Category: AIRBNB HOSTING TIPS

Managing rental properties in Melbourne can be a lot of work. The short term rental market here is competitive and the cost of maintaining your investment property can be fairly high. So to make things easier for you, we’ve put together 8 tips to help you increase the amount you’re earning and maximise the return on your investment.

1. Invest in your listing

Having professional photographs and setting the scene in your property are going to have a huge impact on the quality of your listing. You want people to be attracted to your listing and it needs to stand out from the rest, and hiring a professional photography service can help you achieve this even on a budget.

2. Look for a tax deduction where possible

A great way to save money on your Airbnb property is to seek tax deductions when possible. This can include furniture depreciation, cleaning fees, property management fees, repairs and also professional photography.

3. Consider your return on investment (ROI)

When you invest in your Airbnb property, it’s important to focus on how much return you get for every dollar you invest. Contact Oasis Stay to find out how much you could make from your Airbnb property by learning to optimise your budget and take an ROI-centric approach to your investment.

4. Support for pets

While making a property pet-friendly involves a bit of extra work, you can often charge additional fees and attract more tenants if you support them.

5. Focus on property styling

Styling your property will make a huge difference in how your property stands out. Hiring an interior designer to help is well worth the money and will help attract a larger audience. It’s far more effective than trying to style the property on your own, especially if you have no design knowledge.

6. Modernise your property

If it’s within your budget, try and modernise your property. Include modern amenities, appliances and a solid internet connection to attract more guests. Some additions we can suggest are air conditioning, a WiFi router, a large television, a modern washing machine and a range of cooking appliances.

7. Make your property suitable for short stay and long stays

Allow your property to be rented for both short stay and long stay tenants. This will help your Airbnb listing appear to more people. Offer discounts for long stays to encourage people to pick you over the competition.

8. Be proactive with Airbnb management

Whether it’s Airbnb cleaning or repairing things that your previous tenant reported, be proactive with your management. A Melbourne Airbnb management company could help you manage most of these concerns, such as contact vendors as needed. It’ll save you a lot of time and ultimately help maximise your return.

You often hear people say that Australia has a wonderful real estate market that has plenty of positive cash flow properties to choose from. While not exactly false, it’s definitely a challenge to find properties that are worth investing. The approach people take to investing is usually the source of their woes, so in this post, we’re going to talk about how you can find positive cash flow properties in Australia.

Understand that there are lots of additional costs when investing in a property

Numbers are helpful, but people often focus on the wrong statistics and figures which leads to unrealistic expectations of a property. For example, if a property has $500/week rental income and the mortgage is also $500/week, people often think that it’s a neutral property that will eventually pay for itself until you eventually own the property. Unfortunately, there are additional costs that need to be considered, such as maintenance, repairs, council rates, insurance, utilities and so on.

The important thing here is to understand that there are additional costs involved when investing in a property. The mortgage and rental income aren’t the only figures you should be worried about and there are many unexpected costs that could eat into your positive cash flow. This is especially important in congested areas, hence why we’d suggest an Airbnb management service for Sydney if you plan to rent out your property for short-term stays to travellers. You’ll have a much better understanding of the additional costs and can find more properties with the potential for positive cash flow.

Consider the many ways to rent out a property

There are a couple of ways to rent out a property and some solutions may be better than others depending on the location and style of your property. For example, an inner-city apartment in an area like Melbourne may actually fare better on a service like Airbnb. This is because Airbnb is extremely popular with tourists and travellers that stay for short periods of time, meaning they’re more likely to pay higher rental and service fees. While it can result in longer vacancy times, that concern can be mitigated by focusing on your property.

When combined with an Airbnb management service for Melbourne, this can be a fantastic way for you to create a positive cash flow property in Australia.

Seek more opportunities around the country

One great tip to find positive cash flow properties in Australia is to never focus on just a single area. There is limitless potential for great property investments if you look around different parts of Australia and are willing to work with property management services. For example, finding a suitable Airbnb management service for Brisbane can make managing distant property a breeze. It’s a fantastic way to seek new opportunities for property investment around the country.

