I Stayed at the Most Remote Airbnb in Colombia!! | Pros and Cons of Remote Airbnbs | Tim Hubbard

So I stayed at literally the most remote Airbnb I've ever stayed at in my life. I mean, I could literally barely get to it. So I want to tell you about that story, but also just remind everyone how cool it is to be in this industry to be investing in short term rentals and have the possibility to be able to write off our stays in a lot of different travel destinations. Stay tuned. Let's jump into these topics.

Welcome to Short Term Rental Riches. We'll discuss investing in real estate, but with a specific focus on short term rentals. Quick actionable items to acquire, manage and scale your portfolio. I'm your host, Tim Hubbard. I'm glad you're here again, joining me for another episode on the Short Term Rental Riches podcast. It's an exciting world out there. There's a lot of exciting short term rentals, some easier to get to than others. So I gotta break down my little story for you about this remote Airbnb I stayed in outside of Medan, Colombia, where I spend about half the year living each year and a half for quite a while. It's fun to get out, it's fun to explore. And this listing looked super, super cool. It was super, super cool, in fact. But it wasn't super, super easy to get to. And so I took my little Jeep out and as soon as we ended the paved road.

The troubles began. I mean, I literally had that thing in four wheel drive for like 20 or 30 minutes. And then of course the rain starts and I'm like bouncing up and down, trying to get up the hills and sliding everywhere, even to the point where two, bless their souls, Colombian gentlemen came by on motorcycles. They were driving down the same road and they got out. They're so nice down here in Columbia. One of the reasons why I love Columbia. But they got out and they were literally pushing the back of my Jeep. I have this old school Mitsubishi Montero and it's got a soft top, it's fun little, fun little Jeep. But I just couldn't get up this hill. And I swear I was like back and forth for 20 minutes just shooting mud all over these guys in the back with their ponchos. And they were all for it. I mean, they were, they were like, go, go, go. And I'm like, finally I got there. So I love Columbia for that. But it was quite the journey getting there and the sun was going down and we were out in the middle of now. So we finally arrived to this place and it is beautiful. I mean, it's on the side of the mountain, it's just looking out into a valley. The clouds are floating by, and it was super peaceful. But the arrival was not peaceful at all and the expectations were not set. So what is too remote? That is. Sorry for that. The long story there. But what is too remote? There is such thing as too remote of a property. Now, we can definitely make sure that we're setting expectations that those were not set here, and that's one of the things would help. But I want to break down just a couple of the pros and cons with remote listings. Well, for one, they're unique. They can be exotic, they can be very appealing for a lot of people out there that want to check them out, that want to get away from the city, for example. And depending on the area where you are, the property could be cheaper. Now, it's not necessarily going to be cheaper to build. It's probably going to be a lot more challenging to build, especially if you're in a situation like this where you can barely even get to it. So the properties can be cheaper. It might not be as cheap to build there. You might have less strict regulations. If you're out in the middle of nowhere, then you're not going to have a neighbor complaining about your rental. You're not going to have a city with housing shortages saying, hey, you're taking away from our housing supply. So you're probably not going to have as much risk there. On the regulation side, although you got to check with your city, a lot of times you still need some sort of permit to rent a place like this. What about management? So if you can barely get to your place, or your place is really far away, or it's really remote, even if it's just outside the city, like 20 miles, the management's going to be much more difficult. Right. Do you have a housekeeper that's nearby? Do you have a backup housekeeper that's nearby? What happens if you have an emergency? Is there going to be someone able and willing to make it out there to help out your guests? So there's. These are things that we definitely have to consider if we have remote listings. And we got to make sure we have backup plans. So although I very likely would not stay at this property again because I could barely get to it, it was super cool. But the experience could have been a lot better had they just put some expectations in there or set some better expectations. So how could they have fixed this specific property, for example? Well, they could have had a video showing, hey, you gotta go down this road to get to the property. And if it's raining, it's probably gonna be twice as hard. And if you don't have 4x4, well, forget it. So definitely should have had some information like that in there, at least some photos and a description. But maybe they would want to go a step further and say, hey, you have to take our guided tour in, for example, and we will coordinate your arrival with so and so. They'll pick you up where the pavement ends and they will bring you safely to the short term rental that they know very well. So there are a few things that they can do there that are really easy to help set people's expectations. Now this was a new listing, so I didn't really see any reviews on there. There were four actually and they were pretty good. Although there was one that said the same exact thing. And unfortunately, if this person, if this company does not fix their expectations, those reviews are going to continue to get worse and worse. And, and then at the end of the day, you can have this amazing, beautiful property. But if you're not setting the right expectations, you're not getting good reviews, it's not going to have a good return. So you got to keep some things into consideration. If you have a really remote property, make sure you have backup plans. Make sure you let people know that certain things might not be available, like Internet or it's more likely to go out. Let them know if they need to bring water. We really have to get really detailed if we have a remote listing to make sure that every one of our guests that comes out to the property has everything that they need and all their questions answered before going out there. So really cool property and really cool that as a professional investor in short term rentals, that's a business expense, right? I learned something at every single short term rental I stay at, and I've hosted over 20,000 guests. You would think like a certain point comes where you've kind of seen everything, but there's just so many different ways to do it out there. So I'm really excited to be traveling more later this year. I'm heading to Europe, gonna do some Eastern Europe, going to Mexico later in the year, and Greece and Turkey and Bulgaria and a bunch of cool countries and some that I've never been. So I'm really excited to check those out and I'm excited to check out the Airbnbs and the short term rentals over there and also learn from them. So check with your cpa. You might be eligible to use some of your short term rental tax expenses to offset your W2 income. If you have a full time day job. Double check with their CPA though because this is super important and I am not a tax professional but it is. As someone that's invested in real estate over 12 years, it is easier to qualify, qualify materially participate investing in short term rentals than it is to be a real estate professional. They both allow you to write off your ordinary income, but it's a little easier or I should say there's more ways to qualify if you're investing in short term rentals. So if you haven't already, head over to my website@restmethods.com I've got some great information up there from my CPA who I've worked with for a long time. You can find it under the Free resources. It's something worth looking into. And if you're still getting into short term rentals, well in the future when you're doing this professionally, you get to write off these really cool trips. So I think that's an amazing cool perk. That's kind of how I got into short term rentals in the first place from traveling. I was a real estate investor but I was staying in a lot of short term rentals and I sort of like backed my way into discovering that they can make a lot of cash flow. So I hope you guys are doing well out there. If you a remote listing and you haven't set all these backup plans or you haven't set your expectations properly for your guests, make sure that you go back and revisit that. And until next time, I hope you have a wonderful day. If you're looking for a ton of free resources, well you can check out the links in the show notes or head to our website restmethods.com where you'll find free guides, house rules, and my ebook on finding the best short term rental properties. Thanks for tuning in.