Episode Transcript
[00:00:02] Speaker A: This is short term rental management, the show that is all about short term rental property management with your host, yours truly, Luke Carl.
Here we go. Short term rental management. Welcome to the party. I love you. We're talking about renting vacation homes on today's program, landlording, if you will, for team management. And today I want to talk about how to manage guests in the capacity that they are walking into a home that they don't know anything about. And there's some psychology involved there. We will talk about it after this week's sponsor.
[00:00:41] Speaker B: Did you know that we're officially back in a buyer's market? That's right. Even though interest rates continue to rise, they are causing prices to fall. So there's finally room for you to do regular real estate investor things that we couldn't do for so long, like gas. Negotiate, make lower offers. Ask for sellers to cover some of your closing costs. So it's a really great time to buy in terms of being able to get a lower purchase price and being able to negotiate. So if you're looking for your first or next short term rental, it's a perfect time to reach out to us at the short term shop. Let our team of agents in any of our true vacation market destinations help you find the perfect investment. Jump on over to the shorttermshop.com and click get connected to get started. We are brokered by EXp Realty. See you all over there.
[00:01:31] Speaker A: So, yes, one of my good friends in early vacation, short term rental gurus, I don't know if guru is not a good word for it. I think that means he's getting paid. But mentors, if you will, Mr. Paul.
[00:01:45] Speaker C: Sandu, anybody knows that name, I applaud you.
[00:01:51] Speaker A: I still talk to him all the time. And he always said, you need to.
[00:01:54] Speaker C: Be a mind reader when it comes.
[00:01:57] Speaker A: To dealing with guests.
[00:01:59] Speaker C: And I agree with that. Got to be a mind reader.
[00:02:02] Speaker A: But there's also a major element of.
[00:02:05] Speaker C: Psychology involved with handling guests in a vacation home.
[00:02:15] Speaker A: So there's two elements when it comes to these folks walking into your property.
[00:02:20] Speaker C: That you need to be aware of.
[00:02:23] Speaker A: You're a psychiatrist and you need to have a crystal ball. Mind reader. All right, perfect example.
[00:02:31] Speaker C: They have no knowledge other than what.
[00:02:35] Speaker A: You may or may have told them that they may or may not have looked at of the quirks of your home. Like, for instance, if your home and every home is like this, they got.
[00:02:46] Speaker C: To grab the doorknob and pull up.
[00:02:50] Speaker A: On it to get the door to shut, right? Perfect example.
[00:02:54] Speaker C: Or maybe the hot knob on your.
[00:02:58] Speaker A: Kitchen sink goes the wrong direction or something like that. I don't know.
There is a fine line between putting a QR code on every tiny little thing in your house and sign, sign everywhere sign breaking up the scenery block in my mind, like Tesla, the five.
[00:03:16] Speaker C: Man electrical band and dealing with the.
[00:03:22] Speaker A: Fact that they are going to be.
[00:03:23] Speaker C: Driving you nuts with some stuff as.
[00:03:27] Speaker A: Their vacation rolls on. You got to understand, the expectations are through the roof.
[00:03:35] Speaker C: These folks are.
[00:03:38] Speaker A: There's a lot on the line. They want their vacation to be perfect and they show up and there's some little quirk with your house that could drive them nuts. They can't figure out how to turn the ceiling fan on and they hide that inside. Or even worse, what will happen is that somebody within the group will have a beef with your ceiling fan and say to the person that booked it, this house stinks. I can't figure out this ceiling fan.
[00:04:05] Speaker C: And then that person is even more offended right now.
[00:04:10] Speaker A: It's become an embarrassment.
[00:04:13] Speaker C: Oh, my goodness.
[00:04:13] Speaker A: I picked the wrong house because the ceiling fan doesn't work. I'm so embarrassed. Especially all my houses are in the south and these southern folks, they don't like to be embarrassed. Right? Oh, my goodness. I'm so sorry.
