Category: GENERALLY FACTS

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Increasing Returns through Professional Short-Term Rentals: A Comparison with Traditional Leasing

A lucrative investment in real estate requires not only a strategic location choice but also a well-thought-out rental strategy. In recent years, short-term rentals through platforms such as Airbnb, Booking.com, and others have become an attractive option for many property owners. In comparison to traditional long-term leasing, this presents various opportunities to increase returns and maximize the success of the investment.

Flexibility in Renting

Traditional long-term rentals often tie property owners to tenants for extended periods. Renting through short-term accommodation platforms, on the other hand, offers the opportunity to be more flexible. You can rent out your property as needed, whether it’s for weekend getaways, business trips, or extended vacations. This flexibility allows you to optimize property utilization, leading to higher returns.

Higher Rental Income

One of the most obvious advantages of short-term rentals is the prospect of higher rental income compared to traditional leasing. Travelers are often willing to pay more for the comfort and amenities of a furnished vacation home. This allows you to adjust rental prices accordingly and increase your revenue.

Occupancy Optimization

Short-term rentals allow for optimal occupancy of your property. With careful planning, you can ensure that your accommodation is rented out nearly all year round. This is particularly advantageous in tourist regions where seasonal demand fluctuations occur. While traditional leasing may result in vacancies and rental losses, short-term rentals enable a consistent occupancy rate.

Direct Customer Interaction and Positive Reviews

Interacting with guests during short-term rentals allows you to receive direct feedback and cater to your guests’ needs. Satisfied guests are likely to leave positive reviews, contributing to increased demand. This direct connection with guests and the positive image can have a long-term positive impact on the return of your property.

Professional Management for Greater Efficiency

Managing a short-term rental property requires more attention, but it can be facilitated by professional service providers such as RockyourBnB. We specialize in creating and managing professional listings that stand out from the multitude of advertisements. Additionally, we coordinate cleaning, key handovers, guest communication, and marketing, allowing you to focus on your core business.

Conclusion

Professional short-term rentals through booking platforms offer an attractive alternative to traditional long-term leasing. With flexibility, higher rental income, optimal occupancy, and direct customer interaction, numerous opportunities for increasing returns emerge. If you want to take your real estate investment to the next level, short-term rentals might be the right strategy for you. Dive in and rock your returns with a modern and efficient rental strategy!

5 Advices for Ranking Higher on Airbnb Blog Post rockyourbnb

5 Advices for Ranking Higher on Airbnb

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If you are already successful on Airbnb, you are for sure a helpful host with a stunning property located in a well-known neighborhood.
Yet, you may wonder if you can optimize how you rank in the Airbnb search results. Well, the good news for you is that you really can!
There are more than 4 million listings on Airbnb in 192 countries and even if there are not that many in the location of your listing, it is fundamental that yours appears on the first pages of the Airbnb search results if you want your property to be fully booked.

The reason why it is so important is very simple: As for every other search engines, also the most Airbnb’s users only take into consideration the listings which show up in the very first search results pages. In fact, no one wants to spend hours searching for the perfect Airbnb. Since only the “best optimized” properties appear on the first pages, we want to tell you right away how you can improve the ranking of your listing on Airbnb by optimizing it:

#1 Instant book

Guests are very happy if they can book an accommodation instantly without first sending a request and Airbnb loves when hosts activate the instant book option. For this reason, the Airbnb algorithm tends to rank listings with instant booking option higher than the ones without.

However, this is not enough to achieve long-term high-ranking results. In fact, the Airbnb algorithm takes into account also other factors, as for example the response rate. If you haven’t activated this option yet, you can do it now on Airbnb.

rockyourbnb blog post 5 advices for ranking higher on airbnb Instant Book

#2 High response rate

Once your guests can make an instant booking, you should be prepared to answer to your guests’ reservations as soon as possible to keep your response rate high. Since it is impossible to answer to every booking/inquiry instantly, it is very important to use professional tools, which help you to automatically answer new inquiries and reservations and keep your answer rate super high. Once you have a great response rate (less than 1 hour should be your goal), you can expect that your rank in the Airbnb search results will improve.

rockyourbnb blog pots 5 advices-for ranking higher on airbnb

#3 Review

Airbnb and its users love reviews. There are extremely important to ensure social proof and that is why the more positive reviews your listing has, the more your potential guests will trust you and decide to book your property instead of another.

