3 Important Tips After Year 1 of STR

A little over a year ago, my wife and I closed on a beautiful STR (short term rental) property in the mountains of Colorado. To give some perspective, it is a 2700 sq. ft. home located about 30 min from the nearest town and about 3 hours from our home.

With plans to use the property ourselves, my occupancy and cash flow projections were quite conservative. About 3 hours after listing our property on Airbnb in September 2021, we knew that it was going to be much busier than we anticipated. 

As you could imagine, more bookings has meant more work, and more headaches. 

I would say that about 80% of our guests have been low maintenance and a pleasure to rent to. 

My goal in writing this article is to help you avoid the headaches that those "Karen" type of guests can bring on. You know, that 20% of people who are going to cause 80+% of the issues. There are plenty of Karens out there, and sadly, they are willing to spend their vacation finding issues and complaints. A few of those Karens (men or women) are bound to wind up booking your STR property. If only there were an effective filter for this on Airbnb...

1. Set accurate expectations in your listing (specifically not too high).

You could imagine that as an agent, I was going to be proficient in dressing the place up and making the photos and listing quite attractive. Well, I may have done a bit TOO well on this front. We have hosted a number of guests who have told us that the place is "more dated than the photos let on", even though the photos are of the exact conditions, finishes, and furnishings on site. Some of these aspects were ones that we considered updating right away prior to listing. Which leads me to my next suggestion..

2. If budget allows, take care of as many updates as possible prior to listing it for rent. 

Once you are up and running, it makes it very difficult to take care of significant projects. I say this for a few reasons.. One of those being that you rarely know exactly how long a construction project will last, and bookings can be very sporadic, sometimes last minute. You don't want to be canceling on guests or blocking off months of your schedule, eating into your profits. You would think that all guests would focus on enjoying the beautiful surroundings and the company they are with, as opposed to performing a full inspection of your home while on vacation.. wrong. 

3. Respond right away to Karen (even though they don't deserve it).

You can overcome many "issues" with the home or stay by being quick to respond, whether the issue actually gets resolved or not. Many times messages from guests come in when you are in the middle of something. Rather than ambiguously telling yourself that you will respond later, try to just knock it out right away or as soon as you finish your task at hand. Many adult guests do not act as adults and are not self-sufficient at all. They await your every command, and may quickly get disgruntled if you do not respond within an hour or two. 

In reading this, you may think that I am sick of running a short term rental and am ready to hang up the proverbial towel. Quite the opposite actually, we are ready to tackle the next! Hosting can be fun, and if you wish to succeed in any business, you must learn and adjust.

Especially considering today's interest rates, there are few better ways to get creative and dig up cashflow in expensive markets, than through STR. Managing an STR is not nearly as difficult as you may think, so long as you keep the Karens at bay!

Cheers and best of luck out there.