STR Rental Data with Sally from Key Data

[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 Karl. All right, Short Term Rental Management. We are here to talk about the state of the rental market and we have none other than Sally from Key Data here to help us with that. So Sally, start by, if you don't mind, this is the first time you've been here. We'd like to have you again. Again. But tell us a little bit about yourself and what your company does. [00:00:36] Speaker B: Thank you so much for having me, Luke. It's great to be here. So my name's Sally, I live in, you probably noticed my accent. I'm based in the north of the uk. I'm vice president of Business Intelligence and Insights or Key Data. So I love sharing all the data, insights and what they mean for operators and property managers around the world. I've been in the industry 25 years. I was working for one of the largest property managers in the world for nearly 20 years. So I'm hoping I'll be able to help bring to light some of the data and what it means and what it'll mean for you. Sat here listening to this, going, how do I actually use this data to help me change my strategy or to improve my performance? So delighted to be here. Key Data are a data specialist company. We work with thousands of property managers around the world. We take daily reservation data which we aggregate and anomalies and we give it back to you in a really highly visual dashboard which allows you to see how you're performing and also benchmark yourself against the market so you can see is it your performance in isolation or is the rest of the market doing as well or worse than you? So some amazing business intelligence tools to interpret that data and help make your life easier. [00:01:46] Speaker A: Okay. Love it, love it. And we'll do a demonstration on the product at some point here on Short Term Rental Management. But today we're going to focus on what's, what's doing. You know, Labor Day is a weird one this year and what can we expect for the holiday season, et cetera. So Sally, what are you seeing out there in the world of data? Was it data or data first of all? [00:02:09] Speaker B: So I say data and we had a large like leadership conversation at Key Data and we all voted data even though I was only non Americans. So we stay with data, but we'll answer to anything. Luke, we're good. [00:02:20] Speaker A: Okay. The company was started by an American, I believe he lives down there. [00:02:24] Speaker B: Absolutely. Jason Sprankle. Yeah, he was in 30A. So absolutely, absolutely. Very, very embedded in the vacation rental industry, for sure. [00:02:32] Speaker A: Yes. I remember speaking to him years ago on the phone. A very nice conversation and a local, which is very rare in this tiny [00:02:40] Speaker B: little town which we. Absolutely beautiful town, I have to say. [00:02:44] Speaker A: You've been here as well. 38 I have. [00:02:46] Speaker B: It's beautiful. [00:02:47] Speaker A: All right. Well, you're the expert. What does the data say? [00:02:52] Speaker B: Well, first of all, what I'll say is I know the reason we started chatting. We have a key data index, which comes out every quarter, which gives an overview on the US Market. So we'll pop it in and make it available for free for all of your listeners, Luke. But that gives a summary of what we're seeing in the market right now. And it allows you. It gives you a good narrative, so it allows you to take stock and see how you're feeling. It gives you this sense check and pulse of the industry. So first and foremost, I would encourage you, if you haven't yet signed up for the key data index report, it's free and it's a great read. And that comes out quarterly and it's updated and it's a really good starting point. But one of the data points that jumped out, really, is that September was pacing way ahead of August, sorry, of last year. So, you know, it stuck out more. So what we've seen in the first half of the year, we've seen strong rates. So people have been managing to maintain their rate discipline. Occupancy, which we call demand, has been a little flatter. It just did a small uptick in Q2 because of the way Easter fell. We had a stronger Easter this year, but effectively we've seen ourselves kind of steady away in demand, and rates have been holding strong, which means that RevPAR metric, which is a metric, the fancy term that we use when we're combining occupancy and rates, we multiply them together and we come out with this term called RevPAR, Revenue Available Rental. And that tells you whether you're pricing correctly, are you pricing too high, too low, are you filling your calendar too early, too cheaply, etc. So we have this metric called RevPAR, and we saw that jumping for September, year on year. So you very rightly dived in to say what's happening there? And we can see this is a simple date shift of Labor Day. So we see it around Easter when Easter shifts. We often see some misalignment, if you like, in either month on month or quarter on quarter, depending on