How to Set Up a Short Term Rental in Galveston and Crystal Beach

Avery Carl [00:00:02]:
Hey, guys, welcome to the short term show special episode series. 10 episode deep dive on the Galveston and Crystal Beach, Texas markets. Couple notes before we dive in. If you guys are looking for current income and current prices of properties in this market, you can get all of that info on our website@theshorttermshop.com you can set up searches just like you do on Zillow or realtor.com all those places. And we do have all the income data as well, so be sure to check that out. Also, make sure you check out our other special episode series. So we have 20 markets that we operate as real estate agents in and we have 10 episode series just like this one. On all of those, make sure to check out the short term show as well as the short term rental management show.

Avery Carl [00:00:43]:
And be sure to join our Facebook group. It’s called short term rental long term wealth. Same title as my book. Now let’s go ahead and dive in foreign. Hey guys, welcome back to another episode of the short term show special episode series on the Galveston and Crystal Beach, Texas market. So today we’re just going to go through a few of the basic things that you need to know about setting a property up in this market, like things to stock, locks, cameras, wifi, all that fun stuff that you need to get something set up and ready for guests. So got a cool panel here today. You guys know Kelsey by now, but Kelsey, say hello to everyone.

Kelsey Ardwin [00:01:27]:
Hi, everyone. Yes, I’m Kelsey Ardwin. I am a short term shop realtor in this market. I’ve been helping investors like yourselves buy houses in this market for about two years now. And I have two in this market myself. I’m actually at my first one right now since there’s construction dust at my second one.

Avery Carl [00:01:46]:
All right, well, thanks for being on. And next we have Dave Hickel. Dave, do you want to introduce yourself?

David Hickel [00:01:51]:
Yeah, thanks, Avery. I’m David Hickel, Air force pilot right now living actually in Las Vegas. We have three properties there in the Crystal beach area. We started buying about a year and a half, two years ago now using Kelsey as our realtor. So we own two and then we have one arbitrage there in the area.

Avery Carl [00:02:07]:
Awesome. Well, thank you for your service. I did not know that. We appreciate it.

David Hickel [00:02:09]:
Oh, thank you.

Avery Carl [00:02:11]:
Okay.

Kelsey Ardwin [00:02:13]:
He was actually in Alaska.

Avery Carl [00:02:14]:
Oh, wow.

Kelsey Ardwin [00:02:15]:
Yeah. Talk about long distance, right?

Avery Carl [00:02:18]:
That is a long distance about as far as you can be with while still being in the United States. All right, so let’s start with, in my opinion, you need. There’s three core pieces of hardware that you need for setting up your property. It is your locks, your cameras and your thermostat. So people have different ideas and views on these things. But let’s start with locks. And I really want to hear from, from Kelsey on this one because we’ve got some specific things about this market. Maybe I personally use the Schlage on code.

Avery Carl [00:02:52]:
Uh, what about you, David? And then we’ll, we’ll move on to Kelsey.

David Hickel [00:02:55]:
Yeah. So I started off so just to kind of get started in the short term rental arena, if you will. I started off by listening to the short term shop podcast, talked with Kelsey a bit too, and then did a decent amount of other research. So I started off the Schlagen codes. Uh, I had mixed luck with those event initially. So my first one lasted roughly six months. My second one lasted for about a year to, we’ll call it 14 months, something like that. But they both ended up failing somewhat rapidly.

David Hickel [00:03:21]:
I switched over. I tried a couple of the Yale Assures. So the original assure, they’re in the beachfront market. So the big problem down there at the beachfront is the humidity. So everything’s humid, everything gets moisture and condensation, which causes electronics to fail pretty quickly. My original Yale lasted for roughly 12 months.

Avery Carl [00:03:37]:
Okay.

David Hickel [00:03:38]:
The second one that I bought, a Yale Assure two. The first one of those lasted four months. The second one lasted about two weeks. And then those both ended up failing just because of condensation inside the electronics unit. So when you pull them apart, you just see massive condensation and corrosion problems. So after that I was a little bit frustrated with spending 250 to $300 on a smart lock that I was replacing approximately twice a year. So I went kind of old school. So I switched back to an old punch code lock.

David Hickel [00:04:04]:
So there’s no electronics in the lock. You just punch the code in, turn the handle and then it locks and unlocks. And so far, knock on wood, those have been working like a champ. So those have lasted for roughly six months now. And I have those in all three of my houses.

Kelsey Ardwin [00:04:16]:
So is it an electronic lock?

