Episode Transcript
[00:00:03] Speaker A: Hey y', all, welcome back to another episode of the short term show Poconos series.
Very excited to have this series for y'.
[00:00:10] Speaker B: All.
[00:00:10] Speaker A: We've got Tristan, our agent in the Poconos here if you want to work with him. If you want to buy with the short term shop and Tristan in the Poconos, you can email us at agents the shorttermshop.com and we will connect you with him. I've got a few other folks on here to help us talk about how to self manage a property in the Pocono mountains. First of all, we have Mr. Luke Carl.
Introduce yourself.
[00:00:37] Speaker C: You need me to introduce myself?
[00:00:38] Speaker A: He needs no introduction.
[00:00:39] Speaker C: I'm the world's greatest landlord. Have a podcast of my own. Short term rental management, 250 units under management, no partners.
And what else?
Avery's husband, most important part.
[00:00:56] Speaker A: All right, and we also have Stephen Bolt from Pocono Lodging company. Introduce yourself, Stephen.
[00:01:02] Speaker B: Yeah, super excited to hang out with you guys and chat a little more about this. I love getting to talk both about just the Poconos in that market and also, yeah, the work we get to do. So yeah, my name's Stephen, co founder of Pocono lodging company, property management company out there. We started off three and a half years ago purchasing a home out there in a place we had never been.
But yeah, purchased, yeah, three and a half years ago, our first one. And have been on a journey since then of helping other people that either own or are looking to purchase out there, maximize their revenue, provide great experiences for guests. And so we have been slowly kind of growing over those last three years and now we're actively managing around 15 properties, but we've got another about seven right now that we'll be. We'll be launching here in the next next few months some cool design projects happening. So yeah, really excited to be here with you guys and chat more about this.
[00:01:58] Speaker A: Yeah, thanks so much for coming on. And Tristan, I already kind of introduced you, but go ahead and introduce yourself again.
[00:02:04] Speaker D: Yeah, I am. My name is Tristan. I am the short term rental agent in the Poconos for the short term shop and I operate 15 short term rentals. So very well versed in the space.
[00:02:20] Speaker A: Thank you all very much for being on. So hopefully listeners, by the time you're done listening to this show, you'll have a pretty good idea of what it takes to manage a short term rental in the Pocono mountains.
So where should we start, Luke?
[00:02:36] Speaker C: Well, my question is what do we do with snow? You just mentioned snow before we started the program so.
Well, I guess first Stephen and Tristan. What is the weather? Let's talk about the weather year round weather. What are we looking at?
Like start January, go to July, what? I mean, I've never heard of this town in my life.
[00:02:59] Speaker D: Right.
[00:02:59] Speaker C: So like what does the weather look like in general throughout the year?
[00:03:03] Speaker B: Yeah, I can, I can jump in.
I had never heard of it either, to be fair. Luke. I had like images of champagne hot tubs and like heart shaped jacuzzis that rotate and all of that stuff. So when we bought it, I was like, is this a joke or is this real? So no shame, but it's a lovely place.
So. Yeah, I mean weather year round is, we get, we get honestly really brutal weather, really cold winters, single digits. You know, we had a couple last year, wind chills were down below zero.
So really, really brutally cold winters. And then in the summer, you know, I think you know, moderately hot as well. We'll get, you know, 80s, pretty commonly, high humidity, that type of stuff, you know. And then again in off seasons, you know, just transitionally get obviously like great fall, autumn, autumn colors, that kind of stuff is a big draw depending on the location of where you purchase.
But it's one of the more complex parts, honestly of owning and managing out there is accommodating for really cold winters and you know, pretty, pretty warm summer. So you gotta, you gotta be prepared on both ends of those, you know, AC and for all the things that cold winters like that bring with it.
[00:04:17] Speaker C: Right. Which leads me to the seasonality, which I did, by the way. I didn't mean I didn't know anything about it. I just meant that the listener in general, love it. I know everything about everything, Stephen. You should know that by now, but. I'm just kidding. But so what is the seasonality? Is it empty in the winter?
[00:04:33] Speaker B: You know, I would say peak seasons you're going to see July and August making, you know, 30, 40, typically it's around 30% of the revenue just between those, those couple months. And then, you know, you see a pretty, pretty significant slump as we go into fall. Again, depending on the location, like we've got a couple of places. Jim Thorpe, you know, honestly for us is one of our higher performing areas in the fall. Lots of just like fall activities and fun stuff to do. So depending on the location, you. Actually for us we've seen a little bit of shift in seasonality in that. And then obviously, you know, going into winter we see a pretty significant ramp up. December, January, February, there's A lot of. Lots of different ski areas out there that will, you know, bring people from Philly, New York, New Jersey, all those metro areas out for. Out for skiing.
And then again, I would say spring, you start to get into another. Another slower season, but really those December, January, February, and, you know, June, July, August, I would say your peak seasons. Tristan, have you been seeing it, like, similar stuff or. Yeah.
[00:05:34] Speaker C: How.
[00:05:34] Speaker B: What does it look like for you across kind of your portfolio?
[00:05:37] Speaker D: Yeah, yeah, I would say that it's very. There's kind of. And it really depends, like you said, on the exact location of your home. Like, what is. What attraction is it closest to?
So, yeah, like, really, you see, like, I always think there's about two peak seasons. So it's your summertime, you know, like your. Your July, August, and then the. The ski. Ski time. Like, even, like right now, it just snowed a lot, and it's colder, which is perfect for, you know, the ski season to start. And then you kind of see, like, a slump down in, like, that March area and then in September as well. But outside of those two peak seasons, I'd say, like, the weekend demand's pretty consistent.
