Should You Allow Pets in Your Airbnb? (Pros & Cons) | Tim Hubbard

Meow, meow.

What is the sound of that? That is the sound of an animal, a cat or a dog or a pet. And pets are often things that we find in our short term rentals even when we're not expecting them, even when we don't allow them. So that's what we're going to talk about this week on the Short Term Rental Riches podcast. Welcome to Short Term Rental Riches. We'll discuss investing in real estate, but with a specific focus on short term ren quick actionable items to acquire, manage and scale your portfolio. I'm your host, Tim Hubbard. Thank you for tuning in again. I'm happy you're here. Really important topic this week on pets, something we're all going to encounter whether we allow pets or not in our properties. So I want to talk about that this week. The pros and cons, whether you can charge for them, how to pet proof your property, if you do want pets and of the opportunities behind that because there is a lot of opportunity if we're allowing pets. Some things you might want to put in your house rules. So just a general overview of pets and our short term rentals. Before we get into that though, I, I'm back here in Colombia and I left Brazil last week. I flew back to the US actually to sign some paperwork for an 8 unit apartment building finally closed on in Oklahoma. So I'm glad that one went through. And I was staying with my buddy. Well, I met up with one of my buddies, I should say, in Miami and I swear he had the cutest dog I've ever seen in my life. I mean, it was like, it was like a real life teddy bear. It just, it was so calm and it just, he just kept begging to for a little attention and seriously adorable. So I like pets. I like pets a lot. Actually. I don't have any at the moment because I do travel a lot and that makes it a little more complicated. And I actually don't allow them in all of my properties. I haven't really needed to because I've been staying booked. But I think I might be missing out on a lot of opportunity and increased revenues, increased occupancy. So it's something I'm exploring and that's what we're going to talk about. So the pros of having pets in your property. Well, not that many people allow pets. So you have like an instant occupancy booster, right? If someone's traveling with their pet, then they have way less options. Last time I heard this was less than like 30% of the listings on Airbnb allowed for pets, and it's actually a search parameter that they can put in there. So it's an easy way to boost your occupancy to accept more potential guests. And along with that boost in potential occupancy, can also charge pet fees. Now, now you can't charge pet fees for all pets. We're going to talk about that next week. The difference between service animals, an emotional support animal, they are different. And we have to be very careful that we're treating each of those scenarios differently. So we will talk about that next week. Stay tuned for that. But for now, let's just assume that someone's coming to your property. They said they have a pet and you can charge pet fees. Well, that is an increase in your revenue, right? Or potential increase. So we have that option now. And then this, this next pro, you might not think it's a pro, but. But I think it is. A lot of times we have guests come with pets that aren't supposed to be coming with pets, right? So if we already allow for pets, we're not going to have someone sneaking in with a pet and have a big surprise when we open up the apartment. Maybe there's some more hair or something like that in there, or it takes longer to clean, so there'll be less kind of sneaking and we'll be better prepared to handle pet.

Right. And along with those lines are the cons. And there is a little more to note when we're dealing with animals, right? They can be dirty, they can ruin furniture, they can scratch things, they can go to the bathroom in your property. And believe me, I have seen some rental properties of my own rental properties as I was doing due diligence and walking through some of the units. It's crazy what pets can actually do to a unit. If someone's lived in a unit for a long time and they're not very clean. Oh, man. I've been in units, seriously, that I own still to this day, but that have been completely renovated because some of those urine smells just would not go away. So that is one of the cons. That's one of the easiest ones. I'm going to talk about how we can pet proof our apartments or our rentals, our vacation homes, a little better to prepare for that. But that is one of the cons. And that's an also, if we have back to back bookings and you have a guest that checks in with a pet because you allow pets, and there's a little bit of a lingering smell that can affect the guests checking in right afterwards. We use an ozone machine that really helps to clear out some. Some bad smells. Actually gets rid of pretty much any smell. You can find it on Amazon, although it's not available in all states. But it's only like 150 bucks and you can leave it in a unit for about 30 minutes and it really gets rid of odors, smells. So if you are accepting pets or you're planning on it, I would plan on getting one of those as well. Another con, it's probably going to cost you more to clean, or it should, right? Because it's probably going to take your housekeeper longer. Now, not everyone's animals, not everyone's pets are, you know, leaving a lot of hair behind. My buddy's little cute dog, I mean, that thing was tiny. It'd fit in a little, you know, a little birds. But, you know, the bigger the animal, a lot of times the more hair and potential damage you could have on your property. So a couple cons, those are pretty obvious. So couple pros, couple cons. Pros. Increased potential revenue and occupancy. Cons. Increased wear and tear on your property. Increased cleaning expenses. Some expectations, some things to consider to put in your house rules. If you want to have pets at your properties, you can put a weight limit in your house rules. Now, again, these house rules are not going to apply to service animals. We're going to talk about service animals and emotional support dogs in the next episode. But for now, let's just assume that you're allowed to, to filter out your guests and their pets. And so some things you might want to put in your house rules is a weight limit. So maybe you only want the small little dogs or the cats or whatever it is, whatever size it is. And you don't want a, you know, 100 pound Great Dane in your property. You can put that in your house rules. How many pets do you allow in your house rules? Do you want someone? Is one pet the max? Or are you okay with someone bringing three dogs? You can add things like, do you allow the pets to be on your furniture? And if you don't, we know that our guests aren't reading everything, so I would put it in your house rules, but I would also put it noted in your property. Now, that might be a hard one to enforce, right? Because we can't monitor the inside of our properties. But it can't hurt having some additional notes you could require or you could ask. It depends again on the type of animal visiting. But let's assume you're allowed to ask questions. You can ask if the dog's vaccinated, if it's been treated for fleas. And you can put these things in your house rules. You can ask if the nails have been clipped, stuff like that, stuff that could potentially cause damage to your property. And you could also ask them that if they're not there, that the dog remain crated or that the animal, you know, that it stays in a crate, something like that. So couple things to consider about your house rules. Now, there's things that we can do to make our properties.