David Hickel [00:04:18]:
No, it’s not an electronic lock. So when you push the punch code it’s moving, not getting like manual tumblers inside the lock. And everything inside the lock is pretty well greased. Like I disassembled one just to take a look at like the inner workings. So everything inside is bruised. It gets some condensation in there, but everything’s coated in a pretty good coating of grease which just prevents them from failing. So far at least. I’ve only got six months under my belt, so who knows? They might start failing here at 12 months.

Kelsey Ardwin [00:04:43]:
What brand are they?

David Hickel [00:04:45]:
I can’t remember the brand off the top of my head. It was an Amazon one, pretty much. I typed in manual punch code lock into Amazon, and I found one that had some pretty good reviews.

Kelsey Ardwin [00:04:54]:
Cool. Yeah, I had about the same experience as David. We started out with the Schlage encode, and I did look on their website because I kept thinking I was saying it wrong. And I’m kind of a word person, and it is Schlage.

Avery Carl [00:05:08]:
Oh, okay. We’ve been right this whole time. We’ve been right pronouncers. I like to hear that I’m pronouncing something right.

Kelsey Ardwin [00:05:14]:
Yeah. Hey, we did something right. So Schlage code. I tried. We tried one of those. We got it replaced with a warranty. And then we got that one, the replacement replaced with a warranty and decided, hey, we’ll use this at home. This isn’t working out.

Kelsey Ardwin [00:05:27]:
And then we switched to Yale, thought, hey, maybe with their gasket seal the that it comes with. And we did try to make our own. My husband made his own gasket. We didn’t put the condensation pack thing, the little silica pack on the inside, which maybe we could have tried. But I just think that what it’s really doing is that, yes, it’s the humidity, but how hot it is outside on the metal knob and how hot it is inside with the AC running. The difference between the two is creating condensation inside the log as best we understand. But we tried the Yale, they didn’t work either. And we just said, look, we can’t keep doing this.

Kelsey Ardwin [00:06:10]:
So we just switched back to what they were doing before and had a combination lock. We have just a shackle combination. No, actually, we have a combination box on a post. We put it on the north facing side of the piling so that when the salty air comes this way, it’s a bit shielded from it.

Avery Carl [00:06:32]:
Gotcha. Yeah, I’ve heard that those silica packs do work, but maybe they don’t work for everybody. I know we, when we were doing the Gulf Shores episodes, they were having these same problems. And they said the silica packs did fix that. So something to note, but if what you’re doing is working, then what you’re doing is. Is working. So let’s move on to cameras. Are we using any kind of camera? If so, what kind?

David Hickel [00:06:54]:
Yeah, so I tried two different types. So for me I started off with Simplisafe just because that’s what we use for our home system. So we started off simply safe, using the solar panel recharge system to keep it going. And we’ve had terrible luck with those. I’ve been through three total, and out of those, I think one is pretty reliable. It actually stays connected and stays charged. After that, we moved on to the rings. So I had Kelsey Derek installed by one at the Runway down there in Crystal beach.

David Hickel [00:07:21]:
Hardwired so it was a little bit pricier. Like the camera was a couple hundred dollars in. The install with the electric was a couple hundred dollars. So all told, I think it cost around $500 total. Uh, but that thing’s been a hundred percent reliable. Uh, like the Internet drops off every so often just because We’ve got our 1970s infrastructure down there in Crystal Beach. So Internet drops every so often, but it always reconnects. And then every single time, without fail, when I go to check the camera, the it’s connected and I can see what I need to see.

David Hickel [00:07:48]:
So simply say, didn’t have the best of luck, but the rain cameras have been really good.

Avery Carl [00:07:52]:
You rang to Kelsey? Yeah.

Kelsey Ardwin [00:07:54]:
When if the property we have doesn’t already have a camera, that’s what we use. So at our cabin, that was our first one, we put in a ring camera. It works great. We bought in Crystal beach, where I’m at now, and they already had a nest camera, and we kept it, and it’s been fine. It is hardwired. And then with our second one in this market, so STR number three, we put in a ring camera as well. Now I like to install it directly over because you have the elevated house and you have the driveway below it. So I like to install it right on the very.

Kelsey Ardwin [00:08:33]:
Basically, like the bottom board of the deck. There’s usually a light there anyways, so you should be able to tap into electricity that’s already going there. And it’s not intrusive for, you know, anybody, you know, hanging out on decks or anything like that.

