If you’ve tuned in to this show for a while, well, you know there’s a lot of factors that affect our short-term rental.

Duh, yes, things like pricing, how our property is set up, how it’s marketed, all these things.

And I got to thinking the other day, how many factors are there really?

And I was on a flight, that’s when I do a lot of my good thinking, and I just started listing them out.

And so I listed a lot, and I wanna go through them this week just to bring them up.

We’re not gonna dive into each one of them very deeply, but I wanna bring them up just to make you aware of them, and if you don’t recognize them or you haven’t heard of them, well, you should, and hopefully this will be the starting point for you to dig a little bit deeper.

So stay tuned.

Let’s jump through this list.

It’s quite a long list.

Welcome to Short Term Rental Riches.

We’ll discuss investing in real estate, but with a specific focus on short term rentals, quick, actionable items to acquire, manage and scale your portfolio.

I’m your host, Tim Hubbard.

Welcome back to the Short Term Rental Riches podcast.

I’m happy you’re here again, and I’m just excited about short term rentals.

I really am.

I know it’s been years and years, but they’re just changing all the time, and there’s so many ways to make them better.

There’s so many ways to improve our management.

If you’ve tuned in for a while, you know that we’ve been managing properties, including my own personal portfolio.

We’ve managed tens of thousands of guests.

We’ve got over 10,000 reviews.

We’ve got super host status.

We’ve got all that good stuff.

We have an amazing team.

That’s at the foundation of it, so I’m really fortunate to have an amazing, amazing team.

But there’s a lot of factors that affect our short terminal.

And so I started listing these out, and I was also thinking about it, because when we try to compare our short terminals to a hotel, for example, we can’t really do that, because hotels, or let’s take all the rooms in one hotel, for example, they’re pretty similar, right?

Maybe they have a suite.

Maybe they have two queens versus one king bed.

Maybe they have a junior suite.

Maybe they have a few different options, but they don’t have a ton of different options.

They’re pretty much the same, and they also don’t have their own individual reviews, right?

So we can’t really compare short term rentals to the way we evaluate hotels, or it’s a lot easier to compare two hotels than it is to compare two short term rentals.

It’s also a lot easier to compare two long term rentals than it is two short term rentals.

Two long term rentals, for example, maybe they’re both two bedrooms, they have two baths, and they rent for $2,000 a month.

They’re similar sizes, but they come vacant.

They don’t have reviews.

All those things.

And so I got to thinking, and I made this list.

It’s really long.

I don’t want to intimidate you, but there are literally endless possibilities and combinations of what is affecting your property, preventing you from comparing it identically to another property.

And just to go back to our high school math class for a second, what we’re talking about are factorials.

And I had to look this up again to refresh my memory.

But if we take just 10 different factors, for example, and we come up with all the different combinations of those factors.

So let’s just say this is a property that offers instant book versus one that doesn’t, versus one that offers pets or allows pets, versus one that’s near the ocean, versus not near the ocean.

But if we just take 10 of these factors, I had to look this up, that creates millions of different combinations.

And just for fun, I did it with 100 factors, and that creates a number, get this, it’s 158 digits, followed by 24 trailing zeros.

I mean, it’s literally impossible to compare two short term rentals that have so many different factors that make them unique.

Okay, so we’re almost there.

Before we get into these factors, keep in mind, these are not your average daily rate or RevPAR.

These are the factors, the levers that you can change with your property that make up those end results, that make up your revenue.

Okay, so here goes 46 different factors affecting your property and your profitability.

And so obviously, I can’t go into each of these in detail, but you can go over to strriches.com.

We’ve got our awesome new bot there that can search all of our past episodes and find these specific topics for you.

All you have to do is ask it.

So the first one, seasonality.

Number two, seasonal profiles.

What do I mean by seasonal profiles?

So on Pricelabs or whatever dynamic pricing tool you’re using, you can create seasonal profiles.

And so if someone has seasonal profiles set up versus someone that doesn’t, and they’re just using the average numbers that the dynamic pricing tool uses, well, that’s gonna differentiate your two properties.

Number three, this is an obvious one, supply changes.

So the number of listings coming into a market, the number of listings stopping, or the amount of new guests coming in.

We have number four, events, number five, holidays.

Number six, day of the week pricing.

So we know that weekends oftentimes are charging more than during the week, and depending on how you have these factors set up, it’s gonna differentiate your property.

Number eight, we have length of stay discounts.

So this is actually something unique to Airbnb.

Some of these factors are unique to specific online travel agencies.

And so that again just adds to the complexity, the number of things that we need to keep an eye on.

But Airbnb has ability to create length of stay discounts.

So you can create a discount for two days, versus three days, versus four days, so on and so on.

Obviously, we can do this on a long-term basis.

We’ve talked about that before, using our dynamic pricing tools.

We can create weekly and monthly discounts pretty easily.

But creating a three-day discount isn’t very regularly available outside of Airbnb.

Number nine, we have short term versus midterm stay algorithms.

What the heck do I mean by that?

Well, we’ve got these dynamic pricing tools that we’re using, and they will adjust your prices based on their algorithms.

