Ep 54: BONUS FURNISHED RENTAL STRATEGY… How Serving One Incredible Audience Can Generate Great Revenue AND Free Up 75% (or MORE!) Of Your Time
Are you still on the fence about adding a vacation rental to your income portfolio? Or, are you simply looking to have a secondary, or “back up” strategy, to ensure your place stays consistently booked?
Well, this episode was created just for you! Today we’ll discover one incredible group of guests that can not only generate great revenue but will also save you 75% of your workload (and frankly, there wasn’t much of a workload to begin with!!).
Often times, when people think about having bringing a vacation rental online, they think of listing on one or more of the “big 3” site: Airbnb, VRBO, or HomeAway.
But did you know there are specific audiences of guests to which you can cater?
And there are lots of places to list your house once you have a niche!
But sometimes it’s not obvious the niches you may choose
– and in a normal economy, those groups of potential guests are even greater (sports fans, pet-owners, etc)
But today is all about a bonus strategy, or back up plan, or lower-key option for your furnished rental…
Traveling Nurses
Remember in a normal world traveling nurses are a sustainable audience group to support, and in our current one, even more are activated…
Here’s some reasons why they’re PHENOMENAL guests:
– You’ll be paid by the hospital
– They’re great tenants… they’re barely home, take great care of the place, neighbors will be grateful
– They typically have 3 month commitments, some extend to 6 or 9 months!
So, you have the upside of furnished rental income but may only need to find 4 guests per year!!
Interested? Here’s what to do next:
– Find what the cap is in your area
– Look for properties close to hospitals
– List on specialty sites
– Reach out directly to the hospital you’re closest to – nurses sometimes ask the hospital for recommendations
– Think about specific amenities traveling nurses would want
And before you know it, you’ll be on your way!
And if you’re curious about how much you could potentially earn with an Airbnb in your area, I can send you a free and pretty powerful tool to help you estimate…
Visit GinnyTownsend.com/rental to claim access to this powerful free tool!
Thanks for joining me, and until next time, continue to be up and to the right.
EPISODE TRANSCRIPTION
What’s up Podcast Nation! Ginny Townsend here. Thank you so much for joining me for another episode and I am extremely excited about what I’m going to share with you today. So it is a bonus strategy on either how to approach your primary target base, but it could also be viewed as a backup strategy to fill vacancies and make sure you’re profitable month after month.
And it is even lower as far as a time commitment is involved. So it is overall a wonderful strategy to have in your playbook. You know, it’s a Hip Pocket it’s available for you and most people when they think about a vacation rental or a short-term rental or a furnished rental, whatever the term is the think of the big three and by that I mean
in the marketplace is where people can find these rentals and they are Airbnb, VRBO, and HomeAway. So that’s where a lot of these business transactions take place. But did you know that there are some specific audiences of guests that you can cater to and there are lots of places to list your place your house your apartment your townhome, whatever once you have
Mitch in mind but sometimes it’s not very obvious to see potential niches that you could choose, right and as a caveat, I mean I must say in a normal economy those groups of potential guests are even greater. So I mean there are even there are sites dedicated to helping the sports fans find great places to stay if they’re traveling to go watch their team definitely sites for pet-friendly owners, you know all manner.
Are all manner of groups of Travelers potential guests, but this strategy Works in I think pretty much every economy, and I’ll go so far as to say, I believe it’s pandemic proof. So I know that’s a bold strategy or like that’s a bold statement right for a strategy like this. So let’s get right to it. So if you are on the fence about adding a vacation rental short-term rental furniture,
Or whatever that yeah, we’re going to call it vacation rental to your income portfolio. May I present to you the possibility of serving traveling nurses?
Now remember, I mean in a normal World actually, you may not remember to be or be very familiar with the world of traveling nurses. But this in any normal economy, whatever nurses travel on typically three-month rotations and they are that’s a sustainable audience to support in any economy. And in the current one, even more, troubling nurses have been activated.
So here are a couple of enormous pros. I see to having either this be your primary strategy or having a backup strategy to serve these incredible Heroes first. They are paid by the hospital so you won’t get a check from the hospital or anything like that. But the hospital that they are traveling to serve at providing a housing allowance. So it’s over and above whatever so they are good for the
The money right even though they’re shorter term like three months, you know, typically they have a three-month commitment, but then some extend so we some dear friends of ours have a vacation rental on primarily on Air B&B but have started serving traveling nurses and they had one extend twice. So she was there for nine months and would have extended more but it would have changed where she had to file her.
Taxes and all of that to be, you know somewhere for 12 months so she didn’t extend beyond that but incredible, right so you have the upside of a furnished rental income. So it’s not like a long-term rental rate, but you may only need to find up to 4 guests a year.