how it falls each year. And this Year Labor Day falls 7th of September. So that weekend before falls into September, whereas last year it fell on the 1st of September. So all the Labor Day demand went into August. So it's a genuine shift on shift. So you know, we are seeing some displaced demand from Labor Day weekend, which was in August last year, shift to September. And the reason why it's important is you. I would always advise you to be really on top of what's happening. Either a national holiday level, that's a shift. What are your clients, who are the feeder markets coming in and how are their holidays going to be impacted. But also some of those macroeconomic factors that you can see just on the news. And what is impacting the choices for your guests? Are you making sure you're priced correctly for that Labour Day weekend which falls in September rather than August. So some real clear signs. But it's really interesting when you see this jump in, just jump in the market to say, wow, okay, why September outperforming last year so significantly when the rest of the year has been really just been rates pushing up that, that performance metric. So it's about understanding your environment, whether it's a date or whether it's the macroeconomic factors that we're getting hit with the news which are impacting your, your guests. So I hope that makes sense if we took away. Since the last week in August is flipping with the first week in September. So the last week in August is pacing down. Are we in August? We've got a few days left to go, Luke. We're still seeing a really late market. We might still, you know, bring some back. The in August is pacing around 20, just short of 28% versus 43. So we're seeing this real drop in August like this week in August, but then that first week in September, that's pacing at 33% instead of 25. So it's kind of flipped. That demand has changed. [00:06:36] Speaker A: Okay, I have. Hold on a second. I'm going to cover that and then I'm going to backtrack that. [00:06:39] Speaker B: Okay. [00:06:40] Speaker A: That just made me feel a lot better because my, the end of August for me was, is pretty, was pretty brutal. And I mean I'm sitting there like, you know, I've, I've done the new. We use Price labs like most people and I've done the new Claude integration with Price labs in the chat. GPT integration. I'm sitting there having conversation after conversation with Claude like why can I not get the end of August booked? [00:07:06] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:07:07] Speaker A: And, and now it's, it is down to peanuts, I will say. I mean, I'm down to, you know, the recording of this show. Obviously it's going to come out a few days later, but, you know, just a few empty holes here and there and, and what's left? What at the time of this recording, what was left of August. So a lot of it did fill in, but it took forever. And also it was stressful. It was stressful. I don't like to see unbooked nights in August because usually August is more difficult or September is more difficult than August. So if August is crushing me, I'm sitting there like, damn it, Labor Day, you know, September is going to be even more difficult now. I've gotten over that. This, this also, Sally, this, this happens every year. You know, every year you come off of June, July, which is easy, easy, easy in most vacation towns, not all of them, obviously, South Florida, et cetera, but in most vacation towns, June and July is like we're just ice skating, you know, no big deal. [00:08:08] Speaker B: And hopefully you get in the right, you get in the right rate for that. Making sure you fill it with the right rate. Yeah. [00:08:14] Speaker A: And every. Seems like almost every year after year, June and July, I'm having record breaking gross incomes and even, even the post Covid lull, which, you know, seemed like it lasted damn near three years, but this year again, I had a record breaking July, et cetera. And then you hit. And then the kids go back to school, and then my kids go back to school and then all of a sudden you're like, oh my God, I have to pay attention again. And then August is hard, and then September gets even more difficult. But I am seeing in my own portfolio my own properties. What you're, what you're saying is that the end of August was pretty brutal. However, this year, September, yeah. Is getting better. And, and before I let you go deeper on that, I will also say that I've noticed over the past two to three, maybe even four, probably three years, October's also been getting better. And when I say better, I mean beach properties. October in the mountains, which is where most, most of our properties are mountain markets, has always been pretty easy. But we've noticed October getting better. So anyway, I'll let you take it over from there. As far as I think that a major shift here this year, which you so kindly already pointed out, was the fact that Labor Day came at a very weird time. So is that, is that a big factor? [00:09:25] Speaker B: So