Transforming Your Property into a Profitable Vacation Rental

Hey everyone. Welcome to the new episode of the Boostly Podcast. Today we are going behind a host and hearing a host who's based in Newcastle in England and hearing his story and seeing what tips and cheers that he's going to have for us. If you haven't sort of already heard, then there is the Boostly podcast that you're listening to, of course, and this is the podcast that gives you the tools, the tips, the trainings, but most importantly, the confidence to go out there and get more direct bookings and podcasts. Part of the reason why we do these behind the host is because it really. Hospitality can be lonely. So really hearing it from other people's perspectives and some of the challenges and some of the successes that they're going through can really help you as a host in your business. So let's dive in. I've got V Vensky from HNFC Stay. So welcome along. Let's dive in. Tell us a little bit of introduction to who V is, where you're based in the world. I can detect that's not a Newcastle accent as well. So tell us about how you come to be in Newcastle and yeah, just a little bit about yourself.

Sure, sure, of course, yeah. As you probably picked up. Yeah. So to cut the long story short, so I left home when I was 14 and I'm from Belarus, so I'm a Belarusian and all my family obviously from Belarus as well. So I left home when I was 14 to, to study in New Zealand all by myself. So that's actually where I picked up most of my language skills because all I knew is the one word I don't understand. Well, I don't understand. That's all I knew when I got there. So for three, four months, that's literally all I was saying. And then obviously as a time pass, I got more. And after I graduated through my Cambridge examinations there, I basically got accepted into foundation in the uk, into Huddersfield University and then decided to take a completely different path from intended, go with finance and investment management. Because I've been quite interested in my college back in the days and that's kind of how it all started.

That's cool. I mean, to leave home at 14 and to take that big risk, that's already. How did you feel taking that step?

I'd say it was one of the most interesting probably chapters of my life. So one thing that actually my uncle taught me, well again, when I was 14, because it's literally have no family, you don't speak the language. It's a New Zealand it's completely different culture. You don't know what's happening there. But it was only for the one main reason, to learn more about how the business is being made on the west and obviously get into the really good education with the Cambridge, because I want some grants. Obviously the education was quite expensive with that, so. So it probably was the drive to become an entrepreneur that actually said, okay, I'm without my family, without my friends, I don't know anything. But that's what I want to do. So that's why I will do that.

Amazing. Very inspirational. So talk us through. HNFC stays. How did the business come about and tell us whereabouts? Obviously we know it's Newcastle, but how many units and who you tend to serve? What kind of avatar?

Yeah, yeah, of course. So HNFC kind of has a long history now. In april we'll be 5 years old. So the company has changed its operations in the last few years. At the beginning, we started as an investment firm, so we've been managing money for clients, wealthy individuals, just on a stock market. Then we got into the property investing and just a little less than a year ago, we started doing vacation rentals. And the way it's actually all started is because I'm also here on my entrepreneurial visa and I had some troubles with our software and so like, oh, what can we do? Let's try Airbnb. So basically I got into South Shields. That's why I met today. And I thought, how about I test if I just rent out my spare bedroom and if it works, I'll consider doing like an entire flat because obviously it's the risk. You. You don't have anyone to ask. You need the capital and you kind of lost there. So I've done this. It's actually did pretty well. It literally was a year ago and now we manage four units and we'll get probably another two, like literally this month. So we just bought a house on this Monday, so we're doing all the refurbishment, so we'd be great. This place where I met today, it will be an entire flat for the next few months. And then also we probably get another good flat in Newcastle. And for this area, in regards to the guests that we're serving, it's. We still, we're still working this out because it kind of varies because we have two very central flats in the city center. One that which is a perfect. Most of the time they all booked. However, it's very noisy, it's a listed property, so there's no double glazing. And there's very limited thing we can do with this property. So it's suitable mainly to young teenagers who actually travel need to experience the vibrant light of Newcastle because you probably know it's very interesting experience for people to have. But in the same time we do host families, especially students with the graduation when it comes to that, some small events obviously like no parties, but mainly it's like family and friends. We need a more quiet area still within the working proximity to the city. So that's kind of our strategy what we're trying to do.

How did you find your units? What kind of structure do you use? Are these kind of bought managed or rent to service accommodation units? And how did you feel getting those first units as well?