As Airbnb hosts, each one of us wants to do a great job, but what exactly does a good host need to do to receive guest recommendations?

The answer to this lies in the perspective of your guests. What can you serve to them in order to make their stay a memorable one? How can you cater to them in the best manner possible? How can you contribute in having them extract the best possible returns of choosing your property so that they come back again as well as refer you to others?

It is important to keep asking yourself these questions regularly as well as upping your services accordingly. Here are 4 ways in which you can become a host worth recommending.

1. Help Your Guests Navigate The City

This may seem quite a cliché but is pretty useful for someone who has never visited the locality before. You may offer a city map, something you can certainly provide for them upon arrival, with a useful ‘You are here’ icon pointing at the location of their rental.

Also, make sure you tell your guests where to find important services in the city such as tourist information and supermarkets. Bring to their notice the best entertainment area along with some highly underrated tourist spots and at least one highly recommended restaurant.

Guide them with using public transport systems from the rental to central locations can be very helpful. Create a brochure of the city’s mobility options as well as chauffeur services and hand it out to your guests upon arrival.

2. Spending Time within the Property

Some of your guests may not want to venture out into the city and they’d rather spend their time indoors. In such situations, your Airbnb must hold enough entertainment so that your guests can kill time even when indoors.

A couple of snacks around the place, a deck of cards, or some board games can surely double up as good entertainment options for those willing to stay in. Cooking utensils in the kitchen are basics and go without saying. But if your house has a yard, make sure it has a grill and coals, in case your guests want to make their own barbeque dinner.

3. Provide a First Aid Kit

A first-aid kit is a must. It may not be the most exciting or fun accessory, but the provision of a first aid kit is critical. It conveys to your guests to care for themselves in order to avoid unexpected injury. In addition to that, it shows your guests that their well-being is a priority to you, as their host.

4. Be Accessible

Questions, problems and mishaps can always arise, and that’s fine and normal. The best way to address these issues is to provide a quick response to your guests.

With a 24*7 Communication Service, your guests can easily contact one of your experts who can meet their needs and resolve the issue almost immediately. This will not just ensure safety for your guests but a sense of convenience and assurance as well.

However, it can be time-consuming to self manage all your Airbnb properties, if you follow the above tips to be the best host. At Oasis Stay, we provide the best Airbnb hosting services in Australia. With our professional service and experience, your guest will enjoy the most at your property and we will make you the best host ever.

Wondering whether it’s worth investing in a property manager for your Airbnb?

After all, you could do the work yourself and pocket a few hundred dollars extra. But what you might not know is this — NOT having a property manager can be costing you more than you’re saving.

While you’re hustling every hour of the week trying to keep your investment property clean, checking in guests, and doing all these other management tasks — another property owner is spending time with their family and just watching their money roll in.

In the end, that other person will be earning more money and living a happier life.

No, the difference isn’t that they chose a property in a better area or that they’re just ‘lucky’. The difference is that they have decided to outsource their lower-value tasks (or automate them) in favour of spending time doing things that matter.

This could mean spending more time with family or friends, studying the market for new investment opportunities, or working on another side hustle in their spare time.

But with that said, before you can make a decision, you have to know exactly what a property manager can do for you.

What A Property Manager Can Do

Hiring a property manager can decrease your time spent doing menial tasks such as:

• Changing your sheets
• Checking the keys
• Cleaning the bathroom, bedroom, and furniture
• Inspecting the property for damage
• Ensuring all electrical goods are switched off when guests leave
• Securing the property by inspecting doors and windows

While these might sound like quick and easy things to do, the average Airbnb host spends 2-5 hours preparing for a guest turnover (making the property ready for the next guest). But on top of that, there is the time spent communicating with guests, which can take up a few hours.

Airbnb property managers handle all these time-consuming tasks. For example, at Oasis Stay, we handle the basic Airbnb property management tasks required to turnover guests, provide 24/7 support so you don’t have to spend hours answering questions, and we even help style your property to maximise your Airbnb listing performance (leading to more bookings, better rates, and positive reviews).