Pretty powerful right Plus at generally speaking. They are phenomenal tenants. They’re barely there, but they also in my own experience and what I have heard from close family friends Etc who have had Trevor nurses stay at their place. They take good care of it and neighbors will always be grateful for quiet and considerate tenants.
They will love you for it. And so so I think all of those are very strong reasons to consider. Like I said either making traveling nurses your primary or secondary strategy. So let’s say you’re like, okay great. What should I consider? Where should I start in finding out how to actually get into this Market with my vacation rental first things first because obviously, we’re approaching
this like a business to be sustainably present in this Market, you know serving this audience find out what the rental cap is in your area. So every hospital will have a rental cap like the max amount they will you know, their housing allowances and so you don’t want to go above that cap view that as your own income limit and that’s I mean, that’s not a bad thing because
Again, they are great guests. You really only need to find up to 4 guests a year, but that cap is real and so in fact when we in our first Air B&B our first vacation rental, we had a traveling nurse early on and she was a phenomenal guest absolutely phenomenal and she did extend she stayed six months total and we heard glowing glowing words from our
Neighbors it was they really appreciated how considerate she was and how you know like there was never any Ruckus there was never any reason to complain from her but finding out what that cap is is important because as we continued having that vacation rental, we saw that we could raise our rates pretty considerably in fact at one point I decided to raise our rates.
It’s a thousand dollars a month just to see what would happen and we still got booked out. But in doing that we priced ourselves out of the traveling nurses Market. It went over their cap. And then once we made that decision, we didn’t have any more traveling nurses. So it just beware a know what the cap is and plans around that make sure you can get obviously all of your costs in and then still a healthy profit and then secondly look for properties close to a hospital if this is obviously this is going to be a primary strategy. Think about these traveling nurses. They’ll want some kind of convenience. So if the area around the hospital is nice definitely go for that or you know, what I would say like within even like a 15, 20, 30-minute drive, you know your area more than I do in speaking generalizations, but think about the placement of your property with respect to the hospital where these traveling nurses would be working.
And then you can list on specialty sites. So the traveling nurse that had stated our place early on was she found us on Airbnb. I didn’t even know to go after this. As I said, I was an accidental six-figure host at first, you know, if their first property but there are sites listed specifically for traveling nurses and you can absolutely list on those sites.
And then another place to actually make sure that your information is out there in the world is Reach Out directly to the hospital that you’re closest to or that your property would be closest to because sometimes I mean hospitals will provide informed recommendations and nurses may ask a hospital for such a recommendation.
And then finally think about the tenant think about what would a traveling nurse love to where would they why would they want to stay at your place? So think about the amenities that would be specifically incredibly valuable to them so I can imagine in a time like this during a pandemic regardless of the hospital.
Is seeing High numbers of covid or not traveling nurses are always there. They work hard. They’re Heroes, right? So think about having a place that is quiet and relaxing. Maybe does it have a pool or does it have a fountain or does have a view or is the area just nice and quiet a little respite for them and then think about these blackout curtains. So if a nurse has the night shift, they’ll sleep during the day so you can note.
On your listing that you have blackout curtains and that is that’s a love language to them right and things like great Wi-Fi which again I encourage you to get the best Wi-Fi you possibly can for any audience you want to support and things like, oh, absolutely. I feel like you would need to have an on-site laundry for a traveling nurse. And if you’re looking to get new machines select one with a saint.
Ty’s setting and how valuable would that to be to put on your listing that they have the confidence the Peace of Mind knowing that anything that they want to wash can be set to a sanitized setting how beautiful is that so that I mean this is obviously a brief episode but I feel like I just wanted to get this out there for anyone like I said who is on the fence about doing a furnished rental
vacation rental or wants to maybe have a backup strategy you know like okay maybe Airbnb we want you no more of the traveler we want the highest rate possible which is a nightly rate so if you can have a guest stay one or two nights and you can be regularly booked out typically that is the way to be most profitable but if you are looking to ensure there are no vacancies and you are wanting to see
I’m like, okay for guests a year, maybe because what if they extend I mean incredible, right? How Loki is that treat them? Well, give them a great quiet peaceful place and they will pay your bills and they will put money in your pocket. Isn’t that incredible? So let me know what you think to send me a DM on Instagram. I still feel like that’s probably the best way for you to reach out to me at this point my handle is @itsginnytownsend and let me know what you think about this. Let me know if this changes your mind at all liens you towards having a vacation rental because absolutely that is just so you know, it is our backup strategy. So yes, we are going for the more profitable Air B&B, you know a couple of nights days, but we’re a listing on traveling nurses sites because we’re within 10 minutes of an incredible hospital here.
So again, I hope that you found this encouraging inspiring. I hope you go immediately to do some research in your area. And until we talk again next time continue to be up into the right.
