Growing Your Airbnb Management Business During COVID

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Hey everyone, my name is James. I'm the author of the upcoming Airbnb for Dummies. And in this video, I want to talk to you about whether or not it's possible to grow your Airbnb co hosting management business, in the midst of everything that's going on all the craziness going on in the world right now. Here we are in April 2020. So to get started, I want to just kind of lay out what I'm going to talk about in this video is number one, I want to talk about, you know, is it actually possible to grow your business? Should you be focused on where you're growing your business right now? Can you start a business right now? Or should you just kind of be in in hold mode should just kind of sitting still with where everything is right now. And then second, I want to talk about kind of the problems that Airbnb hosts and that landlords are facing right now the challenges people are having and how we can potentially solve those for people and help people to solve them. And then just overall, what things are going to look like as far as growing your business moving forward with everything that's going on. So to start off, with

I think the most important question to ask yourself and I fall victim to this trick, too is you really have to remember to ask yourself, you know, is there a problem? Is there a problem that I'm solving with my business? And that should really be the North Star that guides your decisions in your business, whether to continue growing it, you know, how you should just kind of maneuver the water, so to speak. And so a lot of people are offering right now out of fear, because they're just thinking, well, there's a lot of scarcity all over the place. People don't want to spend money. People don't want to operate Airbnb properties. There's just a whole bunch of scarcity, a whole bunch of fear, and that's understandable. But if we really look at it, are there problems that property owners who would be our clients are facing right now? Well, right, a core right across the board? Yes, absolutely. Now, typically, I always recommend students and I recommend people focus on approaching Airbnb property owners, Airbnb hosts themselves as a first starting point to go and get people to let you manage their properties on Airbnb. So a bit counterintuitive because most people think

To go to just regular long term rental property owners, people that have investment properties that would typically filled with long term renters. And I recommend going to Airbnb hosts because you offer a similar value proposition. But typically the Airbnb host has a lot more pain around it because they're hosting themselves. They're dealing with the guests messaging, they're dealing with organizing cleaners, they're stressed out about it. Typically, they already have furniture, they don't have to invest a bunch more money into getting the property set up. And so it honestly makes it a lot a little bit easier, in most cases to bring someone on who's already hosting on Airbnb, then to convert someone and sell them on the idea of Airbnb, convinced them to actually invest into buying furniture for the property and then get them to let you manage the property as well. Now that is still true and Airbnb hosts are still having a ton of challenges. And obviously Airbnb hosts could use some help right now, because a lot of them just don't really they're not dynamic enough to be totally honest about it. A lot of hosts are not dynamic enough and aren't willing to put in

Work and just don't have the know how to really make their property perform when things are as challenging as they are right now, obviously, right now, it's really hard to get bookings, you have to know what to do to optimize your listing for the types of guests that are traveling right now, which is primarily people coming locally and spending two weeks a month, several months in your place as a means of getting more space for their family to all coexist with everyone being home all at once. And for them to have better home office spaces for them to have more outdoor space. If you really have a big backyard, that can be a big advantage. Those are some of the reasons that guests are traveling right now. A lot of horse hosts just are too slow to adapt to that. And so they keep on catering their listing and having it having a listing description and the photography and everything set up to really tailor to the type of guests that they're used to getting. But the unfortunate reality is that those guests are no longer coming. And so as a manager as a co host, you can help them to get some of those bookings that are coming their way you can help them to expand and get themselves set up so they can house first

bonders and you can help them to set up with the proper cleaning setup so that you they can everything can be done safely and well organized. You can also help them to put their property on sites like furnished binders, and different longer term rental sites where they can house people that are looking for longer term accommodation in the meantime, while things kind of recover and get back to normal. So overall, there's just a lot of things that you can do as a co host as a property manager to help them get bookings and so yes, bookings have declined overall and yes, they are a lot of Airbnb hosts gonna be reluctant to give up a portion of the small pie the rd now small pie that they have, but the house that can see past the fear and see the opportunity are going to see the advantages of having someone on their team who knows how to make their property perform. Because ultimately, what's better, you know, having 100% of a couple hundred dollars a month, or having someone on your team who's going to take 20% and I mean 80% of a couple thousand dollars a month or $1,000 a month because that person knew what to do to make

