Making Over $10,000/Month with Just One Rental Property

19:22But when the contractor started redoing the floors, I realized the bottom of the cabinets were damaged and I really wanted new countertops. And I knew that if I was going to do new countertops, I was probably going to damage them more. So it just became this decision of, look, we want to really elevate this property from top to bottom. If we piecemealed it, there are going to be aspects. It was a 1985 home. There were going to be aspects that felt like an oversight. So we just made the commitment that we're just going to do this to the best of our ability in every way. And we would definitely get the return in the long run.

19:59But we also wanted to renovate it in a way that we would enjoy it and that we would want to go spend our family vacations there. And so it's unlike a lot of other real estate investors who are just trying to obviously make profits off their property. This is our vacation home. This is where we go for birthdays and holidays and time off. We don't really travel very much anymore. and we wanted the mattresses to be amazing. We wanted to make sure that we had a microwave, that we had a kettle, that we had everything that we personally wanted. So I wish I could say that we were strategic, but we just did it all.

20:40We just ripped it all out and built it the way that we wanted it to be.

20:45Ashley Kehr:Was there anything that maybe you thought you wanted in the property as to like, Like, you know, I went to one of Tony's short-term rental conferences before and, you know, everyone's chanting hot tub, hot tub, hot tub. And that was like a hot amenity you had to have in these certain markets or else you're not even going to get a booking. So, like, was there anything going into this that you thought I'm going to have? And then, you know, after you got into it, maybe it wasn't in the budget anymore or you actually figured out like a different amenity would be worth it. Yeah. So in order to be competitive, I went on Airbnb and I checked all the boxes of a place that I would want to rent if I wanted to have the ultimate desert getaway.

21:26So I checked the pool, which is kind of rare in the desert. I checked hot tub, of course. I checked sauna. I checked outdoor shower. I checked fire pit, everything that I wanted. And I also checked gym or some sort of workout room. Uh, when I did that, there were only like 10 properties that I would be competing against if I provided all of those amenities. And so I researched all of those 10 properties to see kind of how they were doing it and how I could maybe do ours a little bit better and more efficiently. My biggest regret is we did not turn our garage into a gym. I wish we had because our mindset was let's get it on the market.

22:06Let's start making some money and then we'll come back and then renovate. This is part two. Once you start making money on a property, it is so hard to shut it down, to go back in and spend more money to do something else. So I did make that call. I do regret that, even though it would have cost us probably another 15 grand to do that. And we really didn't have the money. I wish I would have just bit the bullet and done it because now that it's up and running, I don't think I'll ever do it again.

22:34Tony Robinson:Well, on that note, right? Like what's something that maybe went wrong or that you got wrong during this renovation? Because obviously we know it wasn't all cleaning, right? So like maybe what costs you money, time or sleep that you do differently if you could start this renovation again tomorrow? Yeah, there are two things. The first one is hiring more vetted contractors. Tony, I'm sure you remember back, you know, kind of post COVID contractors in the high desert were really difficult to find and they were booking two, three years out. So there really wasn't enough supply for the demand. So I ended up having to kind of piecemeal my contracting team.

23:10And because of that, I didn't do the proper vetting. And, you know, I didn't know what I didn't know, but there were some things in our showers that had to be ripped out and redone because they were done incorrectly. So I'd always recommend vetting, vetting, vetting, vetting your contractors because you don't want to mess around with water leaks or electrical issues. The second thing is I might do less amenities because what I did not realize, everybody's preaching like do all of the amenities because that's what people want. And it's true, but there's a caveat. And the caveat is amenities that don't have a ton of maintenance.

23:50And that piece of that advice was missing for me. And I bought this amazing, well, I partnered with Redwood Outdoors. They have the most amazing saunas. If anybody's in the market for a sauna, even for their personal life, I highly recommend them. But with this beautiful cedar sauna and, you know, in the desert, that UV light just destroys wood. So every almost six months now, I have to pay someone to come out and sand it and reseal it with oil, which is another, you know,$1 ,500,$2 ,000 every time that happens. And so, you know, yes, it's a great amenity. Yes, I add cost to our bookings, but there is a max that you can really add to the cost per night.

