The Secrets to Scaling and Selling a Short-Term Rental Business

Welcome to the Boostly podcast. This is a podcast that gives hosts the tools, the tactics, the tips and most importantly the confidence so you can go out there and get yourselves more direct bookings. We do a series where we go behind the host and that's exactly what we're doing. Today we've got a guest who has got a short term rental business and particularly today this guest has not only started his business, scaled his business, but he's now in, in the, he's just sold his business and going through that at the moment. So this is a really good chance for you as a host to learn from somebody who has done this and you can pick up tips, tricks and all of the good stuff from this podcast. So let me introduce, we've got a special guest, we've got Josh guest on the, on the line with us. He is from Guest Homes and let's dive into his business. Welcome along Josh.

Good morning Liam. Yeah, looking forward to it.

So Josh, for those, I know you've been on this podcast once before but that was a little while ago now. So can you reintroduce your business? Give us the elevator pitch?

Yeah, absolutely. So yeah, no, so started guest homes in 2018. Actually started it as a rent to SA business and sort of got into it a bit out of nowhere actually because I, I, I bought an existing rent to service accommodation business which was in Brighton, four hours away from where I live, which was definitely lots of learning curves around that side of things which we can dive into a bit later on. And then I, lots of people then started asking me about managing their properties and where I live locally in Worcester. I thought it was a good market for it here because there's lots of things going on and they'd open up a new premier inn, a lot of cricket club. So actually there's a good market here, let's give it a go. Opened a couple of units up, they were flying off and then, and then it just stopped. The traction just started going and more and more people keep asking me to manage their properties and scaled up from there.

What do you want people to get out of this podcast? Obviously you've had a lot of experience. What would you like somebody to take away from this podcast?

Yeah, so to be honest, just, just hopefully they can pick up lots of little different tips and advice depending on what stage they're at in the business. So we grow 130 units before selling a business. So whether you're just getting started and take some bits away from. Just about. Yeah, about getting started or Wanting to take advice on how to scale it and exit the business and following you.

Mentioned your one of the first lessons there was you literally just bought an existing business. So what did you learn in the very early days? What did you feel that, that you learned in the early days and what do you wish you'd have learned faster in those early days?

So well, I got into the industry knowing completely literally nothing about it. I literally just some guy basically said he's got his free rent about safe properties. I didn't even know the terminology of that. And he literally basically he showed me his P and L over the last two years and I was like well basically what I'm going to pay him for it. I can get my money back in nine months. How hard can it be? I was like I've got money just sat there at the moment in stocks and shares getting like 10% a year. I was like well I can get my money back in nine months and then make that back again the following year. So I was like it's just a no brainer. So but the biggest lesson that I probably learned from that was yeah, being four hours away, then taking on those properties, then trying to sort the logistics out within cleaners maintenance issues really knew about and then yeah, any sort of questions from guests. I didn't obviously really know these properties that well because obviously just taking it over from someone else, I didn't really know it probably super well. So I had to try and I had to spend quite a lot of time down in Brighton which had been four hours traveling. If it's staying down there sorting things out and, and more particularly in Brighton trying to sort out maintenance or cleaners is quite chaos because obviously a busy city and there's not nowhere for anyone to park. So all the trades people don't want to do anything for less than probably £100 a time. So just change your life always hard to get sorted. So yeah, there are lots of learning curves but I definitely recommend if anyone's looking to either invest in property or rent to SA or even management just to start off, we try and do it within an hour of where you are so you can sort of learn the sort of nuts and bolts of things until you can build up a systemization to scale it.

That's really good. And is there anything that you wish you'd have learned faster from way back then?

Not necessarily faster. I think you've got to learn everything as you go on but probably just learning more systemization and outsourcing some things. But I think In a way that's, that's part of the journey. And also if you do that too early on, you probably end up overspending on systemization or enders overspending on staff. So it's in, in my view it's actually good to learn.

You're certainly younger than me, but what age were you when you done when you started this business?

Yes, I was 20 years old when I started.

