Get Your Mid-Term Rental Booked Before It's Even Furnished! 🎥

Hey everyone, I'm just getting set up here. Let me know if you can see me. I'm gonna go— I'm just getting a few clicks down, but thanks so much everyone for joining me. This is Shona. I'm the founder of She's Got Assets, and I love coaching students on how to set up their first midterm rental on Fully Booked and from marketing to operations and setup and all that fun stuff, as well as some other things. So tonight I have a really fun topic. It's all about virtual staging and how I use that in a really unique kind of pre-listing strategy for midterm rentals. So those of you that don't know midterm rentals, or, you know, they're kind of the in-between sweet spot between short-term and long-term. They're 30+ day stays, and I absolutely love them. I'm like the biggest advocate. So I'm gonna dive in for a second. I'm just going to speak a little bit to kind of the strategy that I'm using, and I'll just say hi to a few people as you're coming on. Um, so thank you so much for joining me. Um, but yeah, if you're calling in, let me know where you're calling in from and how your day is going, and then I'm going to talk about my strategy, and then we'll dive into some Q&A. Um, so just give me one second here. I need to click around a little bit to see who's on there since the software changed. Um, all right, first of all, thanks for joining. Okay, let's see, I can't— let's see, I can't call anyone out because I can't see names for some reason. But anyway, okay, well, if you're here, let me know. Just type something in the comments, I guess, to let me know so I can say hi and thanks for tuning in. Um, basically, yeah, so with midterm rentals, right, I think the biggest mistake people make is they don't get their listing online. They're waiting for like everything to be perfect. And sometimes like maybe you don't want to invest in the furniture or all the upfront costs and whatnot. So I've developed a really effective strategy where I get a listing online right away before it's even furnished, which sounds crazy, but it totally works. I've totally done this multiple times. We cover in depth in the course kind of the specific strategy, but I just did another, another, just put a listing up recently and I just wanted to share like kind of how the magic of how it looks because the beauty of the strategy is Maybe you have a long-term rental, you're like having a transition and you don't want to invest all that money in furnishing up front. You want to test the market, you want to kind of see if midterm would be a good strategy, or you're all in on midterm, but you just, you're kind of in the middle of staging. And if you know, if you wait till everything is perfect and you have your furniture and you can losing out in a month or two of rent, which is a lot of money. So I'm a big fan and I coach all my students, get your listing up right away. With virtual pictures, there's definitely ways to do it. So it's effective. You want to be really transparent about it. You know, I cover that in the course. But you know, for the most part, people are fine with it. Because what if you're putting a listing up with, you know, a room, empty rooms, it's really similar to like staging a home, right? If you're selling it, if you're flipping it, if you put an empty house on the market, it can have the most beautiful finishes, right? Like amazing tile, like gorgeous fixtures, but you walk in and it just feels kind of empty, like doesn't have a soul. And And then you got it staged, like really staged, right? You come in, it has a certain vibe, you can see yourself there, it just feels really different. So it's the same with photography. And I think virtual staging gives people an idea of what the property would look like when it's fully furnished, that we can kind of tease that out without waiting for all the furnishing to come in. And, you know, that's a process, we can do it really quickly. There's definitely ways to do it quickly. But maybe you just want to get your listing up and you want to kind of gauge your price and interest and start marketing it. Kind of pre-marketing it before it's actually furnished. So that, that's what I do. I've done it very effectively. Again, I cover it in like a lot of detail in the course. Hey, Sherry, thanks for tuning in. But so yeah, so that's kind of what I do. I, again, I cover it in detail that basically you, you can use your iPhone to take pictures. I always recommend professional photography. That's ideal, you know, and then with this strategy, you're going to have to do it twice, you know, once with it empty and one with with the book, but it's in my opinion, like a really small investment to pay to get a booking quicker. When you think about it, you're, it's, you know, you're really going to make a lot more money. So either take pictures with your phone or have a photographer come in. I recommend a photographer, you know, get your pictures. And with virtual staging, you know, we're not staging every single thing. When you think about it, like you don't need