Can You Dig It?

🚜 Bring in the heavy equipment. We're digging 2023 so far. Well, we're digging in 2023 at least. We requested and were granted a permit to clear some dirt from below our dock, improving the depth for boats. The dredging happened earlier this week and we're super pumped for the lake level to come back up this spring 🚤. Our permit process was pretty straightforward, but we know some of the red tape out there is really a steel bar with a top coat of red spray paint. Send us a message if you have any permitting topics you'd like us to look into.

🎧 Listen

This week's Listen comes from the BiggerPockets Real Estate Podcast, Has the Short-Term Rental Goldmine Run Dry?, Episode 712. (56 minute podcast episode)

If you are a long time listener to BiggerPockets podcasts, this will have some of the crossover energy you felt in middle school when your science teacher unexpectedly walked into your history teacher's classroom and they started riffing off each other. Truly frame-breaking events. YouTuber and regular show co-host Rob Abasolo aka Robuilt and Tony Robinson, co-host of the BiggerPockets Real Estate Rookie podcast, join forces on this short-term rental focused episode with Jamie Lane from AirDNA.

If you have played around with AirDNA before, you should check it out. In addition to all the data and other things it provides, it allows you to get a quick estimate on how much you could expect by running a property as a short-term rental by typing the address in its Rentalizer. Pro tip: if you already have a BiggerPockets.com account, you can do a quick Rentalizer check by using the Tools dropdown menu and selecting Airbnb.Jamie stays tethered to data supported projections in the most of the interview. We are big fans of that approach. These are a few things we took away from the episode:

• The “BnBust” may be overhyped but lower occupancy rates are real for many hosts; 

• The effect a recession could have on the industry; and

• Whether you should have a higher or lower rates for last-minute bookings.

One juicy nugget that surprised us as well as Rob and Tony - only 15% of Airbnb hosts are Superhosts. That number seems low, but that's probably because a lot of the highest rated properties which show up at the top of searches are hosted by - you guessed it - Superhosts. So, our perception is that there are a lot more Superhosts out there.

📽 Watch

This week's Watch comes from The Ramsey Show - Highlights on YouTube. (7 minute video)

First, I want to add a disclaimer here. We are not Dave Ramsey disciples. However, we are not in the all-out Ramsey haters camp either. His approach to finance is best viewed as a tool. Every tool is not right for every job. I think that covers things.

Now, have you ever had that friend that won't shut-up about a show and how you absolutely have to watch it? We all have. That's been the YouTube algorithm for me in the last few weeks. Our computer overloads really wanted me to watch this video and I finally caved.

A caller is moving from Texas to Oklahoma, looking towards financial independence, and asks Dave about turning the residence he's leaving into a short-term rental. In addition to telling the caller to sell the TX house and buy an OK rental, Dave raises three main points

1. Consider the hassles and headaches involved with running an Airbnb rental;

2. Think about the extra maintenance you'll need for a short-term rental (he calls is Airbnb's dirty little secret); and

3. Understand that a short-term rental property can fall on the wrong side of regulations and become impossible to run.

Dave has some pretty solid points, but it sounds like Dave and his co-host are overstating the negatives pretty aggressively. Hosting a short-term rental is certainly more work than a long-term rental in most cases and you'll have more cleaning expenses, but I don't think these are in any way "secrets." They're pretty open and obvious by asking any host or Google (any Bing fans out there?).

For the third point, you can mitigate the pitfalls of getting hit by a regulatory crunch in a few different ways. We like two in particular: 1) pursuing a short-term rental in an area that with a long history of the practice (think beach and mountain communities, and 2) purchasing a property that can work with more than one exit strategy (e.g. long-term or short-term rental).

📖 Read

This week's Read comes from Thibault Masson at Rental Scale-Up. (less than 10 minute read)Airbnb is doing its best Nike impression by centering an ad campaign around encouraging people to "Airbnb it." The Just Do It campaign turns 36 this year btw. We liked this quick background on its origin.

Even though supply of short-term rental listings is one of the market conditions making it harder for short-term rental hosts to do better financially as we touched on last week, Airbnb is focusing a lot of effort to bring in part-time or occasional hosts. Thibault (we've made an editorial decision that we're all friends here and can use first names) points out that "Airbnb is the only major OTA that seeks out occasional hosts."

From our point of view, being an occasional host may be harder than being a full-time host. If you go that route, you'll either want to standardize your steps before opening up the booking the calendar (cleaning, staging, instructions, etc) or keep the listing in a condition to list year round. We do have a family friend that has successfully conquered this strategy to generate some extra income from a guest suite.

The article runs through the different aspects of the Airbnb it campaign, what Airbnb is doing to lure late adopters, and how Airbnb is uniquely positioned to service occasional hosts by enrolling its Superhosts 🥇 to help get them up and running. We haven't had an occasional hosts as for this Superhost's assistance yet, but we'll let you know how it goes when we do.

☘ Potluck

I would do anything for love, but I won't do that. - Meatloaf, probably talking about sharing his streaming accounts with every guest

One of the decisions short-term rental hosts have to make is what entertainment options to offer. We went with a Roku TV so that everyone can use whatever streaming accounts they want. A key 🗝 to going this route is including that info in your listing. The last thing you want is a guest upset because they can't watch The Curse of Oak Island rerun marathons during their stay.

A cool feature with Roku is that you can enable guest mode which allows guests to use their streaming accounts during their stay while not leaving them behind after they checkout.

The video above is from an Airbnb host showing his guests how to use the Roku. Super helpful. His listing looks pretty cool, too.

That's it. Whether this is hitting your inbox on the original publication date or you stumbled upon it days, months, or years later, you're now part of STR Recap history.

Thank you for letting us share the STR journey with you. Please let us know if there is anything you would like to learn more about from this edition or anything you would like to see in the next edition. Until then, keep moving forward.

p.s. If you have someone in your life that has a short-term rental, is interested in short-term rentals, or you think could just use some extra homework, please forward this email their way. That is the best thank you we can ask for.