Ep 59: Why 2021 is the Best Year to Invest in a Vacation Rental (PS – Happy New Year!)
Happy New Year!! Welcome to 2021, and let’s hit the ground running to make this your best year yet.
Are you considering the addition of a vacation rental to your income portfolio? If so, this may very well be your year!
In this episode, I give you my top 3 reasons that 2021 is the right time to jump on in. And, in a nutshell, here are the reasons…
1. Basic economic principles: Airbnb’s SUPPLY and DEMAND… There’s so SO MUCH ROOM for you in this market. And, as promised in this episode, here is the AirDNA report I referenced: https://www.airdna.co/covid-19-data-center
2. It is TIME to diversify your income sources. Period. Full stop.
3. It’s never been easier to make an informed decision. This industry has had time to mature and move beyond its “wild, wild west” phase. There are now proven models, there are now resources, checklists, standards… you’re not in this alone!
And speaking of, because I feel so strongly about helping as many people as possible (YOU) diversify income sources, I am currently creating something just for you… It’s a roadmap to owning a profitable vacation rental… It’s everything I wish I had when I was first starting out!
Want to join the waitlist for The 6-Figure Vacation Rental Roadmap: How to Find, Furnish, and Fill a Profitable Short-Term Rental, hop on over to ginnytownsend.com/estimate and I’ll let you know the moment it’s ready!
So, until next time, HAPPY NEW YEAR! And, continue to be up and to the right.
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? Happy New Year. Welcome to 2021. We made it, guys! We made it. My name is Ginny Townsend, and I am so glad that you are listening to this podcast. So welcome to a clean slate. Welcome to the next calendar year of all of our lives. Welcome to the year past 2020, and I don’t know if
Some of you listening I’m sure 2020 was actually a great year and I’m sure others listening it was you are so thankful that it’s done one of my dear family members. She owns a coffee shop in Texas and had featured a good riddance latte toward the end of the year and one of her Baristas said
It should taste like oh gosh. What was it was the funniest thing? It was like it should taste like disdain and tasteless painful should be hard to drink but so regardless of what your 20/20 Experience was.
20:21 is yours for the taking you know, and then also later this month. If you’re in the United States, there’s going to be a rather large transition of power. We’re going to have a new president and I want why are the only reason I mention this is whether or not you are excited or whether you’re bummed whether the person you voted for one or the person who voted for lost.
We still have the ability to move towards Financial Freedom. Right? Whoever is in office the highest land office in the land will not actually bring you Financial Freedom that a thankfully actually is on you and I am here to help. However, I can and right now I’m focusing or like I’m talking about short-term rentals about vacation rentals to that.
And because I still think regardless of this pandemic that kind of you know, shook the world in 2020 and obviously is still having ramifications. Despite a pandemic. It is been a shockingly incredible year for vacation rental owners.
Albeit those that have vacation rentals outside of dense cities, but it has been a banner year and there is still room for so many more people to enter the market. In fact, did you know that Air B&B was offering a bonus to their hosts if they made it available for Thanksgiving so there was actually a shortage of Supply compared to the demand for over Thanksgiving. Isn’t that
A bonus now, it was an enormous but I feel like the bonus is very symbolic of there is still so much demand. Okay, so let’s actually get into why I think 2021 is the best year to invest to actually get your vacation rental off the ground and to be online in accepting guests and accepting Revenue. So I’m sure you may be wondering and
And I am excited to obviously here more numbers as they’re released as more data is released but to give you kind of a state of the union for Air B&B now and why I’m focusing on Airbnb is it kind of it’s the market leader for vacation rentals or short-term rentals, but the same thing applies to anything that’s listed on VRBO HomeAway or any of the other kind of Niche sites.
