Welcome back to the short-term rental riches podcast and this week we’re going to break down the most difficult furniture item for your short-term rental stay tuned.

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

So I’m down here in Brazil and we finished the renovation on my property that I got earlier this year down here very exciting well I would say we finished about 95 percent since last few details that always seem to take forever but I’m currently in the process of furnishing it and now while it’s very different furnishing the property down here Brazil than it is in the US we don’t have nearly the options at least in this city anyways I’m in a smaller city it’s still somewhat complicated to make sure that we get the right so far or the right couch for a living area and so I would say that the couch is the most difficult furniture item and also happens to be one of the most expensive so this week we’re going to break down some things to consider a few tips and then you leave you with a few Perot tips from one of my favorite interior designers and a reference to her online at the end so let’s just jump right and why why is this furniture item so difficult well after the bed it’s probably the furniture item where people are going to spend the most time actually on it the most wear and tear and unlike a mattress we can’t put a cover on this couch I mean it just wouldn’t look right they do sell covers I can’t talk a little bit about those but with mattresses and mattress covers and that makes it really easy to protect against stains and things like that but we can’t really do that with the sofa so we got to make sure that we keep that in mind when we get one because one little stain on your beautiful $10000 so far is gonna ruin it your guests are going to come in they’re gonna see the stain immediately they’re going to think of this place is dirty not just your couch but as soon as someone sees something dirty in a rental I think the whole place is her. And they start looking around and so we don’t want that no one wants to have a stain on our couch we really have to consider that I think it’s one of the most difficult because it’s one of the most expensive it’s where your gas you’re going to spend the most amount of time most likely after your bed and it’s also a large items so in terms of like the logistics and actually putting it in your living area it can make a big difference if you go too big or go to smaller used the wrong color so those are some of the reasons why I think it’s the most difficult now let’s talk about size the larger the area I think a little more difficult it’s going to be because we might need more than one so far right we can’t have a tiny little so far filling the space courses can be more expensive anymore furniture it’s a smaller area then we can use a smaller so far obviously and it’s going to cost a little less and there’s less configurations really if we have a smaller area but the best way to determine that we have the right size couch for our space is to use a floor plan we’ve talked about for plans a lot before I think they’re super super valuable not just for furnishing your apartment but also for your gas you can include in your listing description they can see the exact layout so if you’re using a floor plan or for using a program like room sketcher that’s one I use or you can use Google sketch up if you’re doing it yourself you can plug in the exact dimensions you can do a 3 D. walkthrough on these programs you can feel what it’s like in this space for free actually make that big expense and purchase that couch now if you don’t want to do that an easy way is just defined account should you like or you think might fit and just put some painters tape on the ground and mark it off and make sure that you have enough space between the couch when you’re walking areas it’s not too big do that if. You’re not doing the floor plan but I think the floor plans can it really really helped I think that they’re kind of fun after you start doing them a little bit too self and again if you want the floor plan we don’t want to do it you can use Fiverr.com or up work send some photos and some measurements of your space you can have someone do it for you for a few Bucks online. Hey Hey just want to ask you guys real quick favor if you haven’t already left this review if you wouldn’t mind heading over to iTunes or Spotify wherever you’re listening to the podcast and just leave us a quick review we really really appreciate it and if you know someone that you think would find value in any of the episodes that you’ve listened to you could just take a screen shot send it over to that’ll help them but it’s also going to help us grow a little bit too and lastly we’re on YouTube so if you prefer you to you can head over to short term rental riches and you can find us there as well thanks for listening in and thanks for all your great feedback. Let’s jump back in. This staining the material that’s on the couch is probably the most important because like I said if you have a really expensive couch but there’s a tiny little stain on it people’s imaginations are gonna be flying they’re gonna think what the heck with these people doing on this couch before me what is that lately it’s just not good right and if you try to cover it up if you do get a stay on your couch and you put a blanket down and your gas pulls the blanket up well that’s not gonna be a very pleasant surprise and they’re going to see some they don’t want to see and again they’re gonna start thinking about how clean is your place actually so we gotta be very