24:34And you really have to weigh, is this a cool amenity that's amazing? How much time and energy and cost is it going to cost me in keeping this up? And guests complain if it's not perfect. I had a guest message me and say, hey, inside your sauna, the seat, there was like a little splinter and I got it in my butt. I'm like, that's a terrible thing. Thank you for not leaving that in the public reviews. I will make sure I have somebody come out and sand it. It's just, you know, when you have amenities that are high maintenance, you really do have to account for the time and money that you have to spend to keep it going.

25:12Ashley Kehr:Now, what about for a rookie listener who's maybe renovating a$200 ,000 cabin in a different market, but it's not a luxury build in the desert? What's actually transferable from your renovation, your playbook that maybe you would recommend that they should do or what their process should be? What's the principle and not necessarily the price tag? What are the things, the standards that they should be doing? Well, I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but in this market, it is so competitive right now. I feel like if you're going to do a renovation, you do need to invest in three to five luxury items at your property.

25:56It doesn't have to all be luxury. I'm a big believer in high-low. I've got Amazon curtains. I've got Amazon rugs. But you do need to pick and choose places that are your show-off standout moments. For instance, I think a lot of investors or short-term rental hosts are going to be mad about this. I hate memory foam mattresses. I know they're a very popular item. They're really inexpensive and some people do like them. But when you sleep on a luxury spring mattress, there is just something special about that. And we did invest a lot of money in our mattresses. Now they're wrapped three or four times.

26:37We've got good insurance. So God forbid anything ever happens, we'd be able to replace them. But I can't tell you how often I get text messages from guests who left who are sleeping in their own bed and they're like, wait, this is not going to cut it after sleeping in your bed. Where do you buy the mattress? People asking me about our bedding, our duvet comforters on both of our beds are cost, I think around$450 each. They're not cheap. They're more expensive than the comforter on my own bed, but I get tons of people requesting those. You can also affiliate link those items as well and make a commission off of it.

27:12But if you'll read my reviews, the people will say they slept so well. And it is this one thing when you're on vacation, you want to get rest, right? You've traveled, you're on a plane, you're sleeping in a new bed for the first time. It really needs to be something that makes a huge impact. So while my dishes I bought on sale from Kirkland's for like$1.50 a plate, my bed is amazing. And so you just have to pick and choose a few things. I also would recommend people install something in their home that feels unique. So when people come and stay there, they're like, oh, I don't have this in my house.

27:48So for us, that was heated floors in our bathrooms. is not a super expensive add-on if you're already doing a bathroom renovation. And the square footage is pretty small in our bathroom. So it wasn't something that was going to really break our budget, but it is something that I get mentioned in our reviews. I get mentioned in my DMs about it. Just because when you go walk on a warm, toasty floor, especially if you're doing a cabin in the woods somewhere, it just changes you somehow. You could even install something post-renovation like a heated towel rack that just has just like a little je ne sais quoi that makes your property stand out and when people leave they remember it.

28:31So my advice is you don't have to do luxury all over the place but I would pick a handful of things that really make your guest feel like they're staying in a luxury place.

28:44Ashley Kehr:The Easter Bunny actually brought me one of those to keep my towels and I just, I cannot go back now. I cannot, like, we don't have one at our lake house now. And we went and got and stayed there. I'm like, this is awful. I'm freezing. Where's my heated warm towel?

29:01Tony Robinson:You guys are teaching me something new. I don't think I've ever had a warm towel.

29:05Ashley Kehr:Don't do it because then you'll never be able to go back.