to stage the bathrooms, right? Maybe when you have a photographer come, put a towel up and some flowers or just a little bit, add a little bit of life to it, but you don't need to go all out. So we're just talking about a few select rooms. Like what I usually do with the strategy is I will, you know, I'll pick like the living room, probably, maybe the dining room and some bedrooms, right? So it's, you don't have to stage every single picture, obviously, the outside of the house, you don't have to stage any kind of amenities, you know, you're not staging, but my experience, just a couple pictures really give it a lot of life and get, you can get your listing out there. And you just have to be really clear on the listing that is it is virtually staged and I'm always clear about that. And I talk to students how to do that. But for the most part, most people are totally fine with it and they trust you that it will be fully furnished in real life. So with that being said, that's kind of what my strategy is. I call it kind of my pre-listing strategy in the course, or like I used to call it my A/B test, right? Where if you're not sure if you wanna go midterm, you think you have a good market, but you kind of wanna test the waters a little bit, this is a great strategy. It's a very low investment, right? Take your listings, put them up, and with virtual staging, then you can kind of see what kind of interest you're getting. And then you can go ahead and furnish it and you can furnish properties really quickly. And I kind of coach you how to do that in the course. But you know, it's definitely a way to kind of get out there before waiting a couple months before things are perfect. So that is kind of what we're going over tonight. I use a company called Apply Design. I'll put that in the thing. There's a lot of I feel like virtual staging has come a long way. You can definitely tell, but it used to be a lot more obvious. And I think the technology is like leaps and bounds. It does kind of like magic. You can choose like what theme you want. Do you like contemporary? Do you want mid-century? Do you want like coastal farmhouse? You can really dial in, um, the style that you're going to put in your property and so that the images reflect that. So that is important to have a consistent style and make sure it's not going to be like totally different, but as long as it's similar, In my experience, most people are fine with it. So again, there's lots of packages out there, you know, but this is— I found one I like. I'm always kind of dabbling, looking for the latest things. I'm curious if anyone tuning in has a property that maybe is unfurnished, if they're looking to furnish one, or if you're like watching the prepay, just let me know if this strategy might be a good fit for you, or if you've thought about going midterm but maybe you were hung up on like the cost of furnishing or something like that. So I'm really curious to know if anyone is kind of come across this as a stumbling point. You know, I developed it because I had a property that I was kind of dabbling, debating on, do I go midterm? And I'm like, let me just put it out there with, with the strategy. And every time I've done this test, I've always gotten bookings from it. And then it's, I've gone ahead and furnished, but I had a signed contract, which really helped kind of COVID that extra cost of furnishing. It made me feel really confident. So, so again, if you're watching the replay, you know, feel free to chime in. I'd love to hear what people think. So I'm going to do a quick, just little demo a virtual staging, I think, actually, let me— I should share my screen. So let me get sorted out here. I'm going to share my screen. Let's see if this should work. Let's see. So present, I'm going to share my screen. Screen, just give me one second. Okay, okay, this should work. Sometimes you never know. I think it's working. You guys can see this, let, like, let me know. I'm just trying to refresh here to make sure that that screen sharing is working. Okay, it looks like it's working. Okay, awesome. So this is, you know, this is the presentation mode. I would, I would love to demo the software and I'll do that in the course. I have a module in the course, but it takes a while to render because it's done in real time. Like when I first started doing this, you kind of had to upload the images and wait like 24 hours. So with the AI model, you don't have to wait, but it does take a bit of time to render. So I don't wanna make you guys wait through that. So I just kind of doing a little kind of before and after thing here. You can kind of see like, you know, if you're looking, if you're scrolling through like, hey, Airbnb, if you were to put up a listing with this picture, right? Oh, you can tell it has nice flooring, it has a fireplace, but this would probably not stop the scroll. I don't think you'd wanna stay here, right? It looks pretty like empty, does not look like a furnished rental. So here's what it looks like Let me do this actually. So when I take this off, you can kind of see this