How to build an Airbnb business: Tool for added protection against unruly guests
I’m always on the hunt for new tools to make our STR operations easier and increase our profits and part of increasing our profits is accomplished by minimizing risk. Airbnb has its own ways of verifying guests but is that sufficient? And what are you doing to verify guests on other platforms that might not have a host guarantee like Airbnb does for up to $1 million.
Yes, you can have deposits. Yes, you can have strict house (rental) rules. But will your guests actually follow those or abide by your rules? We started taking our security one step further with a new tool which we will break down on this week’s episode.
Luckily most of our guests are fabulous but for those few that try to get around our rules, we’ve added another layer of security that I would lke to share with you this week to see if it’s something you may want to incorporate with your rentals.
Sign now will work with any software connected to Zapier.
- Prevention & House Rules
- Check-in forms
- Long-term lease agreements
- How much does this tool cost?
- Zapier integrations
- Email notifications
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Click Here to view TranscriptWelcome 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.
Welcome back to the short-term rental britches podcast I’ve got a new tool for you today and this is one that we recently implemented in my business and were using regularly all the time and I think it’s a huge help so I want to break it down and provide the details for you to see if it’s something you might want to include with your short term rentals sell what is this new tool while it’s an added step of security against an unruly guest against someone that maybe causes some issues with your property and this is a tool that we’re gonna use before someone ever checks in our property it’s called sign now to digital signing service similar to DocuSign if you’ve heard of that we’re using it for multiple things Airbnb of course has their own host guarantee policy that’s $1000000 liability I hear mixed feelings about that you know I know some people have had good success with that I know some people who haven’t received anything after filing a suit hopefully you have some liability insurance on top your property insurance or an umbrella policy but this is really just one more step to protect ourselves because it’s essentially going to create a contract between our gas and our property and that makes it easier for us to win any sort of disputes or any claim that we might have in the future now let’s talk real briefly about the preemptive steps before we have these bad gas and and and I don’t want to scare anyone with bad guess it’s it’s it’s really it’s it’s the minority it’s not a whole lot and our house rules help prevent some of these unruly or unwanted guests I should say and so we want to make sure that we have those in order first go back and check out our episode specifically on house rules if you haven’t already we’ve got the ones that I. Is laid out in there so what do I use this sign now signing service for well it’s pretty much for reservations outside of Airbnb because Airbnb already has their host policy and they collect all the money and everything up front I’m using this for every reservation I get outside of Airbnb so anyone from VR BO from home away from my own website wherever it is before we send check in instructions to them we’re sending them a one additional document from sign now that is going to ask them to verify their dates how many gas they have stayed at the property and then also agree again to our house rules you can do a few more things like **** and upload identification or anything like that but we’re just putting the bare essentials on there really and there’s a really easy spot where they can digitally sign that so this gives us essentially a contract between our guests now your reservation is also essentially a contract but when push comes to shove if if you’re filing a claim or dispute or. Hey maybe have 2 kicks my your property and that the police show up hopefully that doesn’t happen but if you have this contract online that says you know there’s short term gas and they don’t have tenant rights well this can be way easier to win that and it only takes a couple seconds so we send that out as a check in form essentially for every guest reservation we get outside of Airbnb but there’s another really cool thing that we use a fork to and that is for anyone that has a reservation over 30 days we want them to sign a lease because at that point in most jurisdictions in the U. S. if someone staying in a property over 30 days will then they become a tenant and not aghast there’s different rules and laws are going to apply and want to protect ourselves from that so sign now will automatically send out them form and they can sign it only takes them a second it’s on their mobile app you know or whatever they happen to be a works on all platforms super easy so it only takes a few seconds and it’s just another extra layer of security that we really need this a whole lot but when push comes to shove it’ll be very helpful it’s really easy for us to use an amusing host away is a management software program and this integrates right with host away throughs V. as a peer self there’s 3 pieces of technology going on here sorry for the the complication but the way we have it set up doesn’t take anymore time and work option everything we want to now there’s some small little costs so sign now between $8 $15 or $30 a month does it as of this recording of the current subscription rates you could probably get by with $1 a month one if you only have a couple guests come in a month and maybe don’t want to use this but as you scale this is really really going to help and it’s also an easy way to get a signature on a signed contract without making it too much of like an issue or question you know verses as an individual document versus calling to. S. and saying Hey you know it’s interesting over 30 days we need to have you sign a release that’s just it’s a lot easier to get their approval and to get it signed in is to send out a digital document so the cost for sign now is not too much we have signed now integrated with our management software which is host way VSAT here however or zap year I’m not still in the high Hey call but Xavier is like the middle man connecting to different software programs we’re gonna put all the links in the show notes it’s been really helpful for us we we just implemented this like a month or 2 ago and I think it’s fantastic now if you’re not using host away then you might not be able to integrate this automatically but you may take a look at integrating it with your G. email if you see a reservation come through from Airbnb for example maybe you can use a peer to link sign now on that reservation so it’s a really cool program it’s very inexpensive and I think for the extra security we’re getting out of it in the ease of use so check it out if you’re not doing something like this you know I highly suggest having a lease for anyone that stays over 30 days this is just one way to do it and it makes it really easy for you and your gas so until next time I hope you explore this little tool I hope your short term rental portfolios are exploding in hand growing and I hope you’re learning a lot thanks for tuning in I have a wonderful day and I’ll catch you next time if you haven’t got a chance to come to one of our last 3 live events which were a ton of fun and we learned a ton while I’m excited to share the dates for next virtual event November 13 and fourteenth you can find out more information at rest methods.com R. U. S. T. methods.com we are going to jam pack those 2 pages full of information if you haven’t got a short. Terminal yet or if you have a few or if you have a lot you’re going to learn a ton in this weekend event we’re going to share everything that my team and I have learned managing thousands and thousands and thousands of gas we’ve learned a lot we’ll take it from start to finish requiring these properties will run some case studies I will use my property analyzer tool which also get if you join the virtual bent we’ll talk about setting up the perfect online listing like approach to attract the most gas and then we’ll talk about operations and standard operating procedures and some of the tools that you can use to manage these properties as passively as possible but maybe what I’m most excited about is after sharing all that is answering your guises questions live I love hearing all the questions and we always get a lot of good ones so come join us November 13 and fourteenth for our next virtual event again you can check it out at rest methods.com look forward to seeing you there.
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