Airbnb makes it really easy for us but our properties online in fact it only takes a few minutes and they spend hundreds of millions of dollars in advertising our properties for us so that’s pretty awesome but it also means that they have a lot of power over list scenes in who sees them so when they make big changes to the way people make searches on their website it affects us so that’s what I want to talk about this week on the short-term rental riches podcast.

Welcome to short-term rental riches will discuss investing in real estate but with a specific focus on short term rentals quick actionable items to acquire manage and scale in your portfolio I’m your host Tim Hubbard.

Welcome back to the short-term rental riches podcast I hope you’re doing really well out there hope your short term rentals or stain booked and hope you’re adding more I’m sure you’ve noticed by now that when you log on to Airbnb there’s a new way to search you can search by categories and there’s a lot of categories on there in fact there’s 56 different categories that Airbnb has divided up millions of homes with so I want to go over some of those today and some stats like how many are in certain categories some things for you to be aware of in terms of how you might get your listing into 1 of those categories I want to talk about just why the search was added to Airbnb the top 3 questions that hosts are having in regards to these categories and how they affect us so I want to get and all those things but before I do I just want to talk real briefly give you a real quick reminder that all short term rentals are different and they have different risk profiles which means if we’re investing in a short term rental property we really have to consider this I didn’t upset and go back and check it out episode 116 comparing vacation rentals and more urban type property because they’re all different just to name a few they have different average lengths of stay they have different booking lead time so sometimes people are booking these properties further out in the future versus you know maybe tomorrow or the next day some of them have better financing options with the bank some of them are more recession proof if we happen to go into 1 of those so go back and check out that episode just as a good little primer if you’re still looking for your first short terminal so there’s some really interesting categories in here among these 56 now Airbnb now has 6000000 list. Ians online that is a ton at split among about 4000000 hosts in a course for adding more and more all the time I want to just break down some of the actual amounts of units in these different categories so I’m sure you’ve seen they’ve got everything from castles 2 years if we look at the actual numbers in this is Marie St as of the recording they’ve got about 2600 castles on Airbnb. That’s pretty cool that’s quite a lot right remember if you own a castle and you are 2600 listings out of 6000000 and Airbnb is putting you at the very top of the search results that’s gonna really really help you so if you can make it into one of these categories it’s going to really help you will talk about a couple things are looking for here a little later in this episode cabins those are pretty common right they’ve got about 240000 cabins no I don’t know the exact metrics that this data was pulled from but this is pretty general tiny homes 60000 again I don’t know exactly what equates to a tiny home that could be like under 300 square feet could be slightly more caves they have 750 caves that’s pretty cool windmills and this is the lowest one on the list so if you have a windmill and you found yourself in this category I bet you you windmill is staying very very booked as of the recording there’s 191 miles on it Airbnb so there’s some really interesting categories I’m sure if you’ve gone on there you’ve seen the big potato you seen the yellow submarine you’ve seen all these and so these categories were created to inspire us to get people travelling more trying new options I stayed in a lot of Airbnb is personally I I’ve been staying in Airbnb is for probably the over since 2012 I think so very very long time start investing in them about 70 years ago own most you know if you listen the show for a while that most of my rentals are more typical urban type properties they’re not super exotic but I have stayed in some really cool and actually just booked one in Sofia is anyone out there happen to know where Sophie is if you do write in and I will send you $1000 just kidding I’m sure some of you know it’s a border area so going to Bulgaria I’m gonna go do some eastern. Europe travel I’m really excited course I’m going to be staying in some short term rentals all have some good feedback for you guys later on in the near future so the search was created to inspire us to showcase some of the really cool listings in Airbnb has into sort of bring back this experience how Airbnb started started more as an experience based company verses just the pure accommodations play so I think they did a really good job with the categories of course was a lot of push back any given the top 3 questions US host of had since they released this search change but just to recap real quickly there’s 56 different categories and there’s not at the time of this recording away to just put your listing automatically in the category of course if you know what the category offers and you happen to have a castle they make sure that you’re putting in that information in your list seen in your pictures so we can get recognized by Airbnb and hopefully you find yourself in one of those categories so we’ve got a lot of questions its sense this came out actually when it came out this was a new way to search so one of the big questions was the bility to not be able to search by listing titles anymore they took that away but they’ve added it back at the time this recording so they do listen to us we do after all run their business so I’m glad that they have their ears open and I really do think that Airbnb is good company I really stand behind what they’ve done they’ve opened it traveled to the whole world so if you have a property in you’re not seen in the categories it may be that you’re just in a seasonal place it could be the economic conditions and your property is just not visible because of that so again at the time of this recording there’s not a way to just put your property in a category although I’m sure that there will be some updates in the future that are gonna give us a little more insight into how we can do that but. Until then we can easily see what these categories are you can go on Airbnb and check them out so if you think any of yours fit in there but you’re maybe not using the same lingo they are well then I would make sure you change the lingo change any photos you need to change any amenities you need to to best fit this specific category as best as you can and that will definitely up your odds so just a quick recap of the 6000000 listings in Airbnb has that they’ve broken a lot of those not all of them into categories 56 categories actually everything from an O. M. G. category which could be the big potato or the submarine to a castle and now what I recommend buying a castle so you can get it in to that castle category while. Maybe if it makes sense with the numbers right now we always talk about the numbers we are here looking at potential investments so if you can find a castle and you can run the numbers safely and conservatively and it makes sense as an investment then by all means go ahead pull the trigger on the castle I think they’ll be an awesome property to have but of course castles have a little more restraint please go back and check out that episode 116 if you haven’t already there’s different risk levels with all different types of properties and if we go into some dark times whenever recessional lot of disposable income goes away do you think more people are going to be staying in castles. Probably not that’s sort of a. J. cation type property it’s a unique experience right and with only a little over 2000 and Airbnb I bet it’s a pretty high nightly rate so if you haven’t seen the categories yet jump on Airbnb check him out there are some really cool ones on there and hopefully if you have a property that fits into one of these categories you see it in there sometime soon hope you’re doing awesome out there until next time have a fabulous day. I want to get on the fast track to financial freedom for short term rentals what all searching the properties you choir you want to make sure that you acquired the right properties I want to give you my you doctor will show you how to do just that there is no charge to my gift to you for being one of our subscribers just go to restmethods.com that’s R E S T. methods.com.

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• Episode 144: When do the expensive markets make sense?
• Episode 138: The Risks and Opportunities with Short-term Rentals
• Episode 135: Future outlook from the biggest hotel chains in the world
• Episode 116: Luxury Vacation Rental RISK – Is This the Right Investment For You?
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