For furnished rentals for these vacation rentals, so that’s what I mean. I’m not yeah. Okay, so, you know, all right. Now it is
Good news, frankly. So and I will link to this report in the show notes, but here are the bigger takeaways in my mind about the state of the union for vacation rentals. And this is specifically for the United States. I believe you can access reports for the countries of the world on this link, which I said will be in the show notes. So have at it my dears. Okay as far as
The number of active properties listed on Airbnb before all of this kind of, you know before covid really impacted our lives and that according to this report on are DNA was mid-February. And by the way, if you can hear any background noises upstairs, that is my husband being a super dad to our daughter. So I hope that’s not distracting. I hope you
But okay back to the active properties listed on Air B&B back in February. There were about almost 1.4 properties listed. And as far as this report that it’s only up to the end of August, but I think it is still very telling the number of active properties has actually gone down.
But it okay. So it went down to 1.2 million at the end of August, August 30th.
But I would imagine that represents a lot of like the dense downtown, you know, New York City really densely. Yeah populated kind of areas that people aren’t necessarily flocking to during this time. So while there was actually a decline in active properties, that’s not really a bad thing again. Like I just mentioned Airbnb was giving a bonus to
Who would offer their place for Thanksgiving weekend? And so because there’s actually a decrease in Supply and an increase in demand again, that means there is room for you in the market. Okay, so that’s properties. That’s the supply side. Let’s talk about the demand side over that same time period
That same week in February at the beginning of February. There were four hundred and eighty-seven thousand new bookings made on the air B&B platform by those who wish to travel. Okay, and while that did plummet down to and this is each week like the report shows you how many new bookings were made on Airbnb that given week. So yeah mid-april went down.
Actually cut in half to about 234,000 but think about it. That was when many states were fully shut down. There were still two hundred and thirty-four thousand new bookings in one week. So let’s cut to the end of this report, which is the end of August that week the last week in August. There were seven hundred and twenty eight thousand new bookings. So to recap before things shut down for covid.
On a weekly basis in February that first week in February, there were four hundred and eighty seven thousand new bookings and at the end of August while we’re all comfortably in it right with seven hundred and twenty eight thousand. So I’m doing a little bit of cowboy math, but I want to say that
That’s a 50 percent increase from pre-pandemic times. So think about it. There’s fewer Supply fewer, you know fewer properties as Supply and then there are more people looking to book. So it is definitely the numbers the objective numbers definitely support that this is the year of investing in a vacation rental. We just obviously need to be smart about where right and that’s totally doable. That’s totally doable.
Again, sorry if you can hear the upstairs noise with my family. Okay, so that is and there are so many other kind of nuggets on this report. I can’t wait to share with you and there are also listings of areas that are like exploding from an Airbnb perspective based on the number of rentals or like the number of bookings.
Parental and then the number like the revenue amount that hosts are making in these cities and their smaller cities which again makes sense. Right? There was one I want to say it was like the top listing as far as up-and-coming Air B&B hotspots and one of them was near where it was near where we used to live in in California as Castroville, and I would have before all of this. I mean not that it’s
Whatever. It’s it’s just not a place that I would have thought would have been the most one of the most lucrative places in the country for an air B&B and really what what this says to me and as I was digging in more to this report to prove, you know looking for what I wanted to share with you for the State of the Union it appears and this totally makes sense that people aren’t necessarily flocking to fly to cities there are flocking to drive to
He’s in towns and Villages and all of that. So it is totally possible to have continued to have a banner year with an air B&B with a vacation rental. So it is you have not missed the wave but the numbers are showing that it is a great time to jump in the water. Okay now so that was the state of the union for Air B&B.
And then also as I was thinking about I’m like, okay, you know, I want to give three great points the second one that I just felt very firmly about sharing is it is time to diversify your income sources, right? I feel like that is perhaps a lesson. We’ve all learned this year or it’s been something that’s been reiterated. Like wow. I’m thankful I did right so I think
Even in incredible times but especially in down times it is wonderful to have income coming in from sources that aren’t all tied to each other, right? So having a W-2 job or having, you know, owning your own side hustle where you’re like a 1099 or having some kind of real estate income I think is wildly smart. And so I’m happy to dig in more.
Or but I feel like that’s it’s pretty self-explanatory. I feel like I feel compelled to do what I can to help people to add an additional Revenue stream to diversify the sources of income coming into their household that matters to me it really genuinely matters to me. Okay. Now the third one that I thought, you know, as I was obviously digging through and thinking about you all.
