13 Mar AskSam: Assorted Q&As From Passive Airbnb Community Members

I’m super excited to answer some of your questions today! There were lots of questions and some questions overlapped others while some questions were more interesting than the others.

Today, I’m going to answer questions from Elisabeth B. and Crystal P.

Before I start, I just wanted to acknowledge questions from all of you guys! I appreciate you guys for taking the time to write them out!

There were lots of good questions. I will be doing this again in the future, so please don’t feel discouraged!

Community Members Q&As: Elisabeth B.

Elisabeth: Hey Sam,

Sure thing…my questions are:I live in an area of the country where not only do most natives not want to be in winter but also people aren’t keen on visiting in the winter either. When considering an Airbnb to operate how do you take this into consideration? Seasonality is not only an issue for winter but also for summer in warm locales. I would love some guidance on your approach for this. Thanks!Elisabeth

Sam Zuo: Thanks, Elisabeth! Good question. Essentially, you’re asking about how seasonalities will affect your investment decision.

Seasonalities can be a great profit maximizer. As we all know, seasonalities for travel demand can be categorized into 3 buckets: low-season, shoulder-season, and high-season. For me, my low-season is from November to January as I’ve just recently experienced.

How can you benefit from seasonalities? I know for a fact that rental properties near ski resorts make the bulk of their revenue in the winter time.

The question for you is: does your town have an attraction that can turn your bad winter into a fun vacation for skiers and snowboarders?

If not, then it might make sense to look at other areas. I have written about market research in the past. Here are some helpful blog posts for you to read:

1. free research tool: https://www.passiveairbnb.com/how-to-use-airbnb-to-do-market-research-part-1/
2. paid research tool: https://www.passiveairbnb.com/how-to-use-airdna-for-airbnb-market-research/

Thanks again, Elisabeth.

Next, we have Crystal P’s question.

Community Members Q&As: Crystal P.

Crystal P: Good morning, is there any way to build a page on Airbnb just to see potential interest? I have a contractor who restored a home and has had it listed since September with no interest I suggested Airbnb and he is open to it if the house does not sell by end May. He wanted me to build the profile and see if we can pique interest.

Do you have any suggestions on how I shouldgo about this? Thanks

Crystal

Sam Zuo: Thanks, Crystal! Awesome to see that you got the developer interested in experimenting. Life is just a journey with many failed and successful experiments. You’re on the right path!

So, how do you test to see if the house you have is currently in a desirable market? There are two ways to go about doing this. The easiest way is to go to Airbnb and search for your location. If you see other listings, then it’s a good sign.

For further reading, I’d suggest this article.

The other way takes more work. You can create a dummy listing on Airbnb. But please be careful.

Be sure to state in your listing description that this house is not ready, but will be ready in xyz time. This way, your listing will not get flagged. Also, be sure to turn off Instant Book!

I actually created a dummy listing to test the demand before, so I’ve definitely been there! Just look at the inquiries that I had to decline because I created a dummy listing!

 Good luck! Sam

Final Words

That’s it, folks! That wraps up today’s Q&As. See you guys next time!

Interest in learning how to build your rental arbitrage empire? You can subscribe to my blog and learn tips and insights on my process of creating a profitable 6-figure passive income business using other people’s home. I write on the regular and offer free tips and insights.