[00:06:22] Speaker A: All right, so. So we talked a little about seasonality. So we know from our previous episode that most of the guests who are coming in are driving in, and they're from typically New York, New Jersey, Philadelphia, places like this. So how do we manage snow when we're talking to these guests that are driving in from places where they may not have to drive regularly, like New York City?
And how do we manage the potential steep driveways? Cause this is a mountain area.
[00:06:54] Speaker B: I would say a couple things. One is, yeah, just we. We typically will message ahead of time, like, winter conditions. Come prepared. Um, it is, you know, a mountain area. But to just put it in perspective, again, like, even the mountains there. There. There's only a couple of our houses that actually have, like, what most people would consider, like, steep driveways, that type of stuff. Like, you know, I've seen some of the, you know, some of the places out in the. Out in the Smokies where they're very narrow, steep, like that. That type of stuff. So for the most part, honestly, like, we don't have a huge issue with guests. We certainly, you know, we've got a plan. We've got some guests that, like, they get stuck in the driveways or that kind of stuff. We've, you know, in three and a half years and hundreds of hundreds and hundreds of stays, we've had two people that have gotten stuck in driveways. And you know, so, so we definitely communicate ahead of time about that and work with guests on that. And then the other thing is just, you know, obviously making sure that you've got a plan, plan ahead of time for snow removal while guests are there and, you know, communicating with, with your snow removal team on when checkout times are. So it's like, hey, if we've got a checkout time at 11am either we need to make sure our teams are there at, you know, 9 to 11 to make sure that that driveway is clear, or another tool we frequently use is, you know, if we see snowstorms coming up and it's on a Sunday and we know we're going to be pressed to get everything plowed and clean, like, we'll proactively just say, like, hey, you know, late checkout times, no rush. Our team should be there sometime between X and X. If you're able to get out, like, go for it. But if you want to hang out, we want to make sure that, you know, to get the guests recognized, like, especially, you know, one of the advantages of some of the slower seasons is we can, we can extend their checkout and it doesn't cost us any extra and it just helps them like, not feel like they're rushed to get out of the house and the cleaners are, you know, on their heels getting in. So, yeah, certainly, you know, communicating ahead of time, making sure you've got the plan set up for the plow team and, and then, you know, again, extending that check out is something that we'll do frequently just to help if it's a real, real bad storm.
[00:08:45] Speaker C: Yeah. So this is a big difference from, from our other short term shop markets as far as like, you know, if it snows in East Tennessee, you're probably going to tell your guests not to come or encourage them not to come. And of course, you know, beach markets. Well, I mean, I guess it maybe could snow in Myrtle, probably not. Right.
[00:09:03] Speaker A: But no, it's not snowing in Myrtle Beach.
[00:09:06] Speaker C: But so is this is the snow removal third party?
Is the cleaner? I mean, is there a snow blower involved? How, how are we managing the snow in general? Or we just wait for it to melt?
[00:09:21] Speaker B: Just what do you get? How do you guys handle it?
[00:09:24] Speaker D: Yeah, so I think it really, you know, I think it's important like the hoa, like depending on where your home's located, HOA or the township, they'll handle the roads. Like they're pretty good with that getting, getting salt down. But I think it's just being in constant communication. And with your snow removal third party, it is a third party that, you know, that are doing your driveway. Just, you know, if you see a storm coming, start preparing for that. Like, kind of like what Stephen was saying, like constant communication with the guests. Because guests do not like surprises.
Just so always constant communication with them and kind of working with them to ensure that, you know, the home is safe in reference to the driveway. But yes, it is typically what I see it is contracted. Stephen, what are you doing?
[00:10:16] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, 100%. One of the things that we've done again, and if we want to talk about this a little bit later, we can, but there's lots of. The Poconos is a really unique market just due to like the very variable expenses based on the community you're in and township. And like, there's a whole lot of variables that mean month to month, your, your expenses can shift. And so one of the things that we've worked hard to do, you know, I would say, you know, 99% of people will, you know, do snow removal on a, on a plow by plow basis. So there's tons of contractors out there that will say like, hey, if it's 0 to 3 inches, it's right $80. If it's 3 to 6 inches, it's 100. Like, they'll do it that way. And then, you know, if you have a storm on Friday and it's a 4 inch storm and you pay a hundred dollars and then there's another one on Sunday and they got to come out and plow and like your margins quickly. And we experienced this a few times where it's like all the money you were going to make now is just gone because of snow. Shoot, I shouldn't have even like hosted those because I didn't make any money because I was spending all plowing. And so one of the things that we switched over to last year that I think our homeowners have, have really appreciated and would be my recommendation for everyone out there is we sign season long contracts only now. So for our snowplow vendors, we chart we will only sign with one who's going to give us a flat rate for the season that includes salting.
And that way like the homeowners aren't like, hey, I don't have to make that call and be like, hey guys, we had to plow 10 times last month, so you actually owe us money. Like, wait a second, it's a, hey, your, your expenses are fixed. We know what it's going to be for the season and it's just a lot more predictable income for them. And especially in the winter when, when, you know, the other thing. Just, just to think about utility bills, A lot of the homes out there are built, you know, Tristan, you probably know about this more than I would, but, you know, 60s, 70s, 80s, and they're just not insulated super well. Windows are old, all that stuff. So, like, when we bought out there, we were getting utility bills that were over $1,000 a month in the winter, which was like, blow the doors off of our brains, like, just so, so high. And so, um, again, that. That's another area. I'm sorry, I'm going on a wild.