29:09Tony Robinson:What are these cold towels that I'm dealing with? Well, Erin, I mean, a great property is just a beautiful empty house, but Erin's in the top 1 % of all Airbnbs just after five months, fully booked, five stars across the board. So I'm curious, like how does anyone actually find it? So up next, we're gonna talk about the booking engine she's built after the renovation. When you're just getting started in real estate, it feels like every dollar has a job, down payment, reserves, repairs. And then summer comes and you're like, can I afford to take that trip? Or should my money stay in the deal? That was me recently.

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33:24Tony Robinson:All right, so the property's done. The photo's looking incredible. But now the real test is, can people actually book it? And Aaron, you know, before we even talk about, like, what happened, And you invest all of this capital into the property, then the additional capital to buy the land, then the additional capitals to do the renovation. Do you remember that night when you actually hit publish? And like, how are you feeling? Because I can imagine there's maybe a lot of tension about like, is it actually going to work? So maybe just take us back to that day. Like, what were you thinking? I don't want to go back there.

33:54That's such a scary day. I was like, oh my gosh, when you have renovated a property for two or three years, you're kind of quasi living there, right? So you get really emotionally attached to your property. And I was really struggling with the idea of having strangers sleep in my home. And I'm like, Erin, that is not the right mindset. This is a vacation property. We're going to make money off this. You have to get rid of that thought. But it really did haunt me for a long time. So putting publish, because you're opening your home up to strangers, you hope that they treat your home as delicately and amazingly as you do.

34:29so I hit publish and I panicked mostly because I was worried about the operations of we have a pretty hardy contract my husband's an attorney so we have a really strong rental agreement and we require guests to sign that we mentioned that in our listing we also require guests to send us a photo id so the logistics of coordinating that was also very stressful for me it's very easy I don't know why I was so panicked about it. But it was really, really, and I also launched the property over basically the holidays. So mid-November. So we had our second guest check in on Thanksgiving Day while we were traveling in Texas, which also sent me into a panic because they couldn't figure out how to work the hot tub because our hot tub is managed via an iPad.

35:18And so, you know, I'm troubleshooting with the guests on Thanksgiving Day. It ended up being amazing and not a big deal at all. But I was truly panicked. But I will say after about guest six, I started to really be very comfortable with it. So if you're nervous, just give it six guests and then you'll finally start to feel at peace about it.

35:39Ashley Kehr:So, Erin, being in the top one percent of all Airbnbs is an amazing accomplishment. And what does that actually look like in your numbers right now? Do you see a big difference in your occupancy, your average daily rate, your gross revenue with having that kind of badge on your profile? Yeah. You know, I do think that we're almost fully booked for the next three months. We've had multiple$10 ,000 plus months already. I don't know if that badge helps me or not. I'm so new to Airbnb. You guys can probably speak to it more than I can. But we have been really booked. and one thing that I did that I was a little scared to do that I would I don't know if I should recommend it because it's kind of I feel like it's a hack for me but um I went from having a two-night minimum to having a three-night minimum um and I thought for sure that would decrease my bookings and it would push me down on the algorithm and I don't think I've ever been busier since I made that change I get a lot of guests who are coming from out of town with the two-night minimum you get a lot of guests who are local who are just going to come book the two days of the weekend.

36:47But if you say, look, I'm only going to take a three night minimum or a four night minimum, then you're really going to get those people who are already coming out to want to stay for a week or more. So I find my occupancy is greater because I did that. And that was a scary change that has really paid off for us.

37:03Tony Robinson:Yeah. I think one thing I'd add to that, Erin, is that part of the reason you're probably able to command that longer minimum night stay is because you have a really, really strong product. And for the person who's listening, who wants to replicate that, you've got to make sure that you've got as strong of a product as Aaron does. Because if you're like a bottom 25 % type listing, you probably need a lot of one night stays, honestly, to try and keep your calendar filled, right? But if you've got a strong product, that's what allows you to not only charge higher daily rates, but also command longer minimum night stays.

