBnB rental more accessible to people with disabilities – and those tweaks are easier and less expensive than you might think. People with disabilities and limitations are spending money on travel, particularly those age 65+, and it can pay to cater to their needs. Dr. Rosemarie Rossetti is the author of Universal Design Toolkit and an authority on designing and retroactively fixing spaces to be more accessib...
Jan 14, 2022•35 min•Season 1Ep. 28
Do guests in short-term vacation rental properties get injured and sue their hosts? Yes. Should that scare you away from making money through platforms like AirBnB and VRBO? Not if you take the right approach, says Justin Ford. Justin is an international short-term rental safety expert and the Director of Safety & Certification Programs at Breezeway. In this episode, he gets super-specific about what you can do to maximize safety and minimize risk. Justin covers preventive details you may no...
Jan 07, 2022•43 min•Season 1Ep. 27
Do you host short-term vacation rentals on platforms like AirBnB and VRBO? Do you charge the same price for every night’s stay, all year? To maximize your income, you may want to rethink that approach and explore dynamic pricing. We’re talking with Anurag Verma, co-founder of PriceLabs, which provides a dynamic pricing tool and data solutions for property owners and managers. We go deep into how dynamic pricing works and how it can put more money in your pocket. We discuss how demand factors lik...
Dec 24, 2021•53 min•Season 1Ep. 26
Owners of the short-term vacation rental properties that we manage have lots of questions, and understandably so. We recently tapped every team in our organization, from guest communications to housekeeping, to find out what questions property owners most commonly ask. In this episode, we address the four biggies: - “What is dynamic pricing?” - “Why can’t I get website links to all of the booking sites my home is advertised on?” - “Why do I see my property published at different prices across di...
Dec 14, 2021•15 min•Season 1Ep. 25
We’re talking holidays with Bon Hewlett, Property Care Manager & Executive Chef with Hostē. Booking short-term vacation rental properties through platforms like AirBnB & VRBO is becoming a popular way for families to spend holidays together, especially in larger homes. We detail proactive, pre-holiday maintenance tasks that hosts and property managers should address to keep guests safe and comfortable, especially in anticipation of holiday meal prep. We discuss ways to elevate the vacati...
Dec 03, 2021•27 min•Season 1Ep. 24
We’re joined by Koryn Okey, VP of Client Experience for Breezeway, a property care and service platform for hospitality and property management providers. Koryn formerly worked with Flipkey, a channel that helps property owners collect and display guest reviews. We tap Koryn’s insights into the short-term vacation rental property management industry, including how technology may disrupt guest reviews in the next 5-7 years. We discuss the challenge of satisfying guests with unrealistic expectatio...
Nov 26, 2021•44 min•Season 1Ep. 23
In this episode we’re joined by Bon Hewlett, executive chef with Hostē Experiences, the newest arm of Hostē’s hospitality services. With Hostē Experiences, guests of our 160 managed short-term vacation rental properties can book exceptional experiences to enhance their stay, including in-home chef-prepared meals, wine tastings, guided yoga sessions and more. Bon reveals what he learned in the trial-and-error process of refining Hostē’s dining services, providing hints to AirBnB property managers...
Nov 12, 2021•28 min•Season 1Ep. 22
Thinking of buying a property to use as a short-term vacation rental on platforms like AirBnB? Do you manage vacation rentals and want to move into a new geographic area? You can maximize your chances for success by assessing a geographic area for clues that a vacation rental will (or won't) work there. In this episode, we'll touch on pertinent issues including permits, an adequate local labor force, competition, inventory, seasonality, and the "vacation demand" of a given area. We'll share tips...
Nov 05, 2021•28 min•Season 1Ep. 21
In this episode, we unpack some of what we learned at the 2021 conference of the Vacation Rental Management Association (VRMA) as it applies to the management of short-term vacation rental properties offered through platforms like AirBnB. In a freeform discussion, we touch on insights gleaned from thought leaders in the short-term rental property management space. We talk about in-house cleaning crews vs. contractors; using all-in-one tech tools vs. building a proprietary tech stack; the importa...
Oct 29, 2021•32 min•Season 1Ep. 20
Hostē’s own Jorge Zarate joins us to talk about marketing and business development for short-term vacation rental properties. We discuss marketing to guests, as well as homeowners seeking management of their properties as vacation rentals. Jorge reveals how Hostē is using its online presence for business development, and why the right property photos and descriptions are key, not just for getting bookings, but for exponential growth. We discuss the importance of managing expectations for happier...
Oct 22, 2021•31 min•Season 1Ep. 19
Simon Lehmann, one of the world’s foremost thought leaders on short-term vacation rentals, flew from Switzerland to share his insights on hosting and property management for short-term vacation rentals through platforms like AirBnB, VRBO, and HomeAway. The demand for vacation rentals skyrocketed throughout the COVID pandemic. Simon revealed his prediction for where the industry goes from here. Do people return to hotels as their default lodging option, or are short-term vacation properties here ...