But you can tell their algorithm if it’s a short-term rental property, if it’s a midterm rental property, or if it’s more like a hotel, and that will affect your settings.

Number 10, this one’s also unique to Airbnb.

Early bird pricing.

So this is a way for you to add an additional discount to your days in the future, again, only on Airbnb.

So remember, if you have your prices discounted in the future or however you have them set up in your pricing tools, this is gonna get applied on top of that.

Number 11, we have promotions.

This is also unique to Airbnb.

You have the ability to create a promotion for a few days or whatever days you desire and whatever discount you desire.

Obviously, Airbnb wants you to discount everything because they just wanna sell those nights, right?

Number 12, super host status.

Again, unique to Airbnb, but if you have super host status and your next door neighbor’s property does not have super host status, well then, that’s gonna differentiate your two properties, creating one other layer of really complexity in the whole grand scheme of things.

How exactly do you price?

Can you earn more with super host?

Now, we’ve done a lot of these individual topics.

We’ve broken them down on full episodes.

I know this is one we’ve done.

So again, you can head to strriches.com.

There is a little bot that we developed.

I swear, it’s really, really cool.

It’s essentially a clone of myself, and I’m not just saying it’s cool because it’s a clone of myself, but it’s a clone of all of the content that we’ve produced for the last four plus years.

And so, it remembers everything.

It can find any episode, and it’s really cool.

I use it myself, which just seems weird.

So, number 13, Premiere Host Status.

This is unique to VRBO.

So, similar to Airbnb’s Supra status, we have the same sort of recognition on VRBO.

Again, it’s gonna affect your pricing.

Whether you can charge a little bit more, whether you show up more on VRBO’s website, there is a difference between a property that has Premiere Host Status and one that doesn’t.

That is the whole idea of this list.

These things, each one of these 46 factors, gosh, we’re only at 13, change the way your property shows up and the amount of revenue that you can ultimately earn.

Number 14, recency.

What do I mean by this?

How recent was it listed online?

We know when we list a property online that it gets a nice little bump.

Usually it’s like three to five bookings from what I’ve seen.

Number 15, new listing discount.

This one’s also unique to Airbnb again.

They like to put a nice big fat 20% discount on for your first three stays if it’s a brand new listing.

Up to you whether you think it’s a good idea, but it is something that’s obviously gonna affect your reservations.

Number 16, taxes.

So long term versus short term.

We have to think about this.

If we’re managing properties in a market where there’s midterm stays, and it switches from being short term to midterm, then the taxes change, and that allows us to change our pricing, our whole strategy.

So we gotta keep that in mind.

Number 17, channel markups.

So do you wanna favor one listing channel versus another one?

Do you like Airbnb more than booking.com?

Well, if you do, then you could mark booking.com up a lot more than you mark Airbnb up.

One other factor affecting your performance.

Number 18, channel discounts.

So what do I mean by discounts?

Well, if you have your own direct booking website, which I hope you do, you can discount your stays and still earn more than you would on Airbnb or booking.com because your guest isn’t paying all those booking fees.

So again, one other factor affecting your performance.

Number 19, deposit charges.

Are you charging a deposit on websites like VRBO, booking.com or your own direct booking website to protect your property?

Hopefully you’re doing something.

The other alternative is number 20.

Those are deposit waivers where you can purchase deposit insurance on top of each reservation.

Again, this is going to affect the people booking your property.

If it’s charged to them, if it’s charged to them, well, then that’s one other fee that might deter them from making a booking.

Another fee, number 21 is your housekeeping fee.

We’ve talked about this one a lot.

Number 22, pet fees.

Number 23, do you allow pets?

I realize those are kind of similar, but you don’t have to have a pet fee if you allow pets.

Number 24, extra person fees.

Number 25, early check-in fee.

Number 26, late checkout fee.

Some of these fees are usually calculated or programmed through your property management software, not necessarily directly on the OTA like Airbnb, including the next one.

Pool heating fee, number 27.

Number 28, linen fee.

Hopefully, you are not charging for linens.

Hotels don’t charge for linens, right?

We’re all in the same hospitality industry.

I know there’s still properties out there that aren’t doing probably more internationally than in the United States now, but if you’re still charging, go ahead and get rid of that one.

People don’t like fees, right?

And those have been shown to really hurt your conversion rates.

So try to reduce the fees whenever possible.

Number 29, processing fees.

So are you using an integration like Stripe to make your own credit card payments or to allow credit card payments?

Well, they have processing fees, and sometimes these are charged.

That is going to affect your reservations and your overall performance as well.

Again, it’s another cost going into the reservation.

It affects the whole calculation.

Sort of realizing I should have broke this up in a multiple podcast, but we’re just going to keep jumping through it.

Number 30, occupancy pricing adjustments.

So is your dynamic pricing tool adjusting your property based on your occupancy?

That’s another factor.

It could affect your overall performance.

Number 31, portfolio occupancy price adjustments.

I know this sounds like kind of the same thing, but this would be for those of you out there that have multiple properties, especially multiple properties maybe in the same building or that are very similar.