Property perform better. So there is still, in my opinion, a great opportunity to approach Airbnb hosts and offer that assistance and there is still a pain point to be solved there. Now, what's interesting is that there's actually a an even larger than normal opportunity to solve a problem for long term rental owners, people that own properties that right now are either furnished or unfurnished, and they would typically have a long term tenant in there. Why? Well, because a lot of properties right now are flooding the market coming from Airbnb, they're listing their properties on long term rental. And so if the property owner just happened to have their property vacant when this all started to unravel, then it's going to be really challenging for them to fill that proper Yeah, it's gonna be a really hard time and there's a good chance that if they're, if they have attended in there, a lot of a lot of property owners are having tenants that pay absolutely no rent over the next couple months. And so there's just a lot of challenges that landlords are facing right now that they wouldn't normally be facing in a normal environment. And the challenging thing about having a law firm

term 10. And there is it's all or nothing, there's no in between there. And so you're not going to have a situation where it's unlikely you're going to have a situation where a tenant is going to pay you part of the rent, and certainly prefer to have their property sitting vacant right now, it's either going to be they get someone in there, or they don't for the month, right? That property is likely to sit vacant, because there's a lot more supply right now, very little demand, because very few people are moving in the midst of everything that's going on. And so it's a real all or nothing equation, you're either going to have your property sitting vacant for another couple months and get absolutely no income coming in and still have to meet your monthly overhead expenses of your mortgage, your utilities, all that sort of stuff, or you're gonna get lucky and get someone in there. With Airbnb on the other hand, yes, it is going to be a lower return than what you'd normally get, but it's a lot less likely to be zero is a lot less all or nothing. Because if someone isn't in there on the first of the month, then you can still get someone in there on the fifth of the month. You can have someone stay for just a couple of days. You can have someone stick around

For a week for two weeks for three weeks. And so there's a good argument to be made that for a property owner, it's less all or nothing. And so in this situation where a lot of property owners are going to be faced with the challenge of, we need to get some income coming in, because we can't afford to just keep holding this property they're going to be, they're going to be really excited about the opportunity to make even just a couple hundred dollars to help with their monthly payments. And now hold on to that property for longer rather than just sitting around twiddling their thumbs and waiting for someone to come along and rent it long term, which, like we've already discussed, is going to be really challenging for them. So uniquely, right now, there's actually a really great opportunity to go and grow your business and start managing properties under the management fee model. And do it in a way where you're actually approaching where you're approaching people that have properties that would typically be set up for long term rentals. Now the obviously challenge the obvious challenge with that is going to be to have the property owner actually furnish the place so if you're in a position where you can afford to furnish a place and then work something out

With your property owner, that you're going to, they're going to finance the furniture, they're going to pay it back. Or maybe you're going to take the cost of the furniture out of the first couple months of rental income, or once things start to normalize, again, you'll start getting repaid for that. Or if you can just keep the furniture in there, if you've got furniture, you can afford to have it in there and then just hold it as your own, you own the furniture, but you're just basically using it within that property and then go sheet that into your management fee, somehow, that can be another potential opportunity. If you get creative with it, you can really work your way around that. Obviously, there's also going to be furnished rentals that you can pick up. And doing this is just a really great way to to, you know, take advantage of an opportunity that's there, but also, at the same time help those property owners because again, like we said in the beginning of this video, you really want to focus on is there a problem to be solved here and with the property owners who have that problem, it's not going to be everyone but some property owners have that problem where they're in a position where they need to meet their monthly expenses and they're having a hard time filling the place out. Now there is going to be really good opportunity