it's the key factor. I'd say when you look at it, it's literally week on week. And if you've, I always try and think, put yourself in the mindset of, of a guest that's looking to book. You know, are they on holiday, are they on, off work, et cetera, how does it fall? And they're, they're where you'll start to help. And I think if you've not yet filled for Labor Day, start thinking if somebody's not booked. So we've been, we've been looking at some different Personas of somebody that is booking far in advance. We love those. They book in advance, they stay longer and they hopefully book direct because they're super organized and are very intentional. But then as it gets closer and closer, so Labor Day is what, you know, a week away, people are probably not quite as organized. So what we see data headlines is the rates come down the closer you get. Now we're saying, whoa, unless you're mispriced, it's not necessarily the rates are coming down. So the average daily rate, it's because what's sold closer to arrival is a different mix of portfolio. So, and I'll talk you back. If you are wanting to secure a large property with luxury in the sea views and you're very, very like, specific in terms of what you want, you're going to pay for that and you're going to secure it because you like, if you're just thinking now like, okay, we want to head away next weekend and we don't really mind, we want to go away, you're probably going to want to go away for a shorter length of time because you've not necessarily booked the time off work. You're being a little bit more spontaneous and you also, you're going to want to just be somewhere that's either available or is closer to get there. It's not necessarily a big trip where you're taking 10 of your friends. It might be you and your other half, it might be your micro family going away. So that traveler mindset does change and we see different Personas coming up so late. Demand is definitely still in the market, but it's possibly in a different shape than it has been for those early bookers that are very intentional. So try and think about that. We see length of stay shorter than the closer we get to arrival. It makes sense when you think of it. We see the average daily rate drop, but a lot of that is because people are booking smaller properties. So again, reverse back a couple of lines to say, well, people haven't managed to organise 10 of their friends to go away at the same weekend that would have had that planned. So what we see is this mix that's booked closer to departure is a little bit different. So ensuring that if you have smaller properties that have not yet booked, make sure they're available for those shorter length of stays as we head into this peak weekend. Because that type of customer that's still in the market in the uk, I've called him last minute Larry. I think one in four bookings are for people arriving within seven days. There is a demand out there but you've almost got to put a different hat on as a, as a host or property manager to think what are they wanting to book and how do I capture that last minute demand. And we also see the OTAs gain that share that late, late booker. The ATAS are very good at capturing those. So again have you a strategy to be able to attract those yourself? So lots of things to think about. Some of it does make sense when you take that step back but it's this mix of what's left to book as you get closer. So there is still demand out there. So we are urging people not just to drop rates unless you're not prized competitively, but don't just drop rates. Be aware of the people who are looking to book your type of product that you have available. Think about the drive times. The feeder markets is for couples, is it for families, what's their appetite? So I know it's quite a lot to unpick, but it's more about putting yourself in the mindset of the guest and how do you attract and appeal to that guest? Because there is. To your point, no one likes an empty calendar. It's not a nice situation to have. We don't want the panic to set in and just drop rates. We want that rate discipline because we're seeing some quite good occupants momentum right now. And if we can hold the rates as well, it will mean that Revpar metric, which means how much you're all making is going to be strong for the end of the year. [00:13:14] Speaker A: I 100% agree and I got to that point myself. Thank you for joining us. Here at the Short Term Shop we help real estate investors like you buy and sell vacation homes. We operate in over 20 true vacation markets across the United States. If you have more questions about buying and selling, join us every week for a live Q and A@STR questions. That's STR questions.com having to be honest with you, not looking at the data too much which by the way Sally has determined that the real, the actual word is data, not data. Is that correct? Did I get that right? [00:13:57] Speaker B: You got it totally correct from my perspective. [00:14:00] Speaker A: I actually looked into it myself, and I