Oct 15, 2021•41 min•Season 1Ep. 18
Jillian Kimber has worn many hats at Hostē, working with both guests and property owners in the short-term vacation rental space. She’s the creator of the Experiences arm of our business, offering guests of our managed AirBnb properties extra-special, in-home experiences, including chef-prepared meals, wine tastings, massages, facials, and yoga, as well as guided hikes. Guests can book experiences from our website, or on tablets provided in every short-term vacation rental property we manage. In...
Oct 01, 2021•29 min•Season 1Ep. 17
Are you the owner of long-term rental property who’s thinking of making the switch to hosting short-term vacation rentals like those booked through AirBnB and VRBO? You’ll want to listen as we chat with Craig Kallian, Hoste’s Business Development Manager. Before joining Hoste, Craig worked in long-term rental property management, so he brings a well-rounded perspective to Hoste’s world of managing vacation rentals for property owners. You may be wondering: Are short-term vacation rentals riskier...
Sep 24, 2021•28 min•Season 1Ep. 16
Thinking of turning one or more of your properties into short-term rentals through Airbnb, VRBO, Booking.com, etc.? There’s a lot to learn, but in this episode, we offer you a powerhouse resource. Her name is Emily Farmer and she’s one of the most integral people in our short-term rental property management business. Emily has worn many hats at Hostē, but her current area of focus is the onboarding of new clients. She specializes in helping property owners like you prepare their homes to “go liv...
Sep 16, 2021•29 min•Season 1Ep. 15
When it comes to managing a short term rental property, maintenance should be a top priority. In this episode, we share high-value intel on vacation rental property maintenance, including the three options you should consider for managing upkeep, and what tasks should be addressed on a weekly, monthly, quarterly and yearly basis. We talk about the importance of keeping maintenance and cleaning responsibilities distinctly separate, why tracking the maintenance history of your property is crucial,...
Aug 27, 2021•22 min•Season 1Ep. 14
In this episode, we share updates on the short term rental property market and offer a peek into the latest improvements to our vacation rental property management services. Find out about the current trends we’re seeing in short term rental occupancy and get our two cents on navigating a hot real estate market as an investor in Airbnb or VRBO rental properties. We’ll also show you what our current pricing strategy looks like, because it’s been working like gangbusters this summer. We’ll share o...
Aug 20, 2021•32 min•Season 1Ep. 13
Today, we have some funny and unexpected stories that we've encountered since starting our short term rental management company. Tune in for stories about destructive rentals, gross discoveries in the hot tub, bears in the trash, overheated units in the summertime, illegal products left on properties and more! Plus, we provide valuable insight on how you deal with these issues when they do come up to provide a great experience for your guests. We aren't making these stories up...you won't want t...
Jul 23, 2021•30 min•Season 1Ep. 10
How do you determine the biggest KPI's to track the success of your short term rental home? First and foremost, reviews on the booking platform of your choice are clear indicators of what your guests think of the home. Whether a review is positive or negative, we dig deep into what the guest actually thought of the space in their comments and then take effective action on their criticism. Sometimes, it's as simple as staying in your AirBNB yourself and discovering what all could go wrong as a gu...
Jul 16, 2021•32 min•Season 1Ep. 9
As an AirBNB property manager, managing guest communication can be a real challenge. How you handle guests and how quickly you respond before a guest even arrives sets their expectations for the property. Whether you manage on property or hundreds, you need to have a protocol for what it looks like to communicate with your guests. We take a multi-step approach to our communication: we begin with an initial email then get more detailed via text as they get closer to the day of their stay. You wan...
Jul 02, 2021•33 min•Season 1Ep. 8
Some Airbnb hosts have encountered bewilderment when attempting to insure their short term vacation rental properties. Insurance companies haven’t always understood how to properly protect vacation rentals or short term rentals. Does an STR need homeowner’s insurance? Landlord insurance? How is it covered? If you’re thinking of investing in short term rentals or are currently hosting an Airbnb, this episode will open your eyes to how to protect your property and even your income. Special guest D...
Jun 25, 2021•38 min•Season 1Ep. 7
When we discuss working with a property owner, it’s essentially an interview on both sides. We want to make sure their property is a good fit for us, as well as us being a good fit for them. Some people may need an extremely custom fit and services that a general management company can’t manage. AirBNB has shifted from hosting to making sure the customer has a smooth stay and great experience. If an owner wants to be heavily involved in the management process, it will typically not work well for...
Jun 18, 2021•32 min•Season 1Ep. 6
When it comes to AirBNB hosting, there’s an art to keeping guests happy and earning stellar reviews, and it has everything to do with managing guest expectations. Whether you’re thinking of investing in short term rentals or currently hosting an AirBNB, this episode shares valuable insights that will help you head off trouble and create a more consistently satisfying guest experience. Managing guest expectations can take many forms when hosting a vacation rental, such as making guests aware of p...
Jun 11, 2021•30 min•Season 1Ep. 5