However, positive reviews from your guests come rarely without proactively asking for them. You need to work on your reviews and on how to ensure that every guest, who has stayed in your accommodation, will leave you a 5-star review on Airbnb. In addition to that, in order to see the review the guests wrote for your property you need to write a review to your guest as well. Furthermore, since guests and hosts have only 14 days after the check-out to write a review, you also need to double check and remember your guests to write you one, if they have not done it already, before it is too late. For more information check Airbnb.

rockyourbnb blog post 5 advices for ranking higher on airbnb review

#4 Calendar

Another point, which helps you boosting your rank on Airbnb’s search results is having an updated calendar. In other words, it means that you have to update the availability of your listing and its prices on a daily basis.

This sounds like a lot of work, right? Well, it is if you do it manually. However, there are a lot of professional tools we use to daily update calendar and prices so that your calendar is always up-to-date and your property ranks higher on Airbnb. For more information about how we can optimize your Airbnb listing, check out our services.

rockyourbnb blog post #calendar 5 advices-for ranking higher on airbnb

#5 Airbnb Plus

Have you already heard about it?
Airbnb Plus is “a selection of homes verified by quality and design”.

It is a quite new project of Airbnb and there are only a few locations in the world where you can find Airbnb PLUS listings at the moment. However, if your listing is in an Airbnb PLUS location, and you manage to get your listing eligible for this program, this will greatly boost your ranking on the platform.

Yet, only Airbnb itself can decide if your listing can be listed under Airbnb PLUS and they will contact you in case your property meets their requirements. In any case, the prerequisite for being eligible for the program are:

  • being located in one of the listed locations
  • having a thoughtfully designed home
  • being an exceptional host (reviews higher than 4.8)
  • and letting an Airbnb member verify your property through in-person quality inspection

rockyourbnb blog post 5 advices for ranking higher on airbnb airbnb plus

In other words, that means that you should have already a perfectly optimized listing in order to be eligible for the Airbnb Plus. We can help you optimize your listing, for more information about our services check our website.

》As you know, you should be a great host to differentiate your property from the competitor’s listings on Airbnb but this is not enough rank higher in the Airbnb search results. There are a lot of other things you should take into account to rank higher and most of them are very time consuming. If you want to concentrate on the other things which matter most in being a great host, contact us now to know how we can help you to optimize and automate your Airbnb in order to make it rank higher on Airbnb search results and increase your bookings.《

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How can I be successful with my Airbnb? #PHOTOS

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Do you also wonder how you can be successful on Airbnb with your property?

Have you already listed a property on Airbnb (and/or other booking platforms), but it’s not working as well as expected?
Do you want to start your Airbnb business, but you are not sure what you should consider to be successful?
Well, then we can help out with our blog post.
There are many parameters you should consider if you want to manage your BnB professionally, we start in this post with the topic photos.

The images are the business card of your Airbnb

Maybe you didn’t know it, or you didn’t take it into account until now, but most of the people who view your listing (whether on Airbnb, Booking.com. Expedia or any other platform), will choose your property based on the pictures. That’s why it’s so important that your photos look professional and appealing.

How can you achieve it? Below you will find some tips:

#1 Professional Photos

Professional and high quality photos are the meat and potatoes of your BnB business, this is why you should focus on them.
If you don’t like taking pictures yourself and photography is not your strength, we recommend to hire a professional photographer. Believe us, it will be definitely worth it.
You can also hire a photographer from Airbnb. However, these pictures can only be used for Airbnb listings. If you want to use the photos of your property for several booking portals, it is better to choose an independent photographer.

#2 Clean up your apartment

No matter whether you take pictures of your apartment yourself or a professional photographer does, your apartment HAS TO be tidy. It may sound a little weird, but there are many listings on Airbnb that show a messy property. It is important that the first impression the viewer gets from the pictures, will be the one of a nice and tidy home.

#3 Portrait format vs. horizontal format

You can directly remove portrait pictures from your gallery. Such pictures simply don’t look appealing in your listing.
Especially a combination of portrait and horizontal pictures is catastrophic for your listing. To do best, upload only sharp and high-quality images.