[00:12:24] Speaker C: No, I like it. I like this. Keep going.
[00:12:26] Speaker B: Yeah, away from snow. But just some real practical things for people that are buying out there that will help you, like, you know, your top line back. Oh, my gosh, we made a hundred thousand dollars, you know, $100,000 last year. And then as you see your expenses, you're like, oh, like we didn't make it. Done things again, fixing your expenses. Signing a contract with a plow removal team is going to be a flat rate for the whole season. Include salting.
And then on the utility bill side, unique. Well, I don't know if it's unique specifically to this market, but you actually can shop for your electricity provider.
So Pennsylvania Power and Light is the most common utility provider out there. They're going to charge you based on your, you know, your usage, but you have the ability actually to. To purchase electricity from a different vendor and so you can go online and find cheaper. I know this sound. I don't know how this sounds. Like it sounded nuts to me, but we do this now.
They've got hundreds of different electricity providers and there are some that also will charge a flat monthly rate for electricity. So your bill is not going to shift. March to January to December. Like, your monthly bill is basically the same. There is a little bit of variation that I could get into, but fixing your expenses in those two areas can really save you a ton. So you're obviously like, it doesn't increase your revenue, but it's going to decrease your expenses in a way that provides more consistency in your monthly payouts.
So fixed electricity fix, no cloud cost.
[00:13:53] Speaker C: Love it.
Love it. And the third party, you know, you sign a contract with them, they're going to take pictures too. So if something ever happens, like a guest slips and falls and said, you didn't do this, the, you know, snow removal properly and Then I'm not here. I'm not a lawyer. I'm not here to get into liability. But if the.
[00:14:12] Speaker A: That's never happened to us on a property is what he's getting.
Yeah, so for another time.
[00:14:20] Speaker C: Yeah, but, you know, the, the snow removal company should have their own insurance, and if they're providing pictures showing that the job was done, then, you know, maybe it's not even my problem, you.
[00:14:31] Speaker D: Know, that kind of thing.
[00:14:34] Speaker C: All right, it is your problem. But anyway, a lot of great, A.
[00:14:39] Speaker A: Lot of great info on snow. So let's, let's back up a little bit and I want to hear about setup and what do we need? Like, how many towels do we need in each bathroom? What are we stocking the property with in this market?
[00:14:52] Speaker C: Which, which. Hold on, Avery. I didn't mean it to sound like this is so snow all the time. I'm so sorry. The summers are beautiful and well, this.
[00:15:00] Speaker A: Is, it's important because this is a, a very important piece of this market is the snow in the wintertime. Because. And Tristan and I talked about on episode one how there is a big summer market for the lakes, et cetera. So we can get to that too in a minute.
[00:15:14] Speaker C: Anyway, sorry, back to your question about linens.
[00:15:17] Speaker A: All right, what are we stocking with when we're, when we're setting up these properties?
[00:15:22] Speaker B: Yeah, we're in the middle of a couple of these setups right now.
So. Yeah, I mean, we, we've got a full furnishing checklist that we provide for all the homeowners that we're.
We're onboarding that goes through that. I mean, again, typically, a couple things like, you know, we, we typically obviously, like leave two towels out per, per.
Per head.
[00:15:45] Speaker C: So.
[00:15:46] Speaker B: So if our home is sleeping, you know, 10, 10 people, we're going to leave out 20 towels. And then. This sounds insane, and part of it is variation based on the, the supply closet. Typically we like two to three times the amount we're leaving out. So that would be like 40 to 60 towels in the house.
Again, many of those are staying in the, in the, in the supply closet. We also, you know, like at least three, three sheet sets per bed.
That way we're just like stocked and ready. You know, one of the things depending on the market that you're in, like Amazon is not same day delivery. Typically it's two to three day delivery. So, like when you've got a same day turnover, we just want to make sure our cleaners have what they need to like, get everything ready for guests. And some of those things where it's like, it's a, it is an expensive investment up front, but for the risk of like a cleaner texting you and being like, hey, we don't have like, this happened xyz and you know, we got to get them out there. So when we're setting up a house, typically we like to front load a little bit and so we don't have to worry about it.
But yeah, typically 2-3x sheet sets and 2-3x towels if we're able to, is what we recommend. But yeah, I don't know. Trust me. How you guys, you guys typically set up, set up your house as well.
[00:16:57] Speaker D: Yeah, I agree. Always have extras available because there might be turnovers where things are getting stained. And like you said that there's not always same day delivery. You always want to be prepared. So especially with the towels. It does sound crazy to have that many towels in a home, but just always having extra towels and then during the turnovers, you know, really working with your cleaners to, you know, kind of eyeball it, like, hey, are we getting lower on towels or things like that? So that way you can kind of keep like an inventory of what's in the home. So it's not like one day you get to the home and it's like, hey, we used to have 60 towels here and now we have 30. You know, it's like, okay, like, things get damaged over time. Like, are we making sure that we are replacing them in real time? That way you could always keep that good cushion. But yeah, always, always extra extras at home is, is very important.