All in like what would be so helpful? What would be the most helpful?
And you know what the third one just really landed nicely for me because I feel like it is it’s never been easier to make informed decisions about this, you know back in 08009. No 10. Maroon. Oh 10. Pardon me 2010 somewhere on that when Airbnb was just getting off the ground just getting initial whatever investors and was probably prominently just still West Coast, California.
I mean even still the San Francisco Bay. Anyway, I feel like okay it first of all kind of it created its own industry right furnished rental. That’s not a hotel and I think when any new industry emerges it’s kind of like the Wild Wild West right? There’s we don’t quite know where the edges are. We don’t I mean there’s nothing to tell us what will work long-term.
Term, but I mean Air B&B is like 12 years old now and even though the bed-and-breakfast industry has been around a long time and other sites like VRBO home away. All of that have also been around for a long time. I feel like Airbnb really solidified it in a popular culture. So again, I feel like in the early, you know about a decade ago. It was still the wild.
West but since then this industry has matured but it is not plateaued. It has matured. There are resources. There are ways to see how profitable can this be. There are ways to predict a percentage of booking. So like if you need to know like how many nights do I need to have booked each month to cover my expenses and have take-home not just cover expenses.
Fences, but you want take home right? This is about being a profitable vacation rental. There are tools for that. There are really simple and they’re also free tools for that. So it has never been easier to make informed decisions. The resources are out there. The structures are out there The Proven models are out there that have stood the test of time. So if you think about it when
B&B was brand new. It was during the Great Recession and I think that’s actually why it took off because again people wanted help making their rent payment or making help, you know, like making their mortgage payment and then cut to Boom times people are traveling and vacationing more and then also cut to twenty twenty and now twenty Twenty-One it is
it is a mature industry. It has seen huge swings in economics in behavior in current events and all of that and it stood the test of time and that makes me so excited because as I mentioned in previous episode, in fact, it might have been the previous like the last episode is I like to
Invest in things that are like toilet paper and I know yeah, I told paper has also had had its moment in the sun in 2020, but I just mean regardless of the economy people will buy, you know, that’s it might not be super sexy, but it has stood the test of time it is what people consider to be pretty dang important to there.
Their quality of life. So again, it has never as the third point. It has never been easier to make informed decisions and to be able to carve out your own. I’m are quoting toilet paper kind of a niche in a vacation rental world. So regardless of the economy it is still desirable. It may be desirable for four different people or for different reasons, but you’re still you still have a desirable place and that is what
I love that is what I relish. And so actually if you’re interested in learning more about bringing your Air B&B online and making sure that it can stand the test of time. I am so excited to say that I’ve been working on a resource for you all and I’ve been thinking about like what are the things? I wish I would have known it.
I’d have saved me time. It would have saved me money. We would have been even more profitable. It would have been easier, you know less time needed all of that and all of the system so the checklists the how-to’s the resources the thing so you do not have to reinvent the wheel because again, it has never been easier to make them form decisions about this industry about diversifying your income to this specific type of income. And so I am so excited.
Excited to announce my upcoming course it is the six-figure vacation rental roadmap how to find furnish and fill your profitable short-term rental. Oh my gosh. So if you are looking for that Evergreen if you are looking for that thing to not only increase your net worth but to increase your monthly cash flow to increase your options to add a new income stream to your income portfolio. This is for you.
You so there is a waitlist up right now. And if you’ll go over to Ginny townsend.com frontal, you can put your name on that the waitlist right now and I will let you know as soon as this program is released, but I want you to know I am pouring my heart and soul into this. So it’s like everything I can think of and then I’ve been asking other hosts like what has made the biggest difference for you.
You know, what? Would you have loved to have known when you were first starting out and then I’m making sure to include those things as well. So again, welcome to 2021. I’m so excited for the New Year. I’m so excited for you as you pursue your the addition of a vacation rental into your income portfolio. So until next time and I can’t wait for next time.
You to be up into the right.