is what it looks like with the actual virtually staging. Yes, you can kind of tell if you look, you know, maybe super closely, but in my opinion, if you're scrolling on your phone or your computer, like you're going to see this and be like, oh, that looks nice. It looks contemporary. I can tell there's a couch, you know, it's comfortable, right? This is going to like, you might, someone might stop and inquire about booking versus this. I would not recommend posting this, right? It doesn't look that appealing. And again, these just FYI, full disclosure, I should say these are pictures I took myself. I did have a photographer come, but I wanted to get the listing up really fast, so I just kind of got this up. But I will redo these with professional photos, so it'll be nicer lighting. But you can just see, like, you know, an example. And this, all of this stuff kind of came in a package. The only thing that I modified here was I put this TV up here. So that's like the only thing I modified, which is I think it's pretty good design. I'm really picky about design, but they have, again, lots of packages you can choose from. So then I'm going to go to the next one, and then you can see this is, this is a primary bedroom, right? You know, it looks, it looks okay, but it looks like an empty room. You can tell it's like, you know, it's freshly painted and nice and clean, but it does not look inviting. It does not look like a furnished rental. So the big reveal, and here you can see the after, right? So it looked— there's a bed in here, right? There's like a dresser or console with a plant, there's art on the walls, there's a chair. It just looks way cozier and something that you would actually— looks like a furnished rental. So it's a major difference. Like just scrolling through these, right? If you're like scrolling along, like here's the before and like these would not get you bookings. But when you put these pictures up and you're clear that it's staged, that can get you bookings, right? And I've done this very successfully and the students have too. So just, you know, a couple examples. I have one more example. This is kind of a bedroom, right? Again, the lighting isn't great, but you can— it just looks like an empty room, standard kind of bedroom. And if I do this big reveal, then you can see what it looks like, right? It's got like a nice throw, it's got pillows, it's got nightstands, it's got artwork, it has a consistent vibe, consistent design. It's cozy, right? It looks a lot different than just these empty, empty photos. So I'm a really big fan of this. So just wanted to share that tip tonight because I was just using it and the technology has just come so far and it's like so fast. I'll just scroll through again just to see kind of the difference. And like, I honestly think if I was scrolling through, like, you know, they have— includes shadows and everything. It's really well done. I don't think I would actually notice that it was virtually staged, just to be honest. Right. I mean, maybe a little bit if you're like really analyzing it, but for the most part, it's pretty realistic and it's just a great way to get your listing out there. Without that upfront cost. So, and again, I talk about this in the course pretty in-depth, but I just wanted to share that for anyone that's like maybe thinking about getting into midterms. It's a great strategy. So this is— now we're going to go into Q&A. This is a quick little tutorial. Again, I would have loved to have actually shown it, but it just takes a while, so I'll probably do like a time-lapse video or something. So let me look at Q&A really fast. So Sherry is asking, I'm currently listing a property that's been listed for a long time, which I'm and changing the term. How long does it take to stage live, not virtual? So that's a really good question. You know, when I'm in my course, we have like a very full list of all the things you need, like a big checklist. I think you can do it in a day, couple days. It just depends on your experience, on your team. But I can do it really quickly. But I think it comes down to planning and ordering your stuff and being really efficient. So I think you can do it really quickly. I would say a couple days. But that's just I've done it a lot, but I think if you're strategic and you do a lot of ordering online and have like a really good checklist like I have in the course, it can be done very quickly. So long-term, but yeah, if that's— this is a great strategy for going from long-term to midterm because you're getting it out there. Midterm bookings come in really, really last minute in my experience. So, you know, you don't want to miss an opportunity. Maybe someone's looking for like a week out, and if you don't get your listing online, you could miss that. Like a month or two, right? So I, this is what I, I love the strategy. It's not for everyone, but for me it's been really effective. Um, but good question. So yeah, staging is a lot of work. It's, it's not easy, but just think it's like a one-time investment and this really helps you kind of get