Amazing. Amazing and a very brave thing to do, but also a very savvy thing to do because like you say you looked at the P and L and just went, hey, I can make money here. So talk us through how you went from those first few units. What was kind of like the next stage. Did it just happen gradually? I mean you mentioned that you've sold the business at 130 units and you mentioned, I think it was four rent to rent units you started with. So what happened in the middle?

Yeah, so like I said, kind of came back to Worcester and I had like a bit of a brainstorm moment. Said like actually now we need to, we need to actually scale this business. Like this is a great opportunity here. So it's kind of like starting from scratch stuff again because technically these, these first three units I never, I never found. So I never had to go and speak to agents, landlords, etc because obviously I just bought an existing business so it's fortunate in that side. But then I was basically starting from scratch so I needed to go and network speaking to agents, speaking to some director, landlords, etc. Try and find some more rent service accommodations. And that's what I was looking down initially because that's what I was going to initially scale up. So I started to look, look around for options to try and do that. But I'd actually quite hard and it took, it did take me three to six months of hard graft of doing lots of viewings with either letting agents or trying to do direct to vendor viewings as well. And I kept getting lots of no's and I thought it would have been easier to start off with because I technically, technically had a track record of these three units even so obviously they didn't know, obviously. But obviously because it's in a complete different area, basically everyone's treating me as a new start business still. So I was like this is actually harder than I thought. But yeah, did lots and lots and lots of viewings and then eventually I got a yes and then I got another yes and then they got another yes and then suddenly within like a two or three Month period. Just then the traction just really hit and it just like just drove off. And then some of the people were like, actually, because some of the direct vendor clients, they were like, actually, I want a piece of that, but I don't want to manage it, so could you just manage it for me? And then I sort of didn't just connect with other investors in the area and they were like, oh, I know my friend as well, he's got a property or she's got a property and pass me their details. And then it just sort of just snowballed effect, just flown off from there.

How do we get in touch with you, Josh? If somebody is listening to this going, Josh, Josh sounds like he's got a lot of experience. I want to reach out to him. Is there a way to do so or is there a way to check out Guesty Homes and host and say, yeah, absolutely.

So, yeah, well, if you want to get guest homes, websites look. So just gone to www.guesthomes.co.uk. you want to reach out to myself personally, then just drop me a message on Instagram or Facebook. So on Facebook it's just Josh Guest. Instagram's underscore Josh Guest. So pretty easy to find me on there or LinkedIn or anything. Any questions? Scaling, starting or exiting? Yeah, just reach out to me and drop me a message.

That's cool. And to finish, what's the plan for the future?

Never know where, where it will take me. But yeah, there's, there's lots of stuff going on. For a complete different podcast, we also have our, our own linen business as well. So we have a linen hire business which is called Guest Linen. So we at the moment we're facilitating within an hour to an hour and a half of Worcestershire. So that's all the way up to sort of Birmingham, all of the Cotswolds down towards Bristol, Bath area. So we're going to be scaling that up and that's obviously be a completely different podcast on its own. And yeah, I'm gonna take obviously a long think about it over the next sort of 12 months. I'm going to continue with obviously working with Host and stay as well, continue growing out their portfolio of properties. So I'm really looking forward to that and then see what, see where my journey takes me.

Yeah, well, you've certainly earned some, some time to, to ponder that question. And if anyone's listening and you need linen higher in those areas, obviously you know who to contact as well. So thank you so much, Josh for coming onto the Bruce Lee Podcast. If you're listening to this and you've got even one piece of value from it, and maybe another host, a friend, share this podcast with them if you want a podcast with them. If you want to continue the chat on a social media channel, you can come to our free Facebook page. Just go onto Facebook and search the hospitality community. It's a free community where you can come and join and we can talk about anything you've heard on this podcast, or we can talk about direct bookings. We can talk about whatever you like, really. But we'll see.

Having a blast Gonna get it on the Bruce Lee podcast. Bruce Lee like Bruce Lee? Cause it's so hard and the T is loose leaf Making up those rhymes? Don't write it, just do it loosely.