think data is more of an American way of saying it. Is that the one? [00:14:07] Speaker B: I think so. Certainly when I'm in Australia, it's data. And I find myself changing. So I don't want to be the odd one out. [00:14:13] Speaker A: Your data over on your data. [00:14:16] Speaker B: Yes. [00:14:17] Speaker A: All right. Well, I feel like I'm being from the country in the United States, I'm probably supposed to say data. I don't know. Wait, data now. Who cares? Anyway, I got to the point, especially, like, what you're talking about with these, leading up to Labor Day, where I said to myself, this is ridiculous. I literally cannot go any lower on these nights, so why don't we try going a little higher? And I did. And I did get some bookings there. You know, the old school way of doing it used to be you would hear a lot of folks, you know, back. Remember when. Remember when people were using Facebook groups, which seems like, you know, it's kind of dying. But you'd see every now and then, we're like, oh, I raised my rates and got some bookings, you know, and that's of kind. Kind of how I did it for Labor Day. Leading up to Labor Day, anyway, I just said, screw it. These prices are so stupid, ridiculously low. Like, I don't even want bookings at these prices. So I raised some rates up and. And it was, for me, it seemed like, anyway, it was more about the time, the timing than the price per night. [00:15:23] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, absolutely, absolutely. [00:15:26] Speaker A: And. [00:15:27] Speaker B: And I think the other thing is you. You don't want to just race to the bottom with your rate. You have costs and you. The other thing I always try and advise people to do, and I do something, I get an extra step. Mystery shop yourself. Who else is around? What are they offering? Is it because they're offering shorter durations? Like, are you missing a trick? Like, to be that objective? Take a step back. I ask my mum, my mum's 83, and I ask her to go and look, right? Because I've got a very different style of looking. I'm in the industry and I have all these different stuff set up, but my mum. And then I get my son to do it, who's 17, has the attention span of maybe 10 seconds, like a different generation. But, you know, keep reminding yourself to mystery shop yourself, whether or not it's on your own direct websites or using the different ATAs or wherever people are showing up to put your product, to make sure you're not missing, not missing out. Just to take your head out of the, the hamster wheel for a moment and make sure that there's nothing obvious. Because sometimes it's just as you say, it's that tweak, it's your gut feel that you can do what else is happening in the market. [00:16:27] Speaker A: Yes, 100%. We call this the enemy method, which is old school short term rental term that I, I coined that term. I' take credit for it once again about 15 years ago. And it's actually the reason that Jason from Keyed Data reached out to me. He, he said he saw my, avery, my wife's YouTube video from a million years ago on the enemy method. And he's like, we need to talk. And I was like, okay. So he called me and we talked for a while and, and, and that's exactly what it is. It's mystery shopping. But we called it, I called it the enemy method because I figured that those other hosts, those other property managers were the enemy and I needed to make sure that I was defeating them, you know, so that's where we came up with that years ago. But, but yeah, 100%. And I still, I think, I think it's still to this day more important than ever to mystery shop to enemy method because it's overlooked. I think people like, especially new folks, new property managers, et cetera, they would, they're so like trying to make this so sophisticated. [00:17:26] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:17:26] Speaker A: And so data driven and so like complicated that they don't even think to go, oh, there's 200 toothbrushes on the shelf at Walmart. Maybe I should just compare the prices of each one and figure out which one's the best deal, you know. And at the end of the day that's exactly what we're doing here, you know. [00:17:47] Speaker B: Yeah, absolutely. I think it's using an element of both, you know, where can you access certainly data quite quickly And I'll show you the dashboard in a. Certainly. If you want. But I think I need to come back and give you a full overview because we haven't time today. But I will give you a masterclass in having. If you can set it up. It'll save you so much time. You can go. Okay, I've got my five minute data input on a Monday, I'm good to go. And it lets you get on with the rest of your world. [00:18:12] Speaker A: Yes. I would love to set up a standing invitation for at least every three to four months. To catch up. Because this is a conversation that I love having and I'm very fascinated with. And just a general. Not even. I mean, for me, it's just more like a natural economic conversation, like, where is the economy? Why