Strategy for a Successful STRs

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Muhammad Hassan
Published: Friday November 18, 2022
Rental Properties

Over the years, the real estate market is evolved and tech startups like Airbnb and Vrbo have revolutionized the real estate market and especially changed the way you can generate revenue from rental properties, just like Vairt is changing the way you can invest in real estate. A new asset class in real estate called as “Short term Rentals” is emerged.  Short-term rentals are beneficial in both the short-term investment and even in long term rentals. They are considered as more profitable than traditional long term rental properties. But you have to execute the STRs strategy in the most right way.

 

The success of Short Term Rentals relies on an effective strategy. The most important thing to do after buying a property is to run it. The next part is to manage, list, market, and run it successfully. There are many pros and cons about this. You have to choose the most right way and should opt for a smart strategy to run a successful Short-Term Rental Business. It’s very difficult to actually decide where to start or how to actually do things in the most right way without any major flaws that could eventually result in a failure. You might be confused about what to do in order to make your STRs investment highly profitable. How to list or market your property? How to manage your property? And how to achieve the desired rental yield from STRs. Vairt brings the core insights of STRs market, and we will discuss the strategy to run a successful short-term rental business. We will share our expert opinion and provide you with a basic guide on how you can run a STRs in the most right, especially when you are starting.

Create a business plan

  • First, create a solid business plan for your STRs investment. In this comprehensive plan, you must have to 
  • First, evaluate your current financial situation 
  • Align your resources and plan your whole roadmap for STR investment. 
  • Redefine your goals, and rearrange your step-by-step strategy. 
  • Clearly define what you want from STRs and then go to achieve your goals. 
  • Redefine your targets and set achievable milestones.
  • What you are today and what do you want to be in a few years?

 

You should also include 

  • How will you achieve your goals
  • How to target your audience.
  • How you can get desired rental yield from your property.

Seek for Professionals

Always consult with professionals. Hire a property manager if possible. For a successful business, you need a team of professionals. Although if you are just starting out with minimum resources, but you have to understand the importance of a professional team. They make things easier for you, not even this, eventually, they decide the fate of your business. Although your vision or strategy is important for success, but how to execute it in the most right way? Who can achieve the desired results? But the team of professionals with the local market, management, and hospitality experience can make this possible.

Renovation & Furnishing

Before presenting your property to tenants, you have to evaluate one thing, how livable is your property? Most of the people believe in buying property at low rates and then increasing its value by fixing it. If you do so, then make sure that your property meets the standards of the market and consumers’ expectations. One thing you have to understand is that short-term rentals operate in different ways. In traditional rentals, tenants’ status is for the long term rentals, and they can adjust things and are willing to make the place more livable. But in the case of short-term rentals guests come for short stays they are not willing to fix things, they are expecting things to be perfect. So, before listing, make your place more livable and up to guests’ expectations. In the case of vacation rentals, guests’ expectations are high because they came to experience and enjoy their time they want to relax with no hustle. You can check out your competitors for inspiration, and how you can make your palace more livable to beat the competition. One thing you need to keep in mind is that your expenses should be lower than the expected revenue. Investing on those things can attract more visitors. 

For visitors, Short rental is just an experience, and you have to provide them a better experience!

Listing

When your property is livable and meets the standards of the market now it’s time to present your property for rent. One of the most basic and common methods is listing your property on different community-based platforms like Airbnb and Vbro.  You have to present your property in the most right way. Provide as much as possible details about the property. Make your property listing more optimized. You can make your property listing more effective by following these things:

Photos

Photos are the only media that can completely present your property. Take the quality and in detailed pictures of your property, and hire a professional photographer if it’s fit in your budget. Remember one thing, photos would be the first impression of your property and evoke the consumer for further procedures. Your photos should leave an impact on the consumer. You should also edit your pictures to give a professional look. Your photos should represent that your place is spacious, livable, and not messy. To achieve this target, need to acquire the art of photography and editing, if you know that’s great otherwise always seek for professionals. They know how to do things in the most right way. Invest your capital on this, it’s totally worth it! 

Description

Now the second part is to describe your property. According to the  Salesify’s 2017 report, 87% of consumers first land on description and find the product and services descriptions are very important for their buying decision. The most of the consumer’s buying decision depends on the description, If your description is very engaging, and provides every single information about a property then there are more chances that the consumer will decide to buy, You have to describe your property very well and also influence the people to try out your service. I would highly recommend that you should seek for a professional copywriter for this job. This would be a one-time investment and will be beneficial for your listing. 