#4 Pictures of details? Only if significant

We are not supporters of these kinds of pictures. However, if you want to present and highlight a detail in your listing, please upload only significant pictures. If, for example, you write in your listing that you have a super cool coffee machine in your apartment, then you are welcome to upload a picture of it.  But please, do not upload pictures of an orchid :-)!

》There are many things you should keep in mind in order to create a neat and appealing listing. Rockyourbnb can help you in the creation of the perfect listing for your property. Check out our service section for more information.
If you would like more tips on BnB Optimization, you are welcome to have a look at our next blog posts.《

rockyourbnb blog post

Homesharing: a model from which you can also benefit!

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Who doesn’t know Airbnb today? 

In the meantime, the word Airbnb is on everyone’s lips and stands as a symbol for a short-term to medium-term rented vacation rental. 
If, for example, you are planning your holiday, it has become common to look around for a suitable Airbnb rather than for an overpriced hotel room.
And do you know why this trend has grown so much? Because there’s nothing better than being on journeys all over the world but still feeling at home.
This is a great alternative to the often very impersonal hotel atmosphere. Especially for business travelers it makes sense to discover this alternative for themselves. You can read more about this topic here.

… and you know what’s the best part for you?

You too can advertise your property on Airbnb and other booking portals such as Booking.com, Agoda and Expedia to benefit from the success of home-sharing platforms. If you are not sure on which booking portals you should advertise your property, then have a look at our blog post “Which booking platform is the best for my vacation rental?“. 
There are many platforms you can use to market your property, but the big players worldwide are Airbnb, Booking.com, Expedia and Agoda and we’ll tell you why we believe in these platforms. In that post you’ll also find out why it’s so important to post your listing on different booking platforms.

The potential of this business model

Let’s just let the facts speak for themselves. Maybe you didn’t know it yet, but the latest research confirms that just Airbnb is used by more than 150 million users worldwide. So, what’s wrong with taking advantage of these millions of users and trying to host them?
If you now think that nobody wants to stay in your city or even your village, we can tell you that you are not right! 
On Airbnb alone there are more than 4 million listings from 192 countries, and these 4 million listings are not all in the biggest cities of the world. 
We are sure that also you will find guests for your Airbnb.
Of course, as with any business, you need some experience to make the whole thing professional and we are happy to help you to successfully build, optimize and manage your BnB business. Check out our offers and learn more about our services.

Airbnb earnings check

If you still doubt our statement and still think that your property has no potential, convince yourself and visit Airbnb directly. Click here to find out how much money you can earn with your property each month.
Of course, these are only estimates. Depending on how you advertise and market your property, you can also earn more money.

》The professionality of your vacation rental is the basis for a successful Airbnb-Business. In our blog post “How much can be earned through Airbnb?” you can get more valuable information.《

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How much can be earned through Airbnb?

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This topic is extremely interesting for people who deal with Airbnb and professionally managed vacation rentals. The goal of everyone is to rent out their BnB to their guests in a profitable way while getting the best possible reviews.
How much you can actually achieve with your holiday home depends, of course, on many factors.
Let’s start with the basics.

How can I find out how much I can earn with my property on Airbnb?

First and most importantly, you should ask yourself whether you want to run your business on a part-time or full-time basis. Of course, you can expect higher income if you run your BnB full-time and your property is open to new guests all the time than if you only run it part-time for a few weeks a year.
However, you can certainly generate a great income stream in part-time if you make your property available for certain events in your city such as fairs, concerts, festivals and other events.

Professional marketing & management of your holiday home

There are already plenty of Airbnb and vacation rentals. You are not the first person, and certainly not the last person who came up with the idea of advertising a BnB on a booking platform.
However, very few people do this kind of rental professionally. The more professionally your vacation rental is built up, the more advantageous are the effects on your ranking on the booking portals.
In addition, as a professional Airbnb owner you can expect higher revenues if by knowing exactly what is important to your guests and how to present your property to stand out from the crowd.