are people spending money and why are they not and what are they spending it on? But you did bring up Labor Day and you made an excellent point about the fact that it's at a weird. It's a week late, basically. Is it not? [00:18:44] Speaker B: Yeah. Or certainly the way people are appending the weekend to Labor Day. It falls into a different month and we see the same with Easter. It's just about being on top of things that are outside of your control, but understanding how it's going to impact some of that search. And don't just sit and panic, like, say, why aren't. Why isn't August filling? It's because people have shifted. They've not disappeared, they've just shifted it. [00:19:05] Speaker A: If you remember two Easters ago, it was. Which would have been 20, would have been 25, Easter. [00:19:13] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:19:14] Speaker A: It was in March, remember that? And the whole world was thrown off by that. It really did mess everything up. It completely changed the scope, the landscape of April and May. [00:19:26] Speaker B: Well, and also when you have an early Easter, like in March, when it falls into Q1 and 2, it's March, it's different, which sounds crazy. And then in 25, it was in April and it was really late. It was as late as it could be. So certainly in the uk, all schools gone back to school, so no one got the late Easter. And then this year it was two weeks earlier, so it was beginning of April, which meant we saw in the UK a real sorry, in the US a real uplift in April performance because you managed to capitalise on that earlier Easter. In the uk, Easter was an utter disaster because it was at the time when the Iran war was announced, there was a lot of geopolitical headlines and people's like, school holidays haven't. So it can really mess up the metrics of what you're comparing year on year. And we have the ability in key data to be able to put different dates in for Easter. So you're not comparing yourself too harshly against an environment that's not a fair or equal. But it does have an impact for sure. And sometimes it's the way Christmas falls. Is it kind to us on a weekend when people are off work, Is it new? So there's lots of parameters. You've just got to sometimes just take a good old look at the calendar and figure out what does that mean for my guests and how you might be able to price optimally for the way that some of these big peak holidays fall. [00:20:40] Speaker A: One more thing on that. It's the same. Labor Day is the same next year. So I think by next year we, you know, like, the people that are not super hyper focused won't be caught off guard. So it must say, yeah, and so next year I will be better. I will plan better for late August because this year I did not. [00:20:59] Speaker B: Not. Yeah, yeah. [00:21:00] Speaker A: Because I didn't, I didn't expect it. I didn't see it coming. You know, used to be, you know, you know, when Labor Day is the first, you know, like the first or the second day of the month, it changes the whole landscape of, of August and the month of September because again, children are in school, like nationwide for the first time back, you know, September, which again, where I am, it's. It's early August, actually. [00:21:24] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:21:24] Speaker A: And so there are areas where it's August, but we can get, we can basically guarantee that the children nationwide are back in school, you know, the day after Labor Day. [00:21:34] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:21:35] Speaker A: And even, even up north where they have a lot of, they, you know, they tend to go back a little later. There's snow days involved and things like that. Anyway, September's no secret. It's always been tough. [00:21:47] Speaker B: But what you're saying. [00:21:49] Speaker A: Yeah, sorry. [00:21:50] Speaker B: Sorry to say next year, Labor Day is the 6th of September, we're gonna have the same. Right. So you're gonna be prepped for it next year? [00:21:57] Speaker A: We'll be prepped for it. Yeah. It's one day earlier than this year, not a week earlier. [00:22:01] Speaker B: Yes. [00:22:02] Speaker A: So. [00:22:02] Speaker B: Yes. So you should be good. You'll know what's coming. [00:22:05] Speaker A: We need to be prepping now. I mean, honestly, if you're a badass. If you're a badass property manager, which as Sally, as you know, is hard to find, but if you're a badass property manager, we need to go ahead and start setting something up for next late August. Let's go do like, we can even do an August special right now for next year if we need to. And I'm not saying you need to put that in your website and your listing descriptions, etc, but just, you know, maybe you, you know, like, if you. I have a base rate per month on my pricing software, so maybe my August needs to come down a little bit now and maybe September needs to stay a little bit higher. [00:22:39] Speaker B: Yeah. That first week, anyway. First week in September for sure. [00:22:43] Speaker