For you to solve that problem, and that is how you create a business with longevity. If you're just coming along and taking advantage of different little opportunities that come along, and you're not actually providing value, you're not actually, you know, creating value in the marketplace and solving problems for your customers, you might be able to make a little bit of money in the short term, but long term, your business just isn't going to survive because you're not adding any value. And so that's sort of my thoughts on where things are. Now, as things start to normalize again, you're likely to be in a very good position with those properties, because you'll be able to keep on managing them as things get better, and those property owners can profit even more. The nice thing about Airbnb is that if they lock in a long term tenant after their property, sat vacant for a couple months, they're still going to be behind financially, they're still going to have missed out on that. There's no opportunity to suddenly start making more money on that rental, they're going to get the same amount they normally would. And more than likely that's going to be a low rate. They're going to be paying for the next 12 months here, at least 12 months of that property that that tenant stays in there. Most tenants are going to want to take advantage of that and stay long.

So in cities where you have rental caps, like for example, Toronto, where you can only increase the rent by so much every single year, in order to stay in line with the landlord tenancy Act and the regulations there, there's just no opportunity to make up for the loss of rental income. Whereas with Airbnb, once things do start to normalize again, and we see tourism pick back up, there's a really great opportunity for property owners to start recouping some of that investment that they would have otherwise lost. And so yes, they're going to have downtime, but they're going to be able to make some income during this downtime, suppose having instead bacon, and they're going to have the opportunity in 12 months time, 18 months time, however long it takes for things to get back to normal for them to make above average returns on their property, and then be making up for that loss income. So really, really great opportunity. And in my opinion, it's honestly a really great time for people to get started managing properties on Airbnb, because there is a lot of pain. Whenever there's a lot of pain whenever there's a lot of challenges. That's when you really want to take advantage. That's when some really

Great businesses are built. Because the greatest businesses, the business or the most longevity are built around solving people's problems solving a pain point, right now, anywhere that you look on social media in the news, anywhere you look, you'll see people expressing their problems, their challenges. And so right now, if you can start a business that addresses some of those problems, those challenges, and you can do it in a way where now you you really are forced to be resourceful, you're gonna have to get creative, and really solve these problems in a unique way. For property owners, you're going to build a business that is way, way better setup for the future. Because when times are really easy, people start businesses, they're easy to start, things are really easy. And then they end up failing in times like this. Now, if you start a business, when things are already at their most challenging, then you're going to build a business at the lean. That's mean that's ready to survive whatever the world throws at it. And so when things get better, you're going to be in an insanely great place. Not to mention that a lot of people right now have a tremendous amount of time to spend and invest on learning this stuff on investing into really building

business, everything like that. So, you want to learn more, this is what I do, I've left a link in the description to a totally free training I put together walking through this step by step of exactly how I built my business managing properties on Airbnb and how you can do the same. So if you're interested in actually getting started in building the business, then I recommend you check out that video, click the link in the description below register for the training, you'll get set up to watch the entire train for free. I've even got some free giveaways and freebies that I give out to you so you can analyze different properties in your market. So anyone that checks out that training is going to get sent those for free as my way of just giving you some tools to help you get started in the business completely free. So just go ahead and check out that video in the link in the description below. And you can get access to that training. And then also just if you've watched this far, please do take the time just give this video a quick thumbs up. If you got value from this. It really really does help me with YouTube's algorithm. If you just take a take a quick second, click the little like button, give this video thumbs up that helps out tremendously and if you want more content on how to grow

Your business on Airbnb how to operate on Airbnb all the best tips and tricks that we've got all the best strategies, then subscribe to the channel turn on the notification bell as well if you want to get notified when we release new videos. I post videos twice every single week on this channel. So subscribe, give the video a thumbs up and if you want to learn more, click the check out the link in description below. Check out that free training and otherwise I will see you next video.