Avery Carl [00:08:48]:
Gotcha.

David Hickel [00:08:48]:
Yeah, 100%. Something I will add is my first camera that I installed, I installed upstairs on the deck, more or less facing the front door, so you can see everyone coming in the front door. And that turned out to be a big mistake just because was kind of a hangout area as well. Like, we had chairs up there. And so it just got kind of obtrusive and guests didn’t like that. So after that, Kelsey, I did the exact same thing, moved it downstairs like way up out of the way, like 15 inch feet up so nobody could get to it. And just filming pretty much the one set of stairs that goes upstairs. So I get the same effects but it’s not intrusive and guests don’t complain about it at all.

Kelsey Ardwin [00:09:19]:
And I actually think it’s better because you know, you could have a whole full on party going on downstairs and if you have one camera facing the front door, the only thing you know is who showed up at your front door. You don’t know what’s going on downstairs. You don’t know how many cars pulled up. You can’t see the parking lot, so.

Avery Carl [00:09:37]:
Gotcha. Yeah, I think ring cam really hard to beat. Make sure that it’s not facing any private or not private areas. But like interior you can’t face the backyard or any like hot tub or pool situations. Only can face the front of the house which really, that’s all you need to be looking at. Uh, guys, don’t, don’t obsess over your cameras. They are there to go back and refer to if there’s a problem. But don’t spy on your guests.

Avery Carl [00:10:02]:
It’s. It’s weird. Okay. Third piece of hardware. I. I like to use a Honeywell T9 Wi Fi thermostat. I find it easier for guests to use than a nest, even though the nests are like really sexy and cool looking. So what do you guys use?

David Hickel [00:10:17]:
I use the same. I started off the Honeywell T6, ended up shifting to the T9 and it’s great. I love being able to set the max and min stops on it. That way guests don’t crank it down to 60 degrees and freeze out the AC system in the summertime. I started off the nest and it was just buggy. Guest couldn’t figure out how to use it so we ended up replacing all those.

Kelsey Ardwin [00:10:35]:
We have a nest. We haven’t nested our first STR because it’s what came with it and it hasn’t been an issue at our next one. It’s just lower on the list. But we’ll end up replacing it with that same Honeywell.

Avery Carl [00:10:49]:
Cool. Yeah, I think that’s pretty basic. And again, don’t mess with your guests while they’re there. And like if they put the temperature on something that you don’t love, don’t go in there and mess with it because again, it’s very creepy. It’s. We, we just have it so we know we can monitor a. Okay. When there’s not people there and it’s 80 degrees outside and it’s set to 69 degrees inside, but it’s showing as 77 degrees.

Avery Carl [00:11:15]:
We know. Oh, you know what, we need to get our H VAC looked at so we can kind of monitor that and watch for it not being able to keep up before it craps out on a guest and ruins their vacation. So you can kind of keep an eye on that and then of course, control that temperature when there’s not people there. All right, so let’s talk about the kitchen. Next coffee setup, I believe is very important. I don’t know if you guys are. Are caffeine people. I certainly am, and I like to know what I’m walking into.

Avery Carl [00:11:45]:
Like, is it going to be. I don’t care if it’s a Keurig or a drip. I’ll drink whatever I need. Hot caffeinated bean water. I don’t care what kind. But in terms of what you’re doing for your guests, are you doing a drip? Are you doing Keurig? What are you supplying in terms of little creamer packets or anything like that?

David Hickel [00:12:00]:
Yeah, so I use one of the combo makers. I think I use the Hamilton brand, but it makes Both a full 12 cup drip and then it also accepts K cups. And then I provide all those. So I provide a coffee bean grinder, three different types of beans. Then I also provide just normal coffee grounds. Then we also provide some of the tea packets just for the non coffee drinkers. And then we have a couple really detailed pictures in the listing that shows folks exactly what they’re going to get. And we actually spell that out in our listing as well.

David Hickel [00:12:24]:
So hopefully just trying to get the coffee drinkers excited about showing up and getting to experience that. Cool.

Avery Carl [00:12:28]:
Yeah, I. We have a. A dual. We have the Keurig and the drip. So if people prefer Keurig, that’s what they can do. But if they prefer drip, they can do that. Also, we don’t provide K cups. Those are super expensive.

Avery Carl [00:12:41]:
But we do provide coffee grounds. Do you guys do the whole coffee bar thing? I’d like to be a coffee bar person. I really would. I think that’s really nice, but I, I’m not.