A: Yeah. So anyway, long story short, you're Seeing based on the data that. But September, this year is much stronger than normal. [00:22:51] Speaker B: Yeah, it is because of that first week. The rest of it is looking pretty. It's pretty normalized in terms of that. So if we look at the full sort of September so far, we're actually seeing some stronger occupancy because of that first week and rates, but occupancy is actually stronger than rates. So we're seeing in the first half of the year, we're seeing this real rate discipline that was pushing RevPAR up. For the rest of the year, we're actually seeing stronger occupancy, which is really good to hear. Right. It's not been something we've been able to say overtly about the markets. So by occupancy we really mean demand. So we're seeing this forward demand coming through, which means that you have that ability and that confidence to hold your pricing. In the main, it means that the demand's showing up, so please make the most of it. So as we're looking ahead, September, October, October's pacing 0.8 at plus 8% up at the moment in occupancy rates up about 2%. Is there something you can do with the rates there? I'd suggest it's this, you know, it's still quite early days and we know there's a later market coming in and looking similar to the end of the year. So from October to the end of the year, we're seeing the same about 8% increase in occupancy, but just 2% up in rates. So it's a bit of a flip to what we've seen so far of like, what's finished and done and sort of closed down almost at the end of August. So again, when people say, you know, how do you do it? Should you use data in a current environment? I would really urge people to use this data to understand what's happening because there could be some good opportunities out there that people aren't quite being able to signal. And that's why I always encourage people to talk to each other on forums, get that general fear, what matters to you and your particular microclimate, or if you have, you know, numerous properties in different locations. So it's about getting that feel for what does it mean when you're looking at either two beds or luxury or budget and you know, it's. It's really healthy to get that sense check so you don't look back with regret and go, ah, I wish we put our rates up because occupancy actually was coming back. [00:24:44] Speaker A: I agree. I think that August caught everybody by surprise a little bit. And September, what's remaining of September? I think we should not race to the bike bottom which yeah, I've always been a race to the bottom guy. And I'm saying don't race to the bottom for September. And you're saying 8% occupancy increase versus 25, is that what we're saying for October 25? Yeah, that's worldwide. [00:25:06] Speaker B: Yeah. No, that's America. [00:25:08] Speaker A: America. [00:25:08] Speaker B: That's countrywide. Yeah. [00:25:10] Speaker A: Okay. [00:25:10] Speaker B: Country wide. [00:25:11] Speaker A: And this is single family only or hotels or both. [00:25:16] Speaker B: Just short term rentals. I'm not looking at the hotel data here. So short term rentals, this tends to be, we tend to work with professionally managed stock. So tens of thousands of properties feeding in every single day. So it's a good, it's a good sense check of what the market's doing. [00:25:32] Speaker A: Is it too early for any intelligence on Thanksgiving and Christmas? [00:25:36] Speaker B: Just a little. Let me show you just. I'm only going to peek show you this Luke, rather than going into too much depth. And then I'll come back and we'll do a session for your listeners so that we can really help try and show what's what spot. So so effectively this is a key data dashboard. If you are connected to us, you would have a blue line, all of this which shows your properties against the market. But this gold is the market right now. And what we've got here we're looking at the full year. We're keeping it super simple. 2026 versus 2025 as of today. Right. So where what had we sold this time last year versus where we're at this time. [00:26:15] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:26:16] Speaker B: So look what we've got here is a series of screen like scorecards here. So if you see my screen, we've got different date parameter. We' this year versus last year for the whole of the United States. And we can see and it's literally we're currently sat at 28%, 28.6% occupancy. This time last year we're at 27.8. So we're actually 2.9% up. So it's a really quick green metric to say that's tick occupancy is tracking up. And then if we look here at the different metrics at revpar, et cetera. So it's a really quick view to say things are looking up, things are looking down. And then what we've got here is all the months across the bottom and the solid line is this year, and the dotted line is last year and we're looking at paid occupancy. And we can see here that we've had a stronger performance right the way through. And then in August, we can see that