cognizant about the materials we choose for our couches materials like leather or even faux leather they’re a lot easier to clean right of course leather can be really expensive you know there’s a difference of this is our personal living space we might splurge and and get a couch that cost way more because we know that we’re going to be taking care of it but I would urge you to. Kind of find a middle of the line counts it’s not super expensive because you have lots of gas going through there someone can have an accident and then it’s not an easy fix so I think faux leather can work of course there are different qualities to faux leather but it’s an easy surface to clean so that one can work well and we’re gonna talk about a couple places where you can get these couches were a couple places that I’ve used also couple places where I found they’re not very good so another thing you can do in regards to the staining is maybe get a couch that has zip off cushion covers right so it’s not a faux leather or something like that or even if it is if you can take that cushion cover off and wash it or take it to a professional cleaner and that’s going to be very helpful it’s gonna help prolong the life of that couch and you may be able to buy replacements I think it’s a good idea to have replacement covers on hand if you have a material that stains easily because of someone stay in that and you have to block your schedule off until you get this little issue fixed it could take a while a lot of times couches take a long time to order or replacement pieces are covers so if you can get accounts of houses zip off covered you can wash it or take it somewhere to be washed in get replacement covers I think that can be an excellent solution. Stock about color so really. Even in this in this white space my my apartments pretty empty here still as I’m furnishing stuff but you can see in the background here if you’re listed on the podcast it’s pretty much white and that’s what I’ve been using with most all my properties now because white just feels clean but it’s also easy to adding color with other furniture items so you wanna be careful when you’re adding in color that you don’t do it in a huge portion right that you can’t something that’s not neutral in stock available in later so I do suggest getting couches and a neutral color because it’s such a big item that way if you decide to change something later on you just you can change the paint colors you can change other furniture items you still have a couch it’s going to work in that space you can always throw decorative colored pillows over the top and throw blankets and stuff like that but I think it’s best to go with a somewhat neutral color with your couch because it’s such a big item. So where do we find these couches well it depends where we are for the U. S. we have tons and tons of options online so talk about the big ones first Amazon Wayfair I’ve tried a lot of these couches and just like any big company I mean they have better options and they have some that are not good I will say we’ve got a lot of couches from Amazon they just didn’t hold up they were not what we were expecting and so I think the best thing to do if you happen to be in your market where rental is check one out person you can sit on it you can feel the texture you can see how it looks then you don’t have that that risk of getting something that you didn’t expect and then trying to ship a couch back isn’t necessarily easy so I would say that’s the best approach now if you’re working with an interior designer will then you can put your trust in them and they will know where to find a good couch are good so far good love seat in in these large furniture items in the living room so that’s a good option but if you are ordering online you know we’ve got some couches off so for media lately and of course we we can we can check the reviews so if there’s a tie to reviews and it says it shows that met people’s expectations has great reviews and you have the measurements online so make sure you double check those hi can be really impactful to if you have a low ceiling area for example you put a high couch in there is going to make the space look smaller so I’m gonna share with you one of my favorite interior designers on you too in the end and actually give you a few of her just top tips because she’s pro I’m not a pro but I have furnished dozens and dozens of my own properties with the help of my team and we’ve experimented with all kinds of couches and without a lot of bad ones and we’ve done it wrong a lot so hopefully somebody steps will save you from that one other note on couches that ****. Terminal hose we’re trying to accommodate as many people as we can often times because more people we commented the more or more money we can make right oftentimes and so I used to squash in the sofa couches and a lot of my apartments and it wasn’t a big enough space a lot of these apartments to add the extra sleeping space in there there’s not as many good so far better options ones that fall down a lot of times are really heavy maybe they’re not put together well and so if you’re trying to get a sofa bed to accommodate more people just keep that in mind you’re probably gonna have a lot fewer options and you also have that additional housekeeping operational peace right if you get a reservation and they want to use a self a battle that you got to make sure you communicate that with your housekeepers make sure it’s made up you have the extra linens there or that they’re they’re on hand so that adds one other little operational peace if you only have a you