[00:04:24] Speaker C: They're also so polite, which is not how I am.
[00:04:29] Speaker A: But I'm living down there amongst these polite, wonderful people.
[00:04:35] Speaker C: So keep that in mind as the messages roll in.
[00:04:40] Speaker A: As a good landlord, you are just talking them off the ledge. There are certain guests that will let.
[00:04:47] Speaker C: That ceiling fan ruin their vacation.
No, we're not playing that game around here, okay?
[00:04:55] Speaker A: If you want to let a ceiling fan ruin your vacation, you're in the wrong house. I'm going to fix that for you right now.
[00:05:01] Speaker C: Okay, calm down.
[00:05:02] Speaker A: That's just how the ceiling fan works. Let me explain it to you. It's this switch. And this switch works like this.
[00:05:08] Speaker C: Yes, I will call them out.
[00:05:10] Speaker A: I'll call them out. Yes. It's probably different than the one you live in, than the house you live in. Maybe it's a little different than what you're used to, but in this house.
[00:05:16] Speaker C: It'S normal and it's okay and it's.
[00:05:21] Speaker A: Not that big a deal. Now that you know how the ceiling.
[00:05:23] Speaker C: Fan works, we can move on and we can have a great time.
[00:05:30] Speaker A: Talk them off the ledge. You got to talk them off the ledge and call them out.
[00:05:36] Speaker C: Call their bluff. Hey, not that big a deal. It's just a ceiling fan.
[00:05:40] Speaker A: We're going to figure it out. And this is another reason you need.
[00:05:44] Speaker C: To get to your houses fairly often.
[00:05:47] Speaker A: Not to mention that it's fun. Go to these awesome vacation towns, see the mountain, see the beach.
[00:05:54] Speaker C: But if you don't know how the.
[00:05:55] Speaker A: Ceiling fan works, you can't talk this person off the ledge. And then you got yourself a four star. You got to know your product.
[00:06:01] Speaker C: You got to know what you're selling to these folks and talk them off the know.
[00:06:10] Speaker A: This episode of the short term management show is brought to you by short term rental, long term wealth. This is the book in the STR space written by my lovely wife, Avery Carl. It has hundreds of reviews on Amazon and it will teach you literally everything you need to know about str, short term rental, long term wealth. The book wherever books are sold, mind.
[00:06:37] Speaker C: Reading is a whole nother subject. You've got to see this kind of stuff coming, right?
[00:06:43] Speaker A: If you see little glimpse of something in a message, if they kind of hint at something, let's get this out in the open.
Wait a minute. Hold on. I can see where you're going with that. Let me figure out what you need to fix that. Let's resolve this issue.
And if you stick to these principles, you're going to have a great time.
[00:07:07] Speaker C: You're going to have success when it comes to short term rental management.
[00:07:14] Speaker A: So have some patience with them. Have some sympathy for what they're going through.
Now, again, most guests, I would say the majority of guests don't give a crap.
[00:07:23] Speaker C: They're not even going to think about it.
[00:07:27] Speaker A: I mean, hell, some guests are just going to leave that door open if it doesn't shut right. Like, oh, the back door doesn't shut right. So I can't figure it out. I'm going to the bar.
I think it's probably what I would do. I don't go to the bar anymore, but I can't figure it out.
[00:07:43] Speaker C: Who cares?
[00:07:45] Speaker A: Some guests are going to message the host and say, oh, my goodness, they're going to go way over, explain everything and say how it ruined their vacation.
[00:07:52] Speaker C: Because the door didn't shut right.
[00:07:55] Speaker A: And then there's everything in between. And that's our gig.
[00:07:58] Speaker C: That's our job as a landlord to manage those personalities. A lot of personality management when it comes to landlording.
[00:08:10] Speaker A: And the sooner you can get over.
[00:08:11] Speaker C: That and just understand that that's the gig, the more success you're going to have.
