Airbnb Tips: Top 3 Things You Need To Get Rid Of In Your Rentals | The STRR Podcast #73

If you've traveled and stayed in enough short term rentals, there's one little thing that you might find in some of the older rentals or maybe some of the rentals that have newer managers or owners. It's kind of a Rembrandt of someone that used to be there or an old owner and it's something we don't want in our rentals at all. So that's what we're going to talk about this week. All the little rembrances and the ones that we need to make sure are not in our rentals. 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. It seems in the US anyways that travel's picking up. I think people are a little more comfortable now maybe traveling because a lot of people are getting vaccinations. Fortunately for the U.S. a lot of those are available. I'm still down here in Brazil. They don't have any of that yet. It's coming later this year. So hopefully, fingers crossed, we are going to see the benefit of all this pent up demand for travel because you know as well as I do that people have been bottled up, they've been quarantined and they want to get out and travel. So now is the time to get your rentals started. This week I wanted to talk about something that I find from time to time when I'm staying in short term rentals. I still travel a lot so I still stay in a lot of short term rentals. And it's what allows me, I believe, to make sure that my rentals are professional and staying above ahead of the competition. And one thing that I notice are little rembrances of other people that have either stayed in the rental you're renting or maybe it's from an owner or maybe it's some sort of food or spices that are left behind. All of these little things change our experience. When we're staying in a rental. We want to create a space where our guests can have their own experiences and not be the thinking about these other little rembrances of other people, owners, anything like that. We want them to have a fresh, clean experience. So I want to talk about some of the common things this week that people leave in their rentals and things you might not think of but that can really have an impact on someone's experience. So let's jump in. I think probably the most common one are food items. Now we know, we don't want to leave half baked chicken in the fridge or anything that's been partially eaten. That's pretty obvious. But a lot of times you might find condiments in the fridge. You might find a jar of mayonnaise or a tube of mayonnaise and who knows how long that's been in there. So let's just get rid of these things. We don't want anything in our rentals that lets our new guests think of a prior guest or the owner. We want a fresh, clean experience for all of our guests. So ditch the condiments. Now, your housekeepers might be the benefit of this. You know, a lot of times when we're traveling, we buy more food than we need. We buy more alcohol and beer and things like that that we need too. So, you know, if it's something unused, your housekeepers might be coming up, you know, so make sure we don't have any food items. Now, there are a few that I keep in my rentals. Salt, pepper, pretty basic. We don't have people sticking their hands in the tiny little salt jars, stuff like that. So salt, pepper and olive oil I like to keep in all my rentals. And maybe some dry spices. But other than that, ditch all the food. So that's a pretty common one. Another thing I see in rentals that's probably less common, this is probably more for the new property manager starting out or the new owner with their vacation rental, is that they leave personal items in the rentals. This could be pictures, picture frames, souvenirs and collections of things from prior travels and stuff like that. Now, some of this is okay, but we don't want anything that makes our guests think of the actual owner or an actual person. So photos? Definitely not. You got to ditch those. Personal items of any sort really need to be ditched. And if this is a property that you use as a vacation rental, well, then just make sure that those items are locked up in a space where your guests aren't going to see them or they can't access them at all. And preferably that locked cabinet or space is really outside of the rental. Because when a guest checks into a property, they open every drawer and cupboard, especially if it's a smaller space. People are curious and we want to know what we have in our new rentals. We open everything. And if you have personal items in there, well, then we're thinking about those right away. They could be positive things. But a lot of times we're just thinking about someone else in our space that was using the bedroom that was using the living room, sleeping on the couch, or laying on the couch, using the remotes. So we want to eliminate those thoughts from our new guests coming in. So it's just fresh and clean. So those are two big ones. Leftover food items and leftover personal belongings. This next third category has to do with the bathrooms. So sometimes you might see a sponge under the sink. Whether it's for cleaning or whatever it is, if it looks to use, you gotta ditch it. You gotta get rid of it. Especially now with COVID and all this stuff going on. We don't want to see anything that we think someone else has maybe touched that hasn't been sanitized. So if you got old sponges, old cleaning rags, old whatever it is, just get it out of there and put some fresh ones in. Now, hopefully, God forbid you show up to a rental and there's a used bar of soap. I've stayed in all sorts of rentals. I used to stay in a lot of hostels and stuff like that. And you see those from time to time when you're traveling to other countries. You'll probably see that a little more now than you see in the US because standards have gotten a little higher. But God forbid you find a soap bar or something like that. This even comes down to used toilet paper rolls. You know, if you see a used toilet paper roll, even if it's under the sink, people are thinking about that a little bit. So I would recommend not having more than one used toilet paper roll under the sink. And make sure you've got the. The corners folded like the hotels do. I even saw recently in a hotel where I stayed where they actually stamped the folded corners on the toilet paper roll. I thought it was a pretty cool touch just to know that it's been attended to. We don't want more than one used toilet paper roll under the sink and definitely have a fresh one on the roll, wherever it is. So this is just some basic tips for today. You know, they might be real obvious to you, but I still see them in rentals, so I wanted to point it out. Let's make sure we don't have any leftover cond or food items, even if you think they can get used. And I know we don't like to waste anything, so let's find a good place for it to go. Give it to your housekeepers, or you can give it to the Goodwill anywhere. But let's not keep used food items around. Let's not keep personal items in our rentals, even if There are vacation rentals or if we do, let's make sure we lock them up in a place where guest isn't going to find them. Because remember, our guests open everything. They're curious. We're curious as humans and we like to explore. So make sure you don't have too many personal items hanging around that are going to let our new guests think of a prior guest or think of you as the owner and then the third one. When it comes to bathrooms, make sure those babies are spotless. We don't want any used, nothing. Definitely no bar soaps. Use toilet paper rolls. If they're small, get rid of them. Maybe leave one if it's at least 3/4 full to, you know, minimum half full. Make sure it's got the folded edge on it. No cleaning sponges, nothing like that. We want to make sure we get rid of it so that when our guests come in they have a nice clean rental, they'll have a nice stay, nice fresh experience and they won't be thinking of anything else. So until next time, hope you have a wonderful day. 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 R E S T methods dot com.