10 Must-Have Photos You NEED In Your Airbnb Listings | The STRR Podcast #70 | Tim Hubbard

The short term rental industry is always changing. Listings are getting more competitive and more creative, and I discovered a couple new listing tips that you can use with your photos and I want to share them with you in this week's episode of the Short Term Rental Riches podcast. Stay tuned. Welcome to Short Term Rental Riches. Quick, actionable ideas to help you along your real estate investment journey, but with a specific focus on short term rentals. Happy you're here again as always, and I've got some more tips for you. This time it's going to be specific for your short term rentals and not a broad real estate topic. I want to share with you some great listing tips that I use and a couple new ones that I discovered while talking with a VRBO account manager not too long ago. Listing tips that you can use with your photos specifically. So I'm going to go over three new ones that I hadn't really considered or done before and then also 10 old ones. Well, I should say old ones for me that I've been doing a long time, but I've seen are lacking in the majority of listings and so they will set yours apart as long as you are using them as well. So without further ado, let's just jump right in. So I was talking with the VRBO account manager who obviously sees tons of listings all the time, right. We had an in depth review with my listings, but he had some great ideas for listings, some we'd already done. But I want to share with you three new ones and then we'll jump into the 10 old ones or 10 that I've been doing for a long time that I think you should as well. So number one, and this isn't counting as one of the points, but we should always have some sort of description under our listing photos. Now if you don't have anything to say, or maybe it's a somewhat redundant photo of a living room and you already have a description of the living room, well then you can put a quote in from one of your previous guests. So that's not actually you saying and put it in quotations. John said the living room was super cozy or whatever it is, as long as it applies to whatever you're looking at. And even if it doesn't apply to that, if it's about the listing in general, that's a pretty cool way to get a review into your listings. Put it in the listing caption. And so this is available on Airbnb, this is available on HomeAway and VRBO, most all listing sites. You have a caption to put in there. So consider putting that in or consider putting a few of those in. It'll help you stand apart a little bit. Now, one that I've seen in a lot of professional interior design photos and stagings and things like that is a picture of a blurred person. Have you seen any of these? You know what I'm talking about. Maybe someone walking up the stairs. You can't see their face or their the actual person, but you can see a person in the space. I don't have any of these yet, but it would make you stand apart a little bit from other listings. And it can be pretty cool, you know, to have someone in a space so that you. You or a potential guest could envision themselves in your space a little easier. So consider that one having a blurred image. That's a pretty. You know, you probably need to use Adobe Photoshop or get someone that really knows what they're doing, but that can be really cool. It's definitely a professional type photo. And then the third one is in regards to Covid. Now, one of the 10 that I've been doing for a while I'll get to is about housekeeping images. The VRBO representative suggested just putting our properties meet CDC guidelines. So in the US that's a center for Disease control in regards to Covid. So just to give a little extra security, we know that we can't say our listings are Covid proof or anything like that because Airbnb will probably have us take them down if they find them. But that's a good just little tip to put in there. So consider those three new ideas for your listing photos. Now let's get into 10 other tips that I've been doing for quite a while that I see most listings lack. And they're so easy to do, and it's so easy to add them in when you're already taking photos. I'm staying in an Airbnb right now, and none of these 10 are in the listing photos. I'm down here in a little city in Brazil, though, still, so I don't think the competition's quite as tough as it might be in some other cities. But just consider these 10 tips. So number one is a floor plan. And all these tips are gonna help solve questions for your guests so that your team or you aren't getting bombarded with more questions, because we know that people aren't reading the listings as much as we want them to. They are gonna look at the photos, though. So, number one, have a floor plan in there, especially for larger spaces or vacation home or something like that. So visualize where maybe one couple is going to stay, where the kids are going to stay, or so on and so on. So having a floor plan, and like I've mentioned in prior episodes, if you don't have a floor plan, just do a little sketch on a piece of paper, take a picture of it, send it to upwork or fiverr.com and have someone draw up a sketch for you. It doesn't have to be perfect, just a general idea. Number two, aerial view. Now, if you have a drone, this is going to be really easy. If you don't, most professional real estate photographers now have drones with them and they could take one. It's probably going to be an extra charge. But remember, you're going to have these pictures for a long time. So go ahead and get yourself a drone shot as well. And if your property is near some sort of special attraction, maybe it's near the beach, maybe it's near a golf course or downtown or near some nice restaurants, you can actually edit that aerial photo a little bit to say 2 minutes from the beach or 100 meters from the beach. And that is going to allow people to really visualize where the property is again without having to read your description. Now, kind of a side point to this listing photo number two, could be, instead of an aerial view, could be a screenshot of a map, Google Map, for example. You probably don't want to put your exact listing location on there, but you can have a rough idea. You know, do a far out one on Google Earth or Google Maps and draw a little circle around it. And then you can do the same thing. You can say it's this far from the beach or from the restaurants or even put multiple points on the map. It will help, believe me. Believe me. Number three, and this is kind of going back to the COVID one is a picture of either professional housekeeping supplies or your housekeepers, possibly, maybe you don't want to put their actual faces on there, but having some sort of housekeeping photo and just a note in there that you guys are taking every precaution possible is going to go a long way. And you can go on, you know, shutterstock.com or some of the websites online to get a free professional housekeeping photo of supplies or whatever it is to add on your listing. It's going to help you stand out again. It's gonna remind them that you