[00:17:52] Speaker C: Yeah. And Avery, my, my homes are a lot of times not big enough to, to store extra stuff. And a lot of times those, those closets end up getting really cluttered and Christmas trees and filth and just, you know, water heaters and all that kind of stuff. So I, we, we get, we will get a storage unit to store stuff. Now, you can't, you don't really want to store clean linens in a storage unit unless it's heated and cooled. And do you really want a heated and cooled storage unit for sheets and towels? I mean, that, that might not work, but we do, we do have storage units in our towns where we have multiple properties for knickknacks and things like that, because then that gives us more space for the towels at the property because those do need to be kept in a heated and cooled environment for the most part. But our policy is to just throw any towel away that has any Sort of mark or stain on it.
Most of the time this comes from the cleaner. And the cleaner just, you know, lets us know that they threw three of them. We have two systems there as far as inventory. The cleaner kind of lets us know periodically, hey, we had to throw this, this away and that away.
We do all this on slack.
And then the guests are very happy to tell you when a towel is not absolutely perfect. Right. So our policy there is just, oh, I'm so sorry, we don't know what happened. Throw it away.
[00:19:07] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:19:08] Speaker C: Because then, then you're, you're just letting them know, hey, this is not up to our standards. And we are, we are not cool with that towel being in our house. And we're going to prove it to. By letting you throw. Put it in the trash.
[00:19:18] Speaker A: You know, get that towel out of our house.
[00:19:20] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:19:21] Speaker C: So then this goes back to my, my part two, which is the deep clean. You know, we, we definitely want a heavy inventory on deep clean time. We schedule deep cleans.
The, the beach properties get a minimum of two a year and the mountain properties, such as Poconos are going to get, which again, just.
I'm not in the Poconos for truth be told, but my mountain properties get three deep cleans a year. We do those when it's a little bit on the slower slide. We'll do. So we'll do May, late May, pre. Pre busy season, which is late May. We'll do September, late September, and then we will do some somewhere in early February. Ish.
Because in my mountain markets, February is pretty slow.
And you could actually there's an argument there to be made that you should do it before the holidays. But then there's certain times of that period of time where the property might even sit empty.
So it's kind of counterintuitive to deep clean a property that may be sitting empty for a week or two because then the cobwebs creep in and it's like, why did I deep clean it? So during deep cleans, which again, beach twice a year, mountain three times a year.
And why is that not. Because our mountain properties are cleaner than our beach properties. Because the beach properties are definitely going to sit empty. You know, there, there's two. There's probably two months, maybe even three or more, depending on the property where that beach house is not occupied at all.
So you save the deep clean for the end of that. But anyway, during that period, the cleaners like rapid firing us a bunch of things like, and we're just loading up the Amazon cart Basically, we do. We. We personally, we do everything. Amazon, it just makes our lives a lot easier. But there's. There's other ways. Costco has great towels, you know, that kind of thing.
[00:21:13] Speaker A: It's my advice that when you close on a property, you want to just go ahead and get a deep clean done because you don't know to what level the previous owner has been managing the cleanliness, especially if it's been on one of these big dinosaur property management companies that has thousands of properties. Like, you always want to get a deep clean and you always want to change the lock. I can't tell you how many people, like, how many clients of ours will close in any market and then want to use that same lock and be asking questions about how to change the code on the lock or being mad that the property manager took the keypad lock away. And I'm like, guys, you want a new lock? You don't know how many people have a code to this lock floating around out there. So two things to do when you close on a property, you get it deep clean and change the damn locks. Like, why do you not want to change the lock? That's so scary to me. Anyway, let's talk about tech stack of your hardware first, and we'll talk about software. So what kind of locks are we using and what other hard, smart, potential hardware stuff are we adding to these houses to get set up?
[00:22:18] Speaker D: Yeah, so, yeah, I think that the tech stack is kind of like, Luke was just holding up a Schlage box.
I think the Schlagen code locks are great. They're very reliable.
They connect directly to your account. So when you get a booking or depending if you're doing directly in Airbnb, you get your, you know, a pms, it connects directly into the system to where you get a booking, and then it automatically sends them a code and it changes from. And it's only set for their time of booking. So it's not like you just have a universal code that, you know, a guest that stayed eight months ago can go into your home whenever they want. Always getting changed on your home and then also having that. And then, you know, doorbell, camera, or just like, security camera, because you really want to monitor who's coming in and out of the home. If someone's booking for eight people, you don't want to go onto your camera and see there's 16 people or not even know that there's that many people going into the home. So keeping track of occupancy and then what's going, it's not really more so like, hey, I'm spying on the guests. But it's more occupancy so there's not any extra guests, especially extremely noticeable.
Another good tech, tech stack is a, you know, WI fi enabled thermostat. Right? It's, you know, that way you're keeping track of like the temperatures in the home, like maybe even during the summertime, you know, somebody comes into the home, you don't want them to set your, your temperature to like 66 degrees and freeze out your system or even vice versa, you know, so it's like really being able to monitor the, the temperature in the home as well. And, and if you wanted to take it another step further, they have, you know, in a lot of my homes I have noise monitors.
You know, you have to disclose it to the guests saying that you do have a noise monitor in the home, but that way you're keeping track of the decibels, especially in some of these areas.
Last thing you want is to get on the bad side.
Last thing you want for any short term rental, especially in the Poconos, you don't want to get on the bad side of neighbors. So keeping track of the noise in the area is important as well. But that's, that's the four that I use for my.
How about you, Steven?
[00:24:38] Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, Tristan, you nailed it, man. It's very similar on the hardware side. Noise monitoring is something now that's standard. We're putting in all of our properties as we move forward. It was something that three and a half years ago we didn't. And I think every home we manage right now is in some sort of HOA or community.