that solid line is below the dotted line. So we're falling behind where we were last year. But September, we can see that solid line is above where we were. So this time last year we were performing. So. And we can see October is positive as well, and it flattens out. November, December, now we can dive into this and then say, show me my four beds and just show me a daily view for September. Right. So I won't play around with it too much now, but you have the ability to be really visually quick in saying, give me a daily view, give me a week review, just show me October, just show me my four beds, just show me my pet friendly. There's a whole host of different ways. So what this would do, if you can see your performance next to the market, it tells you straight away whether is it just a me problem or is it something that the whole market's doing? So really quick, easy, visual, and I'm going come on and give you a key data masterclass in some tools that will really help your property managers and your host understand how quick data can be. For that sense, check and to make sure they're not missing out. So to your point, if you could have seen key data, you'd have gone, okay, everyone else is down in August, two last week in August, if we drill a weekly view. So I'll stop sharing there and come back and give you a full overview. Because it, it does heaps. It does heaps more. So we say, and just, just to [00:28:21] Speaker A: be clear, the, the nationwide occup, the numbers we were just looking at, those, those are low. I mean, from. Compared to what I'm seeing. [00:28:30] Speaker B: Yeah, that's because it's across a full year and we're only in August and we've got the rest of the year to go. So if we looked at final years and it'd be completed, it would look different again. So how about I come on at the end of the year and do a full annual review of what we've seen, what the market's done, how it's looked and where we can then help people plan. [00:28:48] Speaker A: Yeah, but it also goes to show you, you know, like, like if, if you're a property manager with 1200 units versus an owner operator with two units, you know, your, your numbers are going to be wildly different, you know, so [00:29:00] Speaker B: and it's understanding the seasonality of where you're based as well. And some very seasonal. And there's a whole heap of different. We can have. [00:29:07] Speaker A: Yes, because you've got Northern, you've got Minnesota and Michigan and everything else combined in there. But you could exactly nail that down by market, I would assume. [00:29:16] Speaker B: Oh gosh, yeah, we go right down. So you can go to unit level. We also, we can see like we've got a metric called adjusted paid occupancy. So from what's available to sell, whatever sold. Because if you're only selling half the, half the year for whatever seasonality reason, then you don't want to be saying, oh well, I'm on 30 at the end. You'd be like, I've sold 80 or what I could have done. There's lots of different metrics and I'll come on and help explain what they all mean. [00:29:40] Speaker A: You mentioned revpar. I have two more questions before we go. You mentioned revpar. I generally, personally, I don't pay much attention to that because you know, in my brain that's a hotel terminology for, you know, per room in the, in the hotel. But the way you mentioned, you described it as basically the, the short term rental, the house being the. You said parental. [00:30:00] Speaker B: So effectively you kind of the easiest way to do it, you multiply your occupancy via by your rates and give you an example. If you had, you know, your rate set too low and you're only sort of charging 10, sort of $10 and you sold like 100, then your RevPAR would, you know, you' a low RevPAR versus if your rate. So you set your rates at 10,000 and you don't sell anything. And I'll give you the reason why. I my uncle has his own Airbnb and he's very bright and he called me and he was like, I've sold June. I'm full for June. And this was like eight months before. And I was like, uncle Chris, your rates need altering. You can get more. I don't care, I've sold it. So what I'm trying to make sure people do is understand that balance between the two. So it's the biggest indicator. So an empty calendar is. It could be price is just dependent. I know we're going into a later market. It could be a signal that your price needs looking at. You might look at it and decide that that price is right. But it's the biggest signal. So revpar metric, when you put them side by side, if your revpar is growing it means your strategy somewhere along the way is correct because you've managed to get more revenue against that particular rental than you had previously. So it's the metric that you do. So if you combine it and it's literally you can multiply your rates by your occupancy, it is the best way to show you that you are actually gaining additional revenue for all your hard work. [00:31:26] Speaker A: Fascinating. One more thing, the holidays. Do you have a sweet