are taking precautions for cleanliness. So number four, this one is huge. If I was only gonna do one of these, gosh, this would probably be the one out of the 10 that I would say is a must. And that is an Internet snapshot, a snapshot of your photo speed. I've talked about this one before. It's super, super important. If you're using Google routers or Eero routers or whatever routers you're using, if you're using the mesh ones or some of the new smart ones, it's really easy to take a screensh. The speeds. Most of the routers now tell you what speed they're running at. But if not, you can go to speedtest.net anywhere with wi fi in your listing and you can take a screenshot that way. Number five, having a picture of your smart TV, maybe with YouTube up or with the YouTube symbol on it, or with Netflix up or with the Netflix symbol on it. And those pointed out in your listing description, we have a smart TV with Netflix and YouTube. Everyone needs their Netflix these days. Everyone is using YouTube instead of TV and they don't want to miss a beat, you know, if they're on vacation, especially if they're renting someplace for a month or something like that. So again, super easy one to do. Number six, local attractions. You know, this can be the zoo, this can be a famous street, this can be a museum, whatever it is, some sort of local tourist attraction. If you're near one, take an image of it or find an image online and throw it right in your listing. Super easy to do, super quick and add a little caption in there. Number seven, kind of in line with local or local restaurants. If you're right in front of a restaurant or you're near one of your favorites or near a whole street of restaurants, get a picture of that and say you're walking distance to so and so, or even if you're not walking distance, find one of your favorites. That's, you know, within reason, that's not too far. Take a picture of it and add that to your listing. Number eight, a door lock image. So hopefully, I really hope you have a smart lock if you don't stop watching this YouTube video and go get yourself a smart lock. Because that is step one to this whole operational puzzle. So go get a smart lock if you don't have one. But assuming you do, take a picture of it on your door showing the guests, because again, remember, they're not reading the listings most of the time, so they want to know that they're going to have easy access. You take a picture of the smart lock and say you'll get a code before arrival and they don't have to go searching around for it. Number nine is a picture of the entry to your property. Now, if it's a single family home, this might be a little easier. You know, you're on the street and you got a picture of the front door or something like that. If it's an apartment space, then you want a picture of where they're going to access their apartment from. So maybe it's down a certain sidewalk or it's up a certain set of stairs or maybe through a gate or a garage or whatever it is. And you might want a couple of these photos because it's really going to help the guests feel more comfortable when they're arriving to your property. It's going to look familiar, especially if they're arriving at night. It's going to be a big, big help. And they'll refer back to these photos when they're checking into the property. Number 10. And there are other ones we can add to this list, but these are just 10 that I find most people are not putting in their listings. That can really help set your listing apart. So number 10 is a picture of the coffee machine. I know most all the Airbnb's these days are offering coffee just like the hotels do. But if you have a coffee machine, take a picture of it and take a picture of the available coffee so they know if you have teas there. Take a picture of that. If you have olive oil and salt and pepper and the basic cooking supplies, take a picture of that. Because it's going to make it a lot easier for them to make a decision just based off your photos so they don't have to go through and read a whole lot. So I'm going to run through these again real quickly to recap. If you don't have these, make sure you put them in your listing. Consider these new three ones. So number one, adding a quote or review in the caption underneath one of your photos. Number two, and this is a little more advanced one, but maybe adding a blurred image of a person in one of your photos. I bet you can even go on fiverr and have someone do that. I think that will help set your listing apart. Number three, say that you're following the CDC guidelines in at least one of your photos with housekeeping or something like that. And then our 10 that hopefully you're doing already. But if not, definitely add these in. We got floor plan number one, aerial view, or that could be a map view, a Google screenshot number three. Your professional housekeeping photo could be of the supplies, could be of a housekeeper. Whatever it is, just make sure you have that in there. And a description for all these. Number four, and what I would say is the most important, your Internet screenshot. Number five, picture of your smart tv, preferably with it on, so that they can see the Netflix symbol or the YouTube symbol. Number six, local attractions. If you're near a famous street, famous museum, so on and so on. Whatever it is, Google that, throw it in there. Number seven, local restaurants, something or even a cafe or a grocery store or something you're near just to let them know kind of where things are at. That's probably going to be a little more of an urban type photo, but if you're out in the country, you know, maybe take a picture of the nearest town or something like that. Number eight, a door lock image. Even though you're going to put in your listing that you have a smart lock, take a picture of the lock as well. That way they don't have to go searching for it and they just know peace of mind. Number nine, at least one photo. Or if you have a really complicated image entry into your property or into your apartment, maybe you have more than one photo outlining that. And number 10, we all need our morning coffee, right? Make sure you take a picture of the coffee machine or the coffee you're using or the tea so that guests know. And along those same lines, you can take a picture of olive oil and salt and pepper or something like that if you have the kitchen essentials. So those are my top tips for your listing photos. No matter what listing site you're on, definitely consider having all these in there if you don't already. It's going to help your listing stand apart and it's going to help your potential guests make a decision. So until next time, hope you guys are all doing really well out there and we'll talk soon. Want to get on the fast track to financial freedom through short term rentals? Well, it all starts with the properties you acquire, but you want to make sure that you acquire the right properties. I want to give you my ebook that will show you how to do just that. There is no charge. It's my gift to you for being one of our subscribers. Just go to restmethods. Com, that's restmethods. Com.