And many of the communities have their own private security. And you know, many of them are in this kind of transitional period of, you know, used to be long term, long term residents and that, and maybe not transitional, but a blend of these. And so we just, yeah, we want to be good neighbors and, and so certainly it was standard. Now is standard on, you know, houses with hot tubs. We'll put one outside as well as one inside. Another thing that we've done is, you know, we use, we use the minute devices. I know there's a few other ones that are fine, but they integrate in with our property management software. So it automates if there is a noise issue. We've got a custom message that gets sent out to the guest that lets them know we've got a unique wording that we use for that. So it's not like, hey, we are watching you and quiet down.
So we, yeah, we word that carefully. But. And then, and then, yeah, put them, put them inside as well.
But yeah, just being good neighbors and recognizing that the communities that these homes are in is. Yeah, so that's, that's very similar on the hardware side.
[00:25:59] Speaker A: All right, what about what software do we need to get rolling on a short term rental here?
[00:26:05] Speaker B: Yeah, so yeah, on the software side, again, if you're just starting out with one.
When we started, we did not use a property management software initially.
You can share your calendars between Airbnb, VRBO with iCal link. So you don't need a property management software starting out.
When we started we just linked our calendars.
Um, you know, and as we've grown we, we've implemented a few different things. So now we tried out, we've gone through three different property management softwares. We started with Lodify and then went to one called Journey and now we are on guesty and again I could talk about each one of those. But so yeah, really as we've grown property management software, we use Price Labs for dynamic pricing. That's one of the areas where there's a few pieces of technology that you can purchase to increase revenue. Most of the technology is going to be on the automation and simplification. There's a few decisions you can make around technology to increase revenue and I would encourage people to like, you know, dynamic pricing is one of those.
And then, you know, outside of, yeah, Price Labs, we use another one that again, in the effort of increasing revenue, we use Rank Breeze on all of our properties. So letting us know where our properties are, you know, what Airbnb is prioritizing on the algorithm and how we can adjust keywords, amenities, photo order, all that type of stuff to get more favorable placement on the online travel agencies.
So yeah, software side, Price Labs, right now we're using Guesty, rankbreeze and then obviously we're a property management company. So we've got all our accounting software and um, all that type of stuff. BS leash. We, we. I also agree on code locks. We use 20 of them. They're great, we love them, spend a lot of money on batteries. We, we put the, the.
Because of the cold temps and just variability out there. Like if you put cheap batteries out there, you will be replacing them every two months, which is awful.
So we switched over to you know like the lithium ion. Literally for four batteries, it's like $16, but they'll last us like 10 months.
So it's just worth like, find the most best batteries you can for door lock.
[00:28:28] Speaker C: Cool. Avery. I know everything there is to know about every software in this space, and I'm happy to teach everybody about that in management Monday. Come on.
[00:28:38] Speaker A: So, guys, if you come buy a house with Tristan in the Poconos, you get Luke in Management Monday when you get under contract. So much something to look forward to.
[00:28:46] Speaker C: Yeah, it's a barrel of laughs. We've been doing it a long time. Something like 10,000 people have come through and. And listen to my terrible jokes and.
Great. And I agree. I do use the slag. And I do think that people should be using a property management software out of the gate.
Maybe not the first day if you're completely overwhelmed and have a day job and six kids and that kind of thing, but, you know, definitely get on a management software sooner than later. And pricing software, that's becoming.
You know, things have changed a lot over the years. Used to be if you didn't use price labs, you were a dork, you know. But now most of the management softwares have pricing built right into them now. So a lot of folks are kind of looking at that because it's easier. Price labs can be overwhelming. It's got a lot of gizmos and gadgets, and it's.
I guess intimidating is the word.
And truth is, you don't even need a lot of those gizmos and gadgets. But so the management softwares have now started to kind of build that into their dashboards, where it may. They're less sophisticated, which is, you know, not as intimidating.
But I do think it's.
It's going to be a natural evolution. Even if you start with the revenue management on your management software, you're probably going to branch out to price labs at some point just because it is really awesome. But it's a big learning curve.
[00:30:11] Speaker A: Yeah, we use hospitable for our pms. What about you, Tristan?
[00:30:16] Speaker D: Yes, I use. I use guesty as well. And I've heard it's usually either between, like guesty or hospitable. I see that a lot of people who are first starting out use hospitable, but as you scale, I just, from my experience, and maybe Stephen, you could touch in on this.
You know, guesty is a little more friendlier as scale. It's a little more automated in a sense where it stays pretty organized.
[00:30:45] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. I mean, we. Again, our evolution, we went with Logify because we needed a PMS and it was like guesty, the price tag, like to onboard at the Time, I think that I don't know what it is now, but like to onboard with Guesty, I think it was like 1500, $1600 just to like get up and going and then you pay monthly per listing. And Lodify was like just, you know, per listing. And so we went with them. But yeah, ran into just like time scalability issues.
And then we, yeah, we went with, with a different company that we could spend a whole bucket of time talking about Journey and what that experience was like and why we went with them. It was kind of a startup thing. And then, yeah, switching over to Guesty, the ability to integrate in with teams and automate and you know, one of the things that I would just say. And Luke, I think you touched on this a little bit like one of my favorite philosophers, Michael Scott, like keep it simple.
You know, there's lots of shiny objects and new software coming out and things that make your life more complex and you're going to spend eight hours trying to get it dialed in and it's not going to move the needle. And.