37:35That's a good point. And also when we were putting all of these crazy amenities into the property, I did have this goal of I want people who stay here to never want to leave. We have 3 million visitors a year who come to the national park, which is amazing. And I love that people love to hike and go there. But I wanted people to, when they checked into our home, and it actually has happened a lot of times, some guests are like, we didn't even leave the whole time. I want them to feel like it's an all-inclusive resort home. So when you do offer that many amenities, people want to stay for longer days to enjoy all of the amenities.

38:10So that is a good point. If you want to increase your minimum booking, you do have to have a home that offers a lot.

38:18Ashley Kehr:Now, Erin, you also have a 200 ,000 plus follower audience on Instagram. But before your audience, what did you do at the listing level that any rookie could copy before even sharing it with your audience on Instagram? I did a lot of market research on who my competitors, and I hate saying that because I actually am friends with some of our competitors, but who our competitors were in the market. I was reading kind of their captions and trying to figure out like why they were so popular and what they were doing, you know, to get all of these amazing guests. And I just kind of put that in my own version.

39:01You know, I use them a lot as inspiration. I actually haven't touched my copy very much. It's probably something I should do because I'm pretty sure there are some things in there I'd like to tweak now that I've had guests come and stay and give feedback and have questions. But, you know, I actually put it on Airbnb for a few months before I ever actually opened up my calendar just because I wanted to toy around with tech copy. Like, what do I really want to promote? What do I want to not promote, you know, in terms of amenities that maybe, maybe they were great amenities, but I weren't, that caused me some issues.

39:37Like there might be something I take out eventually. So I really played around with copy, but in terms of growing the following through my own personal following, I'm not quite sure it translates just yet. I did build a few thousand followers on our Instagram, on our home Instagram page is at the Juniper Yucca Valley if anybody wants to go follow it. But I feel like I got a lot of followers there who are looking for potential homes to book and not really my own personal following coming because my following is all over the country. And a lot of them, they've bookmarked it that they want to come in the future.

40:15But I haven't, I don't think I've had a follower stay with us just yet. I'm actually nervous because they know me so intimately and personally. if a follower stays, I'm going to be extra nervous because they've seen my journey and I just, I want to give them the best experience imaginable. So I hope nobody stays for a while until I can fully get my feet underneath me.

40:38Tony Robinson:I mean, but Aaron, you've got, you know, basically all perfect five-star reviews and you know, that doesn't happen by accident. So what, what's the system that you've built around guest experience from, you know, the second they book until the second they actually check out of your property? Like, like what does that experience look like? And what are you doing to maintain those perfect five-star reviews? I'm going to tell you something that a lot of Airbnb gurus may not tell you. Everybody's like, automate your systems. You can put in all these messages that you don't have to pay attention to and it just sends.

41:08I think that is not my approach. I know it works for some people, but when you're starting out and you're learning your property and you're learning what your guest needs and wants, you really shouldn't be automating anything. You should be very attentive. It will take, at least in my POV, six months or a year in order to really understand what messaging works, what your issues are. I am on my phone constantly. I am babysitting my listing constantly, whether it is a holiday or a vacation, I'm always on it and I'm jumping within maybe four or five minutes if a guest responds. I have my notifications on.

41:51It panics me if I'm going to be on an airplane for a couple of hours because I may not be able to respond right away. So I wish I could say I have some secret sauce, but it's really babysitting the guest and not bugging them. I don't chime in and bug them every day, but I just want to be available to them. I also worked in hospitality for a really long time, the Roosevelt Hotel in Hollywood. And it was owned by Thompson Hotels. And hospitality was something that I just learned in that job. And so I'm just geared and oriented to want to curate an experience where people have a good time. So it's easy for me to be on and ready to help in any way possible at all times.

42:31Ashley Kehr:Erin, I was ready to be like, I completely disagree. I love the automation. I never message a guest. They do it way better than I do the AI responding to it. I love it. But you made such a valid point. The reason my AI responds so good is because I have about five years of messages that have gone on where it was me or my co-host or my cleaner to actually train the AI how to answer things. So that I think is such a big difference. If this is the first time when you're first listing a property, it really probably is so valuable to respond yourself to actually, and then the AI can go in and, you know, it can be trained after you've already had those, those messages.