But apart from handling the boring stuff, having a property manager for your Airbnb can actually increase the money you earn from short-term rentals.

How A Property Manager Can Increase Your Rental Income

One major factor that determines your rental income is your occupancy rate.

After all, no matter how expensive your rent is, you’re not going to earn a cent until a guest books it and pays that deposit.

Ideally, you’d want your Airbnb to be occupied by a paying guest 100% of the time. But this isn’t possible due to multiple factors.

Some factors influencing your occupancy rate include:

Price

If your property isn’t being rented out at the proper rate, you’re not going to have it booked out as often. While artificially hiking up your prices might increase how much you earn this month, it’ll damage your long-term rental income.

You need to find a sweet spot that makes your property appealing (i.e., people browsing Airbnb think it’s ‘good value’). One essential step to achieving this is to research your competitors.

This includes:

• Finding out how much other Airbnb owners are charging in your area
• What a property like yours can demand in rent
• Determining any differentiating factors your property may have

While there’s more to competitor research than this, these are enough to get you started.

Action Step:

Find out how many properties similar to yours are charging in your area. Charge slightly less and get some traction for your Airbnb listing. This way, you’ll increase your booking rate and hopefully generate more positive reviews. Later on, you can increase this price and work on differentiating your listing to maximise your rental income.

Location

The location of your investment property can impact your occupancy rates. For example, some locations are better suited for summer holidays and others might be better suited for popular local events.

Understanding your location and what makes a guest decide to visit the area is a key component to increasing your occupancy rate.

For example, you don’t want to optimise your listing for summer getaways when people actually visit your location for business conferences. This would be a mismatch between the marketing of your property and the existing market demand.

Action Step:

Do your research and find out why people come to visit your area. Maybe it’s a hotspot for tourists, there’s a popular annual event, or it’s a growing trend for a certain demographic.

Reviews

Social proof is one of the most powerful ways to boost your Airbnb occupancy rates.

Before booking, a potential guest wants to know if the place is clean, if the owner is nice, whether it’s convenient to get to places, and so much more information. It’s one thing to say yourself that your home is clean, but it’s another for a verified guest to leave an ecstatic review detailing their amazing stay in your property.

Action Step:

Be considerate. Your guests are trusting you with their stay and just one bad experience can make their trip a disaster. Keep this in mind and do whatever you can to help them have a good time. Hopefully, this will turn into a positive review and help you as well.

Listing

Having an optimised Airbnb listing is one of the best ways to boost occupancy rates.

Just like having good reviews, potential guests want to have easy access to all the information necessary to make a decision. One important factor that many new Airbnb hosts overlook, is photography.

High-quality photos that accurately depict your property are essential. While over-promising your property might lead to more initial bookings, it’ll increase your cancellation rate and lead to negative reviews — harming your income in the long run.

On top of photos, there are other ways to optimise your listing, including:

• Search optimisation
• Listing titles
• Positive reviews
• Regular updates
• Instant booking availability
• And so much more…

Action Step:

Have a look at your property photos. Do they look up to standard? You want your photos to be higher quality than your competitors, show more information, and create a deeper connection with your guests.

How a property manager boosts your occupancy rate:

At Oasis Stay, our Airbnb management services help you develop a complete short-term rental strategy that is designed to help you create a passive income.

This means we take into consideration your location, competitors, and pricing. But on top of that, we give you the tools necessary to accumulate 5-star reviews. Features such as 24/7 customer service for guests, hotel standard housekeeping, and professional styling to optimise listing photos — these are everything you need to make your investment property and journey with Airbnb a success.

On top of that, we use automated systems to decrease the time spent to turnover guests. This further decreases vacancy rates and maximises your earning potential.

Do you want to spend more time with your friends and family, earn more money from your investment property, and have a professional guide you through your Airbnb journey?

Click here to get in touch with our team at Oasis Stay today.