out there and know that it's going to get— I usually don't, sometimes I won't stage if I'm kind of on the fence about a property, I won't stage it until I have a booking and then I'll just scramble and get it done. So Really good question. Yeah, any other questions? If you're watching the replay, feel free to chime in. But yeah, the virtual staging has come a long way. I think we're kind of used to seeing it in like, you know, listings like MLS listings, right? But it also can be done even for long-term rentals, if that's your game. It's certainly a good strategy for that. But especially for midterm, I found it really effective. So Yeah, any other questions? And if you're watching the replay or have any questions about the course, you know, I walk students through how to do this, like what pictures to choose, kind of a listing strategy. There's some kind of top sites that I recommend to get out there on, but you definitely get yourself out there. Don't wait. Again, just don't wait because you don't know when leads are going to come in. Today I got like 2 insurance leads and they're looking for properties right away, you know, and you're going to miss that opportunity if you're not getting out there. But sending a, you know, listing a place with unstaged photos just does not look appealing. I don't think it's that effective. So So that is my top secret strategy that I'm sharing with you guys. So if anyone wants, I can post the link to that site I mentioned where I do this. It's really cost effective. And the other thing too is, you know, a lot of photographers will offer both virtual staging. It's a little more expensive, but it's kind of a done-for-you package. You don't have to worry about it. You can have your photographer come and they can just, you know, check the box or say you want to have virtual staging done. They— I think it's pretty ubiquitous these days that they offer that. I kind of like having a little more control over what the outcome is. But again, if you want to save time, have your photographer do it or see if that's something they offer. So yeah, well, if there's no more questions, that's kind of it. But again, this is just a quick, you know, to recap when you're getting your listing ready to go, don't wait, get it online as soon as you can. You know, and I think virtual staging just is a real game changer for getting booked or getting inquiries, right? And then you can always you can always just let people know, right? So that link, yeah, I will, um, Sherry, I will put that in the comments in a second after we wrap up. But yeah, and it's, it's pretty cost effective and it's pretty much instant, 8 to 10 minutes to kind of render, but I'll share the link. So, and if you use it, like post some photos, let me know how you like it. There's a lot of options out there. This is just one I've found. It's, I started using it recently and I'm really happy with it. So Awesome. Yeah, any other comments or questions before we wrap up? Again, I'm always a resource if you have questions about the course or about marketing. I've been getting a lot of people asking about marketing and it's definitely, there's a lot that goes into it. There's a lot of sites, there's definitely a strategy that goes into it. There's, but there's definitely some tips for how to do it to get found and, you know, get your listing noticed. This is one of them. So I just wanted to share. Well, if there's no other questions, feel free. I see one more question. Wendy's asking, um, co-hosting. Yes, that's kind of a different topic, Wendy. I'm happy to chat about it offline. I just want to keep this on that, but it's definitely something I'm offering if anyone's interested. I offer, you know, co-hosting, and it's really just— I'm a consultant. I'm helping you market and, you know, market your property and get it booked and do all the paperwork and kind of help out with it. So it's definitely something I'm doing. So I think I love helping people doing it themselves. If you wanted me to be more hands-on, that's something I do offer. But yeah, it's fun. Awesome. Any other questions before we wrap up? Okay, well, if you're watching the replay, chime in, let me know what you thought of this and I will post that link. I might have an affiliate link, I have to check. I don't think I do. But if I do, I'll dig it up and post it. But it's fun to play with. It's pretty reasonable. And it can— it's just, it's really fun when you get your rendering back and you see this magically staged photo that was a blank slate. Flight before. It's pretty cool. It is like magic, I think. Awesome. All right everyone, thanks for tuning in. This is our weekly, uh, 5 PM PST livestream. I'm Shona from She's Got Assets and I love working with students and helping coach them with setting up their first midterm rental or maybe going from long-term to midterm, just kind of figuring out their strategy. That's what I do. So I'm gonna sign off. Thank you so much for tuning in. Please leave a comment, let me know what you thought, and I will follow up with you. Have a great evening, you guys.