Right, so it probably was obviously the hardest bit because everyone says oh just find more properties and it's pretty much you sorted. Obviously you starting like everyone else is going through Zoopla, rightmove, Open Rent, etc, etc, all these different websites and for me it didn't work out. So I started asking my friends who actually happen to be in the industry. They manage four or five flats and they have literally two flats in the same building as we have today. So they said actually I'll talk to my agent, maybe she has something reach out to her. So after two months of searching, finally she actually got back to me because it was complete nonsense and she said yeah, yeah, okay, I'll do the viewing. Like can you do it now? And I'm in south. She was like, well it will take me probably like an hour to get this like, but I can do it now. So actually literally getting an Uber driving there because I know I need a flat, like I need it. So we're going there, we've seen the flat. I was like okay, it's not bad. And then we literally signed the agreement. The best part was there was no negotiations need to be done with this company because they know exactly what, what what I need to do. And the whole building, it's kind of focused on short term rentals because if you leave determinantly, probably because of all the noises, like literally you can hear the bus laughs outside because it's so central and the sound isolation is very minimal, it's probably not gonna work. So an entire building like probably for 40 or 50 flats and probably 80% of them are for the short term accommodation. So literally in my contract it says you're allowed to subleting or whatever you need. However, there's a little catch to that. You need to pay a one month Rent as the service fee for allowing you to do an Airbnb. So there was the only con really.

Tell me more about the tech that you use in your business. Do you use any tech at all?

Yeah, yeah. So the most important bit was for me is put the structure right at the beginning. So obviously we paint a lot in overheads, for example, like as I said on some months with like 6 to 8k in revenue. But like my personal take is so little because I have to pay admin assistance. We have two admin assistants at the moment and they also obviously co host the does all the checking, they deal with all the queries because before 3am 1am I'm always replying, I'm always sorting all issues because it's kind of how I want to treat our guests. So we always there 24, seven, obviously the cleanest actually on someone. We do pay like 13, 1400 pounds which basically you can actually hire your own dedicated cleaner and obviously have more control, save money and maybe make some money along the way to clean other flats. But yeah, so we use up listing as a channel manager. That's a key thing. I highly recommend this. Obviously there are a lot of different alternatives and it actually help us to have everything in one place because as soon as you get more than one property, let's say more than even two, it becomes a problem. Different calendars, clashes, double bookings, which is way more common than you think. But as soon as you actually set everything up, it's so easy to automate your business. Like what perception, what messages goes there, discounts, everything. Then second, obviously it's a beyond pricing. So this is basically a dynamic pricing software. They are some integrated with Airbnb, but I would strongly say do not use it because Airbnb algorithm is way poorer than others. Plus the main, the main idea is put heads in the bets so it's not in their direct interest to put the right price for you rather than the lowest, which is something you perhaps want to consider. We also use hostfully since June, so we design all our E guides customly tailored to the guests. So as you know, you probably can have like a nice leaflet or like a fold on arrival for the guests. But we thought, okay, we'll do it electronically, which actually automatically has all the events, pubs, cafes, scenes that actually it pulls up of the Internet on your local area and address. So it's always up to date and it's based on the proximity and obviously all the additional information that we have, plus additional services. So now our goal is to Increase the average ticket by selling add ons, early check in, late checkout, fridge stocking. We do transfers as well from the airport and to the airport and we thinking of launching your own chef that actually comes and do the cooking for you. But it's probably more to the premium side of the market, so probably not just yet.

So thank you so much. So was there anything I missed before we bring things to a close Vy, everything was covered.

The only thing I probably would add to our software list is also to put notion in there. I'm not sure how much you know about the software, but basically Notion helps you to organize everything. Documents, processes, onboarding, especially learning materials for your staff. I would say it's really important because at the beginning every time you need to interview someone, then you have to onboard them. But rather than create a document, videos, share the link on notion, you do need to be involved.

That's cool. And that's one which every business needs, isn't it?

Is all going to any business, even in your personal life. I also use Notion with all my yearly goals and each single goal has kind of own mini action plan that you need to follow. So it's really helping.

Well, thank you so much for that, that tip as well. So thank you V. That's fantastic to find out about your business. Thank you. Also if you're listening into this episode of the Boostly podcast, we know there's a lot of places you can put your attention and we thank you for putting it with Boostly. Hopefully you've got some amazing tips from obviously that one at the end there which is Notion, but also some of the software that you could go out and, and use like up listing beyond pricing and also some of the real life situations that you deal with in some of the challenges that come along with it. So thank you so much for listening. Thank you again, V. And yeah, we'll, we'll, we'll see you on the next podcast. All right, bye for now.

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