spot as far as when the major holiday should be booked? Like how far in advance? [00:31:38] Speaker B: I mean, the dream is everybody books your properties direct more than six months out and they stay for the full seven days. Like that's the dream and that's where if you don't have a strategy to attract those direct bookings and the repeat bookings, that's what I'd always say repeat bookings for people have been is the holy grail. Because you, you need to make sure you've captured their contact details if possible, and they're on site and make sure you market to them. Again, that's the dream. What we're seeing is almost we see people book very early and I think I mentioned that before very intentionally with they want a sea view or they want a particular range of amenities or they want the five bedrooms or whichever. It's very prescriptive in terms of what they're looking for versus a more spontaneous guests that are still in the market right now and they're putting their hand up. You've got to almost have to wear multiple hats to try and attract that Persona of guests. And it's going to depend on where you're based, the pace of late bookings that are coming through. Is it a two bed? Because you've got a much more chance to book that late than if it's an eight bed, where if you've not booked that with two weeks out to go, you're going to be stretched to do it. And the additional layer I'd pop over, Luke, is we're seeing cancellations increase quite considerably. So people's intention to book and that's the problem. And I think property managers and hosts need a strategy for how to resell if. If necessary because we're seeing this cancellation rate increase. So it's something else to chuck into the mix. And again, the stricter your cancellation policy, if you're a larger property and more expensive then your ability to resell it within a couple of weeks is much harder than a two bed in somewhere with a faster booking pace. So lots to do. So the holy grail I would say it's probably book six months out, fill up the calendar, pay a high rent and don't cancel. The reality is that the guest is showing up in many different shapes at the moment and you need to wear your hats to be able to protect those you can. And use Your, use your OTAs and your channels strategically to help fill those gaps. They've all got a place in my opinion. So make sure you are optimized in the right way for the right channels. [00:33:39] Speaker A: Love it. Okay, so here's what I need and I'm going to say this right on the air. I need you to come back and do a full product demo and I also need you to come back and do a pre major holiday season, pre dead season, January and February so that we all know what to expect as far as data is concerned. Because I talk about this stuff constantly. I do. I'm always talking about this stuff here. So I think that our lovely listener. We love you. We love you. We would love to hear this from somebody who's also doing it from a scientific, scientific perspective with a lot of [00:34:17] Speaker B: data points behind, millions of data points every day. [00:34:20] Speaker A: Yeah. And again, the, the website, how do we, you know, give a plug for the, for the actual product, if you don't mind? [00:34:27] Speaker B: Absolutely. Yeah. So you can find [email protected]. you can book a demo, which I would advise you to do enormously. We're going to be at Verma. We'll, we'll all be front and center. I'm going to come and see you, Luke, at Verm so we can do some in person stuff as well. Or look me up on, on LinkedIn. I am your data source. I have so many data friends. Sometimes I feel like a data drug dealer where people are like, give me some more data. And I'm like, okay, here you go. So consider me your data friend. But check us out on keydata Co. Find us at Vermo. We'll be at a lot of the shows as well. The team will be there. Or drop me a personal, a personal LinkedIn and I'd be delighted to hear from you. [00:35:05] Speaker A: Yes. Which Verma, I don't believe I've even mentioned it on the show just yet. Is in Nashville. Avery and I will both be there. That is October 456, Nashville at the, I think it's at the convention center there next to the hall of fame. Avery and I used to live there seven or eight years we lived in Nashville. So we will be there October 456Verma Nashville. And Sally will be there as well. You're speaking? [00:35:31] Speaker B: I'm speaking. I'll be doing the data keynote, the state of the nation, what's happening in the industry. So. And I'll be making it be my first American show, Luke. So I want to make a lot of friends in the. On the state side, shall we say? [00:35:43] Speaker A: Well, you're doing a wonderful job at that already. Great job. You're fantastic. Love to have you again soon. So again Keydata Co is it co. Yeah. Okay. And thank you for being here. We'll have you again soon. And as always, on short term rental management. Don't overthink it. [00:35:59] Speaker B: Thank you so much for having me. Thanks, Lil. [00:36:01] Speaker A: Bye now.