[00:08:20] Speaker A: So keep in mind that, again, as they walk into the home, it's going to take them a while to get used to these things. They're almost trying to decide. Depending on their personality type, you might get some of these folks that are trying to decide if they even like this house and that ceiling fan could really put them over the top. Their brother in law was not all that excited about the location to begin with.
And then you bring me to a house where I can't figure out the ceiling fan.
[00:08:47] Speaker C: How dare you?
Two stars.
So just be sympathetic and as helpful.
[00:08:57] Speaker A: As possible, and be nice and understand.
[00:09:02] Speaker C: That that is the gig, and you're.
[00:09:05] Speaker A: Going to have success. Simple as that. Read their mind.
[00:09:08] Speaker C: Talk them off the ledge, and keep in mind that this is their first time.
[00:09:13] Speaker A: They don't know how your kitchen sink works. So hopefully you get some good guests that don't care about the kitchen sink doing this, that the other. But every now and then, you get some people that are a little. So you got to understand, put yourself in their shoes, man. They're out of their element. They don't know if there's some monster going to jump out of the Closet and attack you. Attack them.
Some of these folks might be scared.
Try to understand what they're going through and have some sympathy for what they're going through, and you're going to have better success.
[00:09:46] Speaker C: But for the most part, cut them some slack.
[00:09:50] Speaker A: And if you do have some things.
[00:09:52] Speaker C: In the house that come up recurring, like that.
[00:09:57] Speaker A: I was actually in a house recently where that doorknob example I gave you, you had to pull up on the.
[00:10:03] Speaker C: Doorknob to get it to shut, right.
[00:10:06] Speaker A: And here again, I've been in a million houses. I own a million houses, and I thought they meant that the door was out of kilter, and I had to lift up on the knob to get it to catch. Right. Because the catch was out of alignment. Right. Turns out that this doorknob had a lock mechanism that if you wanted to unlock it, in order to shut it.
[00:10:25] Speaker C: Right, you had to lift up on the handle.
[00:10:29] Speaker A: It was an arm handle, not a knob. And I had to lift up on.
[00:10:33] Speaker C: That to reset the lock, which is annoying.
And they had these little sticky notes pull up on the knob, pull up.
[00:10:44] Speaker A: On the handle to close the door. And here I am trying to lift.
[00:10:47] Speaker C: Up on the entire door, and I'm.
[00:10:51] Speaker A: Like, if I can't figure this out, nobody can figure this out. You got to swap those doorknobs out at that point.
[00:10:55] Speaker C: It's about upstream.
[00:11:00] Speaker A: So if you got those things that recur constantly with the drip or with the doorknobs that you thought were going to be a good idea, but they turned out to be annoying, then get rid of them. But again, it goes back to my point that you got to go to the house. You got to go to your house and know your house, and you got to ask the guest questions. Hey, was everything cool? Was there anything that annoyed you? I would ask that periodically. I don't know whether I would automate that message, but I would just say, was there something in the home that.
[00:11:29] Speaker C: Annoyed the crap out of you that I could fix?
[00:11:34] Speaker A: Of course, then you got them coming up with all this crazy stuff. The next thing you know, you're opening up for them to ask you for some cash because something wasn't perfect or whatever. But it's a fine line.
[00:11:46] Speaker C: Landlording property management.
[00:11:50] Speaker A: In the world of vacation homes, man, it's their home away from home, and it's different than the home they live in. So a lot of folks have trouble with that. They're out of their element. They don't know where they're going. Their boss isn't there to tell them what to do.
And your home is their new home, and it's different than the home that they're used to. So have some sympathy for that and hold their hand. Give them what they need, and you're going to have success.
You'll get better reviews, and better reviews turn into more cash.
[00:12:22] Speaker C: Cashflow, Carl.
[00:12:24] Speaker A: Short term rental management asking you to.
[00:12:26] Speaker C: Please don't overthink it.
Om.