Amenities/services

You also have to mention extra services, utilities, and features about your property. Guests always seek for services like laundry, cleaning, internet, TV, air conditioning, spa, etc. If you are providing any of these, then you highlight them. The consumer always seeks for this and this plays also an important role in their buying decision. Always mention this kind of thing on a thumbnail of your listing, highlight it in the description and also provide pictures if possible. This would definitely influence the consumer’s decision and will also help you to beat the competition. 

Marketing

Most of the people just list their property on online platforms like Airbnb and Vrbo. And honestly most of the cases this is enough to do an optimized listing with highly converting descriptions and catchy pictures. But what if you’re when your competition is high and the market is saturated? What to do for staying ahead from competition? You have to create your own identity in market, target consumers by yourself. You can achieve this by 

  • Googles my business
  • Digital Marketing 
  • By running local ads. 

Even you can market your property listing on Airbnb and Vbro through Google and social media ads. You can also launch a simple website or landing page for booking and get in touch with your customers directly. 

  • Keep your social proofs good and maintain a good rating up to 4.5 to 4.7. Highlight the good feedback and present it to your consumers, it will enhance your conversion rate.

Marketing should be all about how your service could be valuable for customers and provides the reason to customers why they should choose you and not your competitors. 

Managing your STRs

You have tried all the practices to reach out to your customers that’s good and finally guests start checking in to your palace. That’s great for you, but how actually to manage your Short Term Rental Property is the question of how you can run all the operations in the most right. If you have time you can manage your property by yourself, but you can also contact with a property management company, but managing a property management company is also an art. The art you should learn. They can handle all the routine stuff for you. But you have to compensate for that cost with other expenses. You have to make sure is your place is liveable or not before the guest check-in. Make your place clean and perfect to stay. Make the process of booking, checking in, staying, and leaving efficient. 

Screen your tenants

Extensive screening isn’t required in the case of short-term rentals. But you have to at least review your tenant, when it comes to online platforms like Airbnb you can easily review the tenant’s history, and you can easily access the feedback of previous hosts. This would be helpful to make a decision. You can avoid difficult guests that would cause more wear and tear, or even if someone is involved in fraudulent or illegal activity. Screening your tenants can prevent you from future complications. 

Maintenance

Always keep the maintenance of your property up to date. You have to understand that tenants in short-term rentals are not actually tenants, they are the guests. They came for a short period of time they want to enjoy their time and experience it. You have to manage all the maintenance by yourself. In long term rental tenants stays for a long time they recognize your property and understand the flaws because most of the time they are responsible for that teardown. But in short term, if previous guests cause the wear and tear new guests will not accept this. It may cause bad reviews and eventually decrease the occupancy rate. To prevent this, you have to maintain the property up to date. Do regular inspections after the guests leave your property.

Provide the best service to your guest

When finally guests check in to your place, you have to provide them with the best service to beat the competition. Most of the guests choose the STRs on the basis of their service. Customer service is the key to success for any business. You have to provide the best experience for your guests. Provide them extra facilities like internet, cleaning, TV, Meal, Landry, etc. You can charge separately for some services or can adjust with the basic rent. You can beat your competitors by this. If your property is for vacation purposes, then you can provide information about the area to your guest and guide them. You can also make the booking, checking in, and leaving process very smooth to give a better user experience.

Track your record

One more important thing that is needed to run an STRs successfully is keeping your record straight. You have to keep the static data about your 

  • Property
  • Listing,
  • Maintenance
  • How many people check-in
  • How many people leave
  • Customers Feedback
  • Reviews,
  • Occupancy rate
  • Monthly Revenue
  • Expenses. 

To achieve this, you have to invest in property software that will keep all things align. No matter how busy you are, you must have to keep the record straight. This will eventually tell you about whether you are in loss or profit.

Bottom Line

 No matter, short-term rentals could be the money-making machine, but this is only possible when you choose the right strategy. You have to do the things in the most right way. You have to understand one thing “short-term rental tenants are not actually tenants, they are the guest, and you have to treat them like guests”. Leave the typical mindset of a landlord, you have to think like a hotel owner. Run your STRs in such a way the hotel operates. Do effective listing and marketing of the property. Manage your property in the most right way. Always try to provide the best services to your guests. Always prepare for the worst situation. You must have a clear roadmap to achieve your goals and always choose smart strategies to gain the targets. And track the records, these are the proofs of your progress.

 

 

Explore the Vairt Real Estate Investment Platform

Learn about the Vairt Real Estate Investment Platform and Different ways to Invest in Real Estate

Download Now

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Explore the Vairt Real Estate Investment Platform

Learn about the Vairt Real Estate Investment Platform and Different ways to Invest in Real Estate

Download Now

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