So instead of creating the occupancy discount for one property, it’s creating a discount as a whole, on the whole portfolio.

Number 32, last minute discounts.

This one, I think most of you know about.

Number 33, far out discounts.

So yes, we can discount.

Stays out in the future.

Most of the time, they’re far out premiums.

Number 34, gradual versus fixed discounts.

So if, let’s say, a calendar date’s coming up two weeks from now, are you applying a gradual discount so that when day zero arrives or tomorrow arrives, you have your largest discount, or is it just a flat discount, 15%?

Number 35, gap day discounts.

Those are those orphan days.

We just talked about this one a couple weeks ago.

Again, we’ve talked about most of these things individually in a prior episode out of the hundreds of episodes we’ve done.

So head over to strriches.com and check out our bot, ask them where to find these things.

Number 36, adjacent night discounts.

I think this one’s a little more advanced for most of you, but it’s basically a discount tacked on to the following day after a reservation or before an upcoming reservation.

Number 37, gap day premiums.

So we can have gap day discounts, but we can also have gap day premiums, and those could be adjusted based on one, two, three nights, whatever you consider your gap days to be.

Number 38, we obviously have minimum night settings.

That is crucial.

And if your minimum nights are too strict, too high, you could be leaving a lot of money on the table.

Number 39, minimum reservation value.

So you now have a way in most of your dynamic pricing tools to only accept based on a minimum reservation value.

Number 40, far out minimum night settings.

So these are protecting your calendar, essentially, far out in the future, so you don’t get a one night stay in the middle of a five night super in demand event.

Number 41, base price.

So obviously these aren’t in any sort of order.

Base price is usually where most of us start with our pricing, but that is the price without any other factors affecting it.

Number 42, minimum price.

We all know what that is, the minimum amount that we will allow per night.

Number 43, max price.

And yes, sometimes there should be a max price.

Remember, there’s always a value component to someone’s reservation.

So if they’re paying you $5,000 a night per place that’s normally $1,000 a night, just because demand’s gone through the roof, Taylor Swift is in town, well, they might be really happy to see Taylor Swift, but they’re not gonna be as happy with the value they got.

And that might show in their reviews.

So just keep that in mind.

Number 44, average booking windows.

So these are the length of time before someone usually books your property, and this changes throughout the year.

Again, we did a podcast on this one, breaking it all down.

Number 45, we’re getting there.

Date specific booking windows.

So the booking window changes based on specific dates.

So again, if Taylor Swift’s coming, place is gonna book out years in advance if someone knew years in advance, right?

Number 46, whew, almost there.

I really should have broke this up into more episodes, but hopefully you found some value in it.

Number 46 is owner aggressiveness.

And so what do I mean by that?

Well, we have all these factors.

We went through 46, and this is by no means 100%.

This was just me on the plane kind of brainstorming, really jotting them down to get an overview of a lot of the ones that are out there.

All of these you really should know.

Remember, these are all levers.

The more of these you know, the better you know how to program them, compare them to your market, the better your property is going to do.

But one that we don’t really think about as much is how aggressive do we really wanna be?

Are we conservative?

Do we just wanna meet a certain number each month with our property and we’ll be happy?

Or are we holding out to the last second to get top, top dollar?

Well, that’s what I would call owner aggressiveness.

Okay, so if you don’t recognize any of those, well, do a little bit of research.

They’re all important.

And again, this is by no means 100% comprehensive.

In fact, this didn’t cover any of the factors from our physical property.

So amenities, all those types of things, these were more pricing type factors.

And so I’m gonna have to do another episode on those.

But until then, remember, if you don’t know any of these factors, just find out a little bit more because you could be earning less than you should be.

And if this happens year over year, or if your manager doesn’t know about all these things, ask them about some of these things.

And make sure that you’re not overlooking anything because this is your money we’re talking about.

And especially if you’re scaling, you’re adding more and more properties, then this just multiplies exponentially, right?

If you have 10 properties versus one, and you only know 30 of these 46 metrics or different factors affecting your property, well, then you’re not just leaving money on the table with one property, but you’re leaving it on the table with 10 properties.

So there we have it, 46 items, and there’s more to come.

Hopefully, I didn’t freak you out too much.

Hopefully, I didn’t intimidate you too much.

There’s a lot of opportunity in the short-term rental industry.

And this is just another reason why, because there’s so many little things that we need to uncover and learn.

Until next time, I hope you have a fabulous week.

If you’ve been listening to the podcast for a while, then you know that I’ve been managing my properties virtually for years and years.

My team and I have managed thousands of guests.

We’ve learned a ton, and I’m really happy with the progress and the growth we’ve made.

In fact, we’re now big enough to help manage your properties as well.

Our team has a ton of experience from the inner city apartment to the large lakeside retreat.

We’ve worked with all types of properties across the nation.

We’ll help to take the management workload off your plate while earning top revenue and excellent guest reviews, all while charging an industry low fee.

If you’d like to find out if your property fits with our program, just head to strriches.com.

There you’ll see a property management button.

Again, that’s strriches.com.

Just click on the property management button, and we look forward to chatting with you soon.