Interior design – The décor of your home

In order to stand out from the rest, the interior design is crucial for the success of your vacation rental. With a high-quality and attractive interior, you can charge significantly higher prices for your accommodation than with an average and loveless design.
The aim is to get the most out of your BnB. We will be happy to help you finding the right interior for your Airbnb and will provide you with tips on which items you should not miss. In this way, you boost the demand for your listing and can charge a higher night price.

Photos – The first impression counts

Within a few seconds the guest makes the decision for or against your BnB based on the pictures in your listing. We clearly believe that the pictures should be taken by a photographer, since these are the key to a successful rental business.

》In a later blog post we will give you tips and we will tell you what to consider when taking pictures of your Airbnb in order to stand out as a professional host.《

rockyourbnb Blog post

What is the difference between short and long-term rentals?

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If you are just about to decide which type of rental is suitable for your property, then our article will help you.
However, before you decide which type of rental is the best for you, you should be aware of the respective legal obligations. Since we do not offer legal advice, we recommend that you discuss your project with your advisor. 
In general, it can be said that both types of rental can generate a very profitable income stream, as long as important criteria are observed and the administrative work load is not underestimated.
In the following we will discuss three possible rental models.

Short-term rental

In the case of short-term rental, we generally speak of a rental period of less than six months. Most people associate the term with a period ranging from one night to a few weeks. Thanks to the rapidly growing market for home-sharing booking platforms, it has become clear that short-term rental is a lucrative way to generate income.
One of the most popular and user-friendly booking platforms is Airbnb. Due to the international reputation of this platform, it is possible to achieve high occupancy rates and returns for your BnB.
Thereby it is to be considered that the rental effort is considerably higher than with a long-term rental. 
We can facilitate the administration of your BnB through our marketing and management services. We guarantee you a successful management of your professional accommodation.

Long-term rental

In the case of long-term rentals, the choice lies between a six- or twelve-month contract. With this rental model, the advantage is obvious: your monthly income is predictable, the utilities can be partially allocated to the tenant and the administrative costs are only a fraction of those for short-term rentals.

Flexible rental models

The last model deals with the combination of short, medium and long-term rental. Through this flexibility you can achieve an optimal occupancy rate and return on your BnB. If, for example, your city is visited by many tourists in the summer (potential guests), then the best way to proceed is with short-term rentals. Thanks to the many bookings you can maximize your occupancy rate and increase your profitability. In the months when the tourist load decreases, you can then focus on another target group to rent the rest of the year, on a medium and long-term basis.

》As you can see, there isn’t really one and only rental model. No matter which model you choose, we at rockyourbnb will support you in your plans and we will help you to maximize your return on investment and occupancy while reducing your administrative costs.《(Service Link)

rockyourbnb Blog post

Why do business travelers prefer your BnB to a hotel?

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Who wouldn’t rather sleep in a cosy and furnished apartment than in an impersonal and often very sterile hotel room?
A professional Airbnb is a great alternative, especially for business travelers who are often away from their home for a longer period of time.

What are the advantages?

Companies have already recognized this trend and are now using booking portals such as Airbnb, Booking.com, Agoda and Expedia to book accommodations for their employees.
On top of that, the price for renting a professional holiday home is usually lower than for an overnight stay in a hotel. This can significantly reduce the company’s travel expenses.
It is clear that a five-star hotel offers a certain luxury and comfort that is then reflected in the price. However, this does not mean that guests in a professionally managed Airbnb have to renounce a certain level of luxury and comfort. A BnB has a number of advantages which you can get for a fraction of a hotel price.
Below we have listed a few reasons why more and more business travelers prefer a holiday home to a hotel room.

Longer stays

The long stay rental of a suitable vacation rental is very easy to handle trough the various home-sharing websites, and in many cases, also cheaper than a hotel.
Especially business travelers are often away from home for several weeks or even months, so it is extremely important for them to feel comfortable in their temporary home.

Group bookings

It is not unusual for companies to travel in a larger group for a business event. This is where the advantage of booking through a home-sharing platform lies. With just a few clicks it is possible to adjust the search parameters so that only the Airbnbs that offer the right number of rooms are displayed. In this way, all work colleagues are housed in a central location which encourages exchange between colleagues.