And so that, that's another just learning journey that I've had is, you know, yeah, there's just, just keeping, keeping stuff simple. And I've made a couple of decisions based on flashy ideas or things that ended up being a giant waste of time. And so, and that's what I would say about Guesty. And I can't speak to hospital, but they're pretty like industry standard, like lots of integrations. It's not complicated to add stuff on, so we pay a little bit more, but it's simple.
And.
[00:32:23] Speaker C: And Avery, you have a software playlist on your YouTube channel.
[00:32:27] Speaker A: Yes. So if you are watching this on YouTube or maybe if you're listening to it on a podcast, we do have a playlist of episodes on YouTube where we've interviewed people from each of these companies.
So if you're listening to this and you're like, I don't know which one to use because there's Guesty, there's hospitable, there's hostaway, Hostfully, owner res, There's a number of them. So if you're confused, you can definitely check out that playlist now.
[00:32:54] Speaker C: No wrong answer. Yeah, sorry.
[00:32:56] Speaker A: No wrong answers.
[00:32:56] Speaker C: Yeah, they're all wonderful.
[00:32:57] Speaker A: Yeah, they're all great.
Um, so moving on to the next thing. So is there anything not to be missed when you're setting up a short term rental in the Poconos in terms of furnishing or decor or stocking items?
[00:33:14] Speaker B: Yeah, a hundred percent. Um, I mean, again, I think there, there's, there's lots of furnishing checklists available just to make sure that like the basics are there. Um, that, you know, one of the things that I would say is just like, as you're thinking about the house and layout, recognizing first, just, you know, I'm sure this is common in a lot of different mountain markets, but you know, when we come in and you know, if you come in and there's carpet going up the stairs or any carpeted area right near the entrance, that's an area where it's like, we'll see that and just can recognize like that's going to become an issue even if it's fine right now.
So just watching out for carpet just based on, you know, especially in the winter they're bringing in ice and salt and like all of the stuff. And so, um, yeah, I would say, I would say that. You know, and then, and then, Avery, there's a kind of a, even upstream of that, which you guys might have already talked about is fine, but I think could be helpful is just even before, you know, before purchasing the house, like what to look for and what to avoid in that. Cause there's a lot like our journey of how we bought our first house and some of the learnings that came along with that based on the agent that we used and some of our own learnings that made when we got to the design portion, it a lot more difficult or more difficult for us to do what we do. But I certainly would say like just, you know, any sort of basic furnishing checklist that was helpful for us to just go through. It's hundreds of items. So don't try and just like wing it.
Find something that exists.
Be mindful of just like high traffic areas.
You know, we know any carpeted areas coming in we watch out for obviously. And, and then as you said, I think, you know, making sure you're, you're getting that deep clean taken care of.
[00:34:55] Speaker C: Do you like the carpet or do you get rid of the carpet?
[00:34:58] Speaker B: Get rid of it. Especially if it's in like an entryway area or, you know, and that's, that's another thing we've just found is like light colored throw rugs. So like, you know, and we, when I say this, you guys might wince or just die a little bit inside, but in the living room, you know, we'll actually look for tasteful like outdoor rugs that we can put in the living room if the living room is close to the front door. Because we know that like people are bringing their luggage and they're walking through the living room and if we put a cream colored rug in there, it's gonna just start to look really bad. And so that's, you know, some stuff where we've started say, like, where are the high traffic areas? Are we mindful of the colors we're putting there? And as I said, like, we, we will honestly, most of the living rooms we design, we'll look for like tasteful, high quality, good, like, but, but stuff that you would put on your deck or outdoors, knowing that like that's going to stand up to people rolling their suitcases across it and not everyone's going to take their shoes off. And that's so like we're. Yeah. If there's carpet near the entryway, we're just watching for that and either pulling it or, or thinking through the dynamic of like, this is going to need to be shampooed every couple months or whatever that is. So.
[00:36:03] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, I totally agree with that. And one thing too, guys. If you're listening and you're like, oh my gosh, this sounds like so much to get everything furnished. When you're buying in market like this one, a lot of times the properties that are for sale are going to be already short term rentals or second homes. So they'll come furnished already.
And that can be really nice when you're in a hurry, maybe buying at the end of the year for cost seg purposes. There's still going to be stuff you need to look at and refresh and replace or update. But it is nice when a lot of it kind of already comes with the house too.
[00:36:38] Speaker C: Just replace it as you need, you know, as needed. If you got a couch that's a little nasty and it's getting to be slow season, then the couch needs to go, you know, that kind of thing. I'm actually rug free. Avery, believe it or not, is rug free. I'm rug free. I don't like the trip hazard.
I. I'm not saying there's not a rug or two in one of my properties. There probably is, but it's easier to clean a floor than a rug.
[00:37:03] Speaker A: Yeah, I agree with that. And then, you know, if somebody sneaks in a pet, it pees. It smells like that right there on the rug. Yeah.
[00:37:12] Speaker C: But it's also really easy to replace a rug too. We do, you know.
[00:37:15] Speaker A: Yeah, that's true.
[00:37:16] Speaker C: We have a couple on Amazon that we like if needed. But I don't know, every. I walk into a house I'm like, man, the corner of that rug is looking a little suspicious.
[00:37:25] Speaker A: You know, are there any. Must have amenities. So I know a hot tub. It's kind of like the Smokies or the Smokanos that I accidentally said earlier, where you kind of have to have a hot tub, but anything else that people may not be aware of that you kind of need to have as an amenity.
[00:37:45] Speaker B: Yeah. Tristan, what have you. What have you found on that?