know one property or couple properties it’s not a big deal but if you start doing that with dozens of properties it’s a big it could be another piece that you got to consider so a little note on it so for beds. So we can buy from really nice places online to you know I mean couches are one of those furniture items where you could spend $500 and you can spend $20000 I mean it’s really really a big range but you want to get something that’s going to hold up so I personally I like ikea I think they have a lot of good furniture but they also have a lot of not good furniture and you can see that in the prices they have not I would say expensive couches at ikea but they have some that definitely are on the higher end and those couches can hold up really well they’ve couches with real leather and materials are easier to clean so consider spending a little more to get something that’s going to hold up because if you have to replace a couch it’s not an easy item your schedule’s going to be blocked if you’re charging $150 a night and you block your calendar for 5 nights to try to find a new couch will there’s potentially $750 and it’s likely going to take you much longer than 5 days get new caption to get a good one from the beginning but you don’t need to go extreme make sure you consider the size consider the color I think neutral B. bass and consider the fabric leather or faux leather can be really good or a couch that sells replaceable covers or you can take the cushion covers off and wash them so those are a few suggestions around couches now I want to talk about one of my favorite here designers on YouTube that I follow at the moment you know these things are always changing but but she is really good she’s she’s pro her name is Lisa hold and she has her own channel Lisa hold designed just got tons of videos on there want to give you just a few tips I pulled out one of her recent videos on this subject of couches first of all don’t push the couches all the way up against the wall it’ll make things look smaller than. Just just how it is I know this is like our natural instinct to just push everything against the wall but really we we want to pull it away from the wall a little bit you can see some examples on her channel or if you Google images of living areas one that has couches against the wall one that doesn’t you’ll see you’ll see what I’m talking about it doesn’t seem intuitive at first but it really is pulled away from the wall it’s going to seem a little bigger consider using sectional sofas if you ever really big space those can be you know you can move them and put in a different combinations if you decide to change something later on so that could be an option if you have a really big space don’t put too much seating in your living area so if you have a really big space don’t cram it in with you know you want to leave her suggestion leasehold suggestion 30 to 36 inches of space for your main walking point so if you have to walk through the living area to get to a bedroom or whatever it is around a coffee table you want to have like 30 to 36 inches of space so keep that in mind when you’re shopping for your couch in doing your floor plan or putting your tape on the on the ground to to get your measurements right and then lastly she talks about height that really does matter and not everything has to be the exact same height like it’s nice to have a very action and heights it’s nice that variation in tones and colors and all these things add to our interior design on a whole and make our space better because it really is the space that we’re living in. Changes everything it’s going to change the way our guest feel and if we make them feel better with a really well designed space that we’re gonna get better reviews so hopefully some of the suggestions help you if you’re in the process of searching for account you’re looking for a new one or if you’re about to start your first rental of course all this is easier if we have better gas coming and that take better care of our property so if you haven’t yet we have all of our house rules in the show notes or if you’re watching the YouTube channel you can click on the link in the show notes there and get our our house rules the ones I use with all my properties that’s going to help you get a little better gas but until next time you’re out there shopping around consider these tips check out Lisa holds channel she’s got some really good info and there’s a lot of other good ones on there until next time I hope you guys all have a wonderful. There’s so much money to be made the short term rentals but it all starts by having the right property if you guys haven’t yet seen my free ebook on our website rest methods.com head over there and get a copy it’s going to break down what I look for in a property in some great short cuts so that you don’t have to spend hours and hours researching at over rest methods.com and you can grab your free copy there if you want a crash course in everything I’ve really learned to short term rentals in over 5 years managing over 15000 Gasol recorded on our last live event I am happy to say we broke it down really nicely into a bunch of different modules that you can watch at your own pace it takes you from start to finish from finding a property we talk about analyzing the property but then also some of the more important pieces how to find your team and how to set up everything so that you can run your operation is passively as possible and free up your time you can find that it rests methods.com forward slash virtual.

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