43:19Ashley Kehr:So that is a really great point that maybe starting off with automated messaging is really not the best way to start your property. And I'm teaching myself about my own property through this journey too. And I think being present and really thinking through what the guest is telling me, how do I make that better in the future? Who do I need to call to coordinate to add some value to that? It really teaches me and trains me as a rookie to be able to bob and weave here in the beginning. I do think there's a world in which I could automate it in the future. at least some parts of it. I'm a little bit of a micromanager, so I don't know if I'd ever give the power over to AI fully.

43:59But while I'm learning, I'm in it, in it to win it.

44:03Tony Robinson:There's a study, I can't remember who ran the study, but I saw this data point somewhere where there's like an inverse relationship between the number of listings that a person or a company manages and their review score. So basically the more listings you start to take on, the lower your actual review score across those listings becomes. And I think part of that is exactly what you said. It's what you're doing does work if you've got one listing and you can really put a lot of care and attention. But that's why when you look at like the Evolves or the Vecasas of the world that have, you know, 30, 40, 50, 60, 70 ,000 listings, in a lot of markets, they are sometimes the worst, you know, when it comes to review scores, because it is very, very hard to operationalize a very curated experience at scale.

44:49Tony Robinson:So there's something to be said about being able to find like your sweet spot, like, hey, where is that sweet spot where I feel like I can continue to give this level of experience and catering to the guests in that way. So I guess my last question for you, Erin, is as you think about the future, are there now multiple Juniper houses and maybe different markets? Like what's the goal for you guys as you think about the next phase of your investing journey? So our investment journey is probably going to not be Airbnbs exactly. Exactly. I think, um, Airbnbs are great and we love, we've loved having this property, but like you mentioned, scaling is you do stop, start to lose a little bit of that human touch.

45:29And I think that's part of why I love it so much. And so I think for us, like I mentioned, we're going to probably venture into some venue spaces as our next endeavor. and um you know it's it's something my husband i love businesses we we've built businesses we run businesses um for us you know airbnb while it is a good business for some it is a challenging business right now and so we really are looking for real estate in in different ways where we can make a better roi and so i think this might be one of our few airbnbs although i'm not opposed to doing a few in some of my favorite places in the US so that it's a personal selfish reason to do them.

46:15But I think that for us, this is just phase one of a larger goal and a larger real estate investment journey for us.

46:25Ashley Kehr:Well, Erin, thank you so much for joining us today on Real Estate Rookie. Can you tell us where people can reach out to you and find out more information about your journey? Yeah. Anybody is welcome to come stay with us at our Yucca Valley place. It's a very special, amazing, private getaway in Yucca Valley. You can follow us on Instagram at thejuniperyuccavalley. And you can follow me if you want on Instagram. I do a lot of lifestyle food content on my own personal channel. It's at Erin Robinson. Well, Erin, thanks so much again for coming on and sharing your tips for hosting one of the top 1 % Airbnbs in your market and for sharing your journey with our rookie listeners.

47:08Ashley Kehr:I'm Ashley, he's Tony, and we'll see you guys on the next episode.

47:12Tony Robinson:Hey, rookies, if you're watching this, we want you to apply to be a guest on the Real Estate Rookie Podcast. That's right. Ashley and I are looking for amazing stories just like yours to be a part of our Real Estate Rookie Podcast. Now look, you don't need to be an expert. You don't need to have done thousands of deals. Even if you've done one deal, your story could help inspire the next listener.

47:30Ashley Kehr:As a rookie investor, especially if you just got your first deal, it is all fresh in your minds And you are the best person to tell your story, give your experience on how you got it done to help someone else get their first deal.

47:43Tony Robinson:So head over to biggerpockets.com slash guest if you want to be a part of our show. Again, that's biggerpockets.com slash guest. And we'd love to have you on.