[00:37:48] Speaker D: Yeah, so, I mean, again, hot tub is the staple amenity, I would say. You know, fire pits are really nice, especially if it's like a larger property, like just, you know, with firewood and things like that and then things. I mean, it depends really. It doesn't have to be complex, you know, like, there's people in the Poconos that do these full build outs and put slides in the bedrooms and, you know, the indoor pool, there's only about 20 of them in the market. And, like, the revenue really ramps up when you see those.
You know, like, there's some. There's even some with pickleball courts. But I think it's not entirely necessary to have success in the Poconos. You can keep it simple, but, yeah, hot tubs is pretty much the staple. Fire pits. Nice.
Stephen, is anything I'm missing or.
[00:38:38] Speaker B: Yeah. I mean, the only other things I would add, again, it was a learning journey for us, AC now is something like, we don't even take on homes that don't have air conditioning. And that's something that, you know, I could pull up the numbers on that, but it's actually, like, more rare than you would think. Homes with air conditioning. And so, again, there's lots of options. Many of the homes that, if you're purchasing out there for the first time, you're going to see going to come in, they're going to have baseboard heaters, which both are expensive, and obviously, you don't get the benefit of air conditioning. And so just making sure as you're going into purchasing, like, you've got that cost factored in for the install. Typically, you know, we'll recommend, like, ductless mini split units, but that as an amenity. Absolutely. And then, you know, one of the things that when we're designing a home, especially on limited budget, we will really say, like, depending on the budget, how many.
How many just awesome photos can we put together based on the design we're implementing? So, you know, we know that the majority of people are going to look at the first 13 photos, and if we've got the budget to do like 13 photos that are just, you know, 13 spaces, areas that are awesome. Like, we're going to do that.
But if we've got a small budget, instead of spreading that out across the whole home, I'm going to say, like, hey, I'm going to, I'm going to get my hero shot to be the best it can be with the budget that I have to work with, with, you know, and so absolutely, I think there's, there's some of those must haves, like, you know, especially the, the, the hot tub thing. We, we just. I was working with a homeowner a couple weeks ago on this week or a couple months ago, we, we put in a hot tub for him. And over the summer we literally doubled revenue from last summer to this summer by, by. We did a hot. We did a landscaping project. It ended up being. It was like 1520,000 for hot tub landscape or. Yeah, hot tub landscape, fire pit. It was a really, you know, it was a nice setup, but it doubled their revenue from last summer to this summer. And so they're going to get a return on that investment almost, you know, within a few months. Which is, which is great. But, but yeah, I would just say, like, really don't, don't try and spread yourself thin across the whole home if you've got a really limited design budget, like, make that master bedroom amazing.
[00:40:49] Speaker D: Make the.
[00:40:50] Speaker B: Live it. Like pick, pick which space you want to invest in. Make sure everything else is good.
But yeah, that would be my recommendation based on your design budget.
[00:41:00] Speaker A: So back up to no central ac. I feel like that's kind of something that's maybe specific to this market that isn't super common.
So how, like, is it really common to not have AC and to have the baseboard heaters and properties out here?
[00:41:17] Speaker B: Yeah, Tristan, I mean, I think you probably just have your feet in a whole lot more homes because you're the agent, I would say, you know, and I was just pulling up the actual data on this.
But out of, just for us, out of the 2020 homes we have under contract right now, two of them have central AC, and then the remaining 18 are these ductless mini split units that were installed at some point.
So, you know, I would say again, the majority of these homes were built, you know, 60s, 70s, 80s and did not have AC. So if it has it, it was installed by someone along the way. So yeah, it is a, it is a very odd thing. We'll get guests that come out and initially when we started off, you know, we were managing houses that didn't have ac, and they'd be like, hey, how do I turn on? Like, people just don't even think that it's possible to have a house without air conditioning so that, you know, regardless of what you charge them, when it's like 80 degrees at night in the bedroom, they are like, this place sucks, and I want all my money back. And you're like, you booked a home without ac, but they don't care, and they're going to leave bad reviews. So that's something. Now that, like, we've just seen a really nice house get bad reviews because of a lack of air conditioning.
Dogs agree. They get. They're coming out hot. I love it.
So, yeah, we just now that that's just standard. Like, gotta get AC installed. Happy guests, lower costs in the winter.
Yeah. So that's become a standard. Tristan, like, as you're. As you're showing people houses and that, like, what would you say is the ratio of homes that have ac, central versus mini splits versus none at all?
[00:42:51] Speaker D: Yeah. Unless it's like a new, newer home, like, you'll see central ac. But, like, kind of like you said, it's a lot of, like, the split units like these homes are. Are on the older side, so a lot of them just don't have central ac. But it is extremely important because, like, there are. The summer gets warm. You know, you get up to. Especially humid. Like, you'll get up to 80, 85 degrees, and the last thing you want is someone who books your home and they're just sweating and they just hate it. And they, like you said, they want all the money back. So. But yeah, a lot. A lot of homes, especially on the older side, have, like, a lot of the split units.
[00:43:28] Speaker A: Okay. So you remedy that with just having the. The mini splits and with the remotes and all that, and make sure that they know up front, hey, this is what the air conditioning is.
It's with a remote in each room.
[00:43:43] Speaker B: Yep.
[00:43:44] Speaker C: And we.
[00:43:44] Speaker B: We install. I believe it's Mesa thermostats that integrate in with. With our property management software that control the temperature on and off around guests or obviously in the winter, like, set it to a minimum temperature. So we're able to control those mini splits remotely as well, which is a benefit.