More resistant to animals the way we set them up. I think the biggest one is probably the flooring that we're using. So if you have a house that's fully carpeted and animal or pet goes to the bathroom on your carpet, it's much easier to stain carpet and leave an odor than it is a hardwood floor, for example. But not all hardwood floors or laminate floors are created equally. So if you're at the point where you're renovating your property or you're construct considering making some updates, or your property already has a floor that you think would work well for pets, well, take a little closer note. Some of the laminate floors, for example, that are the plank style, some of them have a little gap between those planks. And if an animal goes to the bathroom, if it urinates, that can get down through the gaps in those planks. Some laminate floors or vinyl plank, which I really like, they're really resistant, have basically no gap that's not going to allow anything to penetrate. So take note on the type of floor that you're using. Also take note on. Do you have toxic plants in your property? Do you have really tight corridors where it's going to be harder for an animal to kind of move around through there? So just take note on the way your property is laid out. And if you're planning on accepting pets or you're already accepting them, these should be things that you're thinking about. There's some things that we can really do to make our property more appealing to guests too, right? We can put in photos of dog food bowls or doggy treats and have like a welcome pack for pets. I think that would go a long way, probably get some stellar reviews. You can have a little doggy home or a kitty home or the, you know, the scratchy things that the, the kittens use or the cats use. So you can deck that place out with some pet friendly.

Flare. I guess you could call it something that's going to attract the pets, and it's going to track those potential owners to your property. So one other thing that you very likely want to put in your house rules, too, is that the owners clean up after their pets. So I would recommend leaving some doggy doo doo bags or some bags to pick up after your pets, but you want to have that in your house rules, too. If it's outdoors or whatever it is, however you want it set up, be good to have that in there. So it's just a little EAS cleanup and your guests know what to expect or what you're expecting of them, I should say. A couple other things you might want to keep in mind is having some extra cleaning supplies on hand for your guests. If one of their pets happens to go to the bathroom on a couch, be good idea to have some spot remover, some additional cleaning supplies. You also might want to add in some pet guide options. Is there a dog park nearby or is there a specific area of your property where you would prefer that the owners take their animals or pets out to use the bathroom? Well, those are all things that you'll want to put in there in detail as clearly as possible. Okay, so now on to the topic of charging fees and asking for reimbursement if an animal damages your property. That part of it actually is going to be pretty similar to the way we would ask for compensation if a guest damages our property. So we want to make sure that we take photos, we have evidence, we submit them to Airbnb or vrbo, wherever our property is listed, as soon as possible, and we ask for compensation. So in Airbnb, that's going to be either through a resolution or through their air cover. Now, we also want to make sure we have a deposit on our properties. And if we're allowing for pets, you might want to consider increasing the deposit a little bit. But Airbnb actually has the ability to charge additional pet fees now, so I think that's great. And if you have a guest staying with you that is an owner, maybe they're a host themselves, they're going to be much more inclined to paying these pet fees. Right. Especially if they don't have to pay to board their pet somewhere at the same time. And remember, there's a lot of opportunity accepting pets. Right. I can't imagine my buddy leaving that little cute teddy bear dog at home for too long if he was traveling. And so if you have an animal that you can't leave at home for a long time, well, then you're not going to Leave home for a long time, you're not going to stay in a rental for a long time. So by allowing pets we have a little more opportunity to attract longer term stays. Now you might want to consider if it is a guest that's going to be staying for quite a long time, that you have something in there checking up on them. For example, when we have our month leases or any stay over a month, we have a little clause in there that says that we're going to do to check on the property once a month. You might want to do it quicker than that, but just something to consider and a good expectation to set with your potential guests. So I think there's a ton of opportunity with properties that allow for pets. There are some properties that are better set up for pets and it's something that I'm exploring. I'm going to be turning some of my units over to allow for pets and monitor that and see how that all plays out. So if you don't already allow pets at your properties, I'd consider it. And next time we will make sure that we discuss a difference between service animals and emotional support dogs. Because there are some situations where we cannot deny a pet no matter what. There's some situations where a guest doesn't even have to tell us if they're bringing a pet. So there's a lot of legality around that and I want to break that down for you next week. So until next time, I hope you have a wonderful week. Thanks again for tuning in and I will see you soon. Cheers. 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.