The business trip on Airbnb

It’s easy to find the right accommodation for your business trip on the Airbnb booking platform. You have to activate the button “For work” in the search options “Type of trip”.
Airbnb listings under the heading “For Work” must meet the following Airbnb facilities requirements:

  • Basic equipment (toilet paper, soap, towels, bed linen and pillows)

  • WLAN

  • Television

  • Iron

  • Hairdryer

  • Clothes hanger

  • Shampoo

  • Workstation for laptops

  • Carbon Monoxide Detector

  • Smoke detector

These are the features you would expect from a hotel.
In addition, the “for work” function simplifies the payment process and allows the hosts to invoice directly to the company.

HOST WATCH OUT!

If you are a host yourself and wishing to make your accommodation available to business travelers, you can obtain the appropriate qualification by becoming an Airbnb eligible host.

What requirements does your BnB have to meet?

As a host, you are not only required to meet the requirements regarding the facilities of your accommodation, but also other prerequisites such as a 24-hour self-check-in. 
Possible ways to meet this requirement would be a key locker, a code lock or by handing it over personally through a receptionist or a porter.
In addition, you need an average guest review of at least 4.8 of the possible 5.0 Airbnb stars.
It also means that your listing must be professionally managed. Especially the aspects such as guest communication, coordination of your staff and calendar management must be perfectly coordinated in order to receive as many 5 star reviews as possible from your guests.

Your advantages as a host

By successfully collaborating with Airbnb in the area of business travel, you can assume that the occupancy rate and booking price of your holiday home will increase.

》If our article has triggered your interest in making your BnB available to business travelers, then we are exactly the right partner for you! We will help you to achieve the desired requirements and specifications of Airbnb and take over the professional management and marketing of your vacation rental with our professional knowledge.《

rockyourbnb Blog post

Which booking platform is the best for my vacation rental?

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Airbnb, VRBO, Homeaway, Booking.com, Agodia, Expedia… there are several booking platforms where you can post your vacation rental, therefore it is not easy to give a quick answer to the question which is the best booking platform for your BnB.
For this reason, we give you now some tips and tell you on which booking platforms it makes sense to advertise.

On how many booking portals should I list my vacation rental?

There are so many booking portals for holiday apartments that you can quickly lose your focus. This means that the demand for holiday homes or BnBs has grown extremely and so has the number of potential guests for your holiday home.
In general, it can be said that it is advantageous to use several booking portals. However, it should be noted that the more booking platforms are involved, the greater the administrative effort, as each booking platform is set up differently and requires its own rules and commissions.
By using multiple platforms, the amount of work involved in managing your listing should not be underestimated. You have to be ready at all times to edit your listings and update your calendars to avoid double bookings.
Since a bad and poorly cared listing means negative advertising for your vacation rental, we do not advise you to publish your listing on all possible platforms.

Our suggestion: Focus on the most popular platforms worldwide

As always in life, every person has different preferences. The same applies also in this case when it comes to booking platforms for vacation rentals.
Due to the number of users and the popularity, we prefer the platforms Airbnb, Booking.com, Agoda and Expedia.

Airbnb

One of the world’s best-known platforms is Airbnb. On this platform, you will find all kinds of accommodation from villas to tents.
Airbnb is one of the most user-friendly booking platforms for guests and hosts. However, in order to be successful with your vacation rental on Airbnb, you must be extremely familiar with the platform so that your listing will stand out from the crowd.
The host commission ranges between 3-5% of the night price and depends on the country and the cancellation policy you have chosen as host.

Booking.com

This platform is rather less intuitive to use and offers a lot of features for hosts, which are more often needed in the hotel industry.
For owners of vacation rentals, most setting parameters are rather irrelevant. However, you should take a close look at Booking.com. In fact, if the setting parameters are incorrect, some problems may occur.

Agoda and Expedia

These are two of the best-known booking portals in the world. In the last few years they have become more involved with the topic of short-term rentals.
Despite not being particularly user-friendly, these platforms are marked by the fact that each of them has developed specially tailored home-sharing platforms.
Regarding the host commission of both platforms the difference lies in the fact that Agoda does not charge any commission and Expedia adjusts its commission individually for each vacation rental.

》We are experts in BnB optimization, management and marketing and would love to help you advertising and managing your vacation rental on the different booking platforms. With our support, you can run a successful vacation rental business without any great effort. Details about our services can be found here.《