Misa also is really sweet for the. For the Poconos.
They also sell thermostats that can be remotely controlled for baseboard heaters.
So again, when. When we are. When we're installing those ductless mini split units, typically we recommend Doing my set thermostats for the. For the mini splits as well as for the baseboard heaters.
And again, just random, random learnings. I'm going to save you a bunch of time and money when you're getting those mini splits installed.
Oftentimes the cheapest ones will not work below 20 degrees Fahrenheit. Literally, they just won't blow air at all.
And so there, you know, there's a couple of different brands. It sounds like a sales gimmick. They call them like hyper heat units. But there is actually a different type of build that will operate down to zero degrees Fahrenheit. And we will take on homes where the homeowner is like, hey, we installed mini splits and we got heat and we disconnected the baseboards and we find out they installed those mini split units, but they're not the hyperheat. And, you know, last week we had 8 degree temps and the guests are like, hey, it's 37 degrees in the house. There's no heat coming out. It's like, oh, man, you got a $20,000 problem on your hands now because there's no heat in the house and you gotta tear this whole system out and reinstall a new one. Reconnect the baseboard heaters. And so even when you're installing those units, a lot of times contractors will talk about, hey, let's disconnect the baseboards. Don't do it. Leave them connected. You're going to need both.
Both options for heat with the. With how cold the temps is and how poorly insulated some of these houses are, it's very frequent. We've got the mini splits going heat and the baseboards going heat to. To make sure that the. The temperatures are comfortable for. For. Yeah. For guests.
[00:45:44] Speaker A: Yeah. That's a great tip because that is not something that I would ever know.
Going to buy a split.
[00:45:51] Speaker B: Yep.
Yeah. And it sounds like a sales gimmick. I remember, like, when we were purchasing it for. For our home, it's like, you know, the hyper heat unit is another seven grand, but like, da, da, da. And it's like, how difference. It makes a big difference. And if you find yourself not spending the seven, you know, whatever it is for your home to install that come winter, it is a whole lot more pain and agony when you realize, like, there's literally no heat in the house below. Below 20 degrees.
[00:46:18] Speaker A: Wow. Yeah, that's a real hot tip. Thank you.
And do we have any more of those? We're coming to the last few minutes of the show, so Anything about managing in the Poconos specifically that we haven't covered, that you feel like listeners need to hear before they go buy a short term rental on the Poconos.
[00:46:35] Speaker B: One of the tips that I give people, they bought their house. They're, you know, if you're buying remotely or locally, like, any and transparently, like, I'm in Seattle right now. I'm in Kirkland. Kirkland, Washington. And we bought our first house in the Poconos. You know, it's what, a couple thousand miles away?
And so it's very doable. We've done it. I could, you know, I've talked about it at length, like, how to get it up and going from a long distance away.
So don't let that, like, scare you off. And especially, I mean, going off on a tangent here.
I could talk for five minutes about, like, finding the right agent to purchase the house. We made the mistake of purchasing with an agent who was not specialized in short term rentals. Great agent for. For purchasing homes, but did not know short term rentals. And it cost us tens of thousands of dollars.
Finding an agent that knows their way around regulations, what guests are going to look for, layout of the house. It's a different ball game. And so it will save you tens of that, like literally tens of thousands of dollars to align yourself with an agent that is familiar doing with this.
[00:47:41] Speaker A: All right, anything else from anyone? Luckily, guys, we in this episode have presented you with the perfect agent to buy a short term rental with in the Poconos who's aware of all the short term rental regulations and knows what he's doing. So, Tristan, do you want to send us out? Guys, if you want to get a hold of Tristan, you can email us at agents the shorttermshop.com we're at the short term shop on Instagram, YouTube, tick tock, all the above. Facebook, which Facebook's kind of gotten a little bit like drunk uncles yelling at the tv. I feel like Facebook's kind of on its way out, but we're there, of course.
So anyway, Tristan, you want to send us off?
[00:48:26] Speaker D: Yeah, yeah.
Just to cap off, as far as the episode is how to manage in the Poconos.
You. You can do this anywhere, you know, like, you. You can manage a home in the Poconos and you could be in Seattle, right? Like, I have a few properties in Florida and I'm in. I'm in Pennsylvania, you know, so it's right tech stack, the right team. The team, super important.
The team is super important. Those are your boots. On the ground. Those are people that are taking pictures of the home while, you know, saying, like, hey, what's going on? Cleaners taking pictures, seeing how's the house left from the guest. And then they take pictures, see the homes clean. You know, you're working with your handyman on these maintenance issues. You get a really good team. You can do. You can not even just in the Poconos, any market in the country, you can do it from a distance. Just we have so much technology today to where you could have eyes and ears on the property at all times and not even be there. So for people that are looking to buy the Poconos and you're not close, it's fine. It really is fine. And I think what Steven touched on about getting in communities, get with people that get around people that are doing this, get in those communities. A good community on Facebook is the Pocono Vacation rental owners.
You know, they host a conference every single year, which Avery will be speaking at this year.
It's, you know, you get in the ins and outs of the regulations, but then also, like Stephen said, partnering with an agent who knows all the township ordinance where you can buy a vacation rental.
[00:50:03] Speaker C: There are.
[00:50:04] Speaker D: There are pockets where you can't have a short term rental, and there's some HOAs that are more strict than others. Just it's really important to have an expert guide you through this entire process.
[00:50:16] Speaker A: All right, guys, we'll catch you on the on the next episode. Thank you so much for listening.