David Hickel [00:12:50]:
Yeah, we do kind of just all the. Sorry, go ahead, Kelsey.

Kelsey Ardwin [00:12:53]:
No, keep going. Because you’d already described your almost coffee bar. Close to it.

David Hickel [00:12:58]:
Yeah. No. So we do pretty much everything black coffee related, but we don’t like supply syrups or any of that. We also have a French press and then one of the pour over setups as well. So for people who like grinding the coffee beans and drinking high quality quality coffee. We provide pretty much everything for that. But we don’t provide like any of the syrups or anything else to mix your own coffee drinks.

Avery Carl [00:13:17]:
Yeah, I, I again, I love to provide syrups and have this crazy thing, but I just. We’re doing fine. We’re doing just fine without.

Kelsey Ardwin [00:13:24]:
So we don’t, so we have a, the dual setup, just like David said at our first str. And we provide like a limited number of K cups. Like what we don’t want is for somebody to wake up on their first morning here and have no coffee if they’re a coffee drinker. So we provide like 6k cups in a house that sleeps 12. And then we also have some coffee grinds. We do like the Dunkin Donuts, like the big Costco version. And we just, it’s already ground and we keep it in our freezer and we just have it labeled like emergency coffee for the same reason. We don’t want you to wake up and not have coffee.

Kelsey Ardwin [00:14:02]:
And then we, I bought a upgraded version of the Keurig. It was like the Keurig, I think it does the K cups and then also the drip coffee. And then off to the side there’s like you can pour milk. It has a frother. So you can make your own, I guess, creamer or whatever. I don’t, I’m not a coffee drinker. Yeah, it looks cool. I don’t know.

Avery Carl [00:14:21]:
Yeah. Okay. So you want to have a coffee set up. I think that makes a lot of sense. So let’s move on to other stuff in the kitchen. Do you provide any kind of spices or anything like that? Any cooking stuff? I mean. Well, obviously there’s going to be a lot of cooking stuff that was way too general. Any spices, oil, anything like that?

Kelsey Ardwin [00:14:39]:
We provide.

David Hickel [00:14:40]:
Yeah.

Kelsey Ardwin [00:14:41]:
And then guests will leave things and there’s certain things that we just don’t throw out. Like we don’t throw out if there’s not, you know, doubles of things. But basic spices. That would be useful. We just keep it.

Avery Carl [00:14:52]:
Yeah, I like those rotating spice racks that are pre filled from Amazon and you can just throw them in there. Just dry spices. We don’t leave any condiments. We’ve. That’s just gross. I think. So just you can get your own condiments. I think that’s cool.

Avery Carl [00:15:05]:
What else? Is there anything specific that people like to have in this market, being a beach market that they may not in others? My question is, do you stock blenders? Because I Feel like people want to make margaritas and stuff.

Kelsey Ardwin [00:15:16]:
Yeah. Yes. I have a blender at both properties. Actually, we have a blender at all three. Even in the Smokies, we do the same.

David Hickel [00:15:23]:
We keep blenders, crock pots, and just kind of all the basic appliances that folks want when. When they go on a trip somewhere.

Avery Carl [00:15:30]:
Gotcha. And what else, you guys, you absolutely want to make sure you have more than you think you need. Multiple, multiple, multiple corkscrews and bottle openers. It’s. You got to have that. There’s nothing worse than somebody wanting to sit down and drink a bottle of wine, and then they can’t find a corkscrew that’ll ruin somebody’s night. So make sure you have that multiple ones.

Kelsey Ardwin [00:15:52]:
I feel like can openers go missing. They do, or they break or something. I don’t know. Can open can openers seem to be an item that we replace frequently.

David Hickel [00:16:02]:
Those in the core screws, they disappear all the time.

Avery Carl [00:16:04]:
Yep. They do have a tendency to get up and walk away. So any other major items in the kitchen that we might not think about? I know, you know, you want to have the. The basic set of pots and pans and make sure you have enough cooking utensils. Do you guys do any type of food storage containers or. No, we don’t, personally, but I’ve stayed in some that have had them, and I’ve really appreciated it being there.

David Hickel [00:16:26]:
So usually around Black Friday, we’ll sit down and we’ll order three or four sets of like 50, some just, like, food storage containers, just the absolute cheapest you can find. And then we stash most of those away in the owner’s closet, and then we just restock them throughout the year. So we usually keep maybe 10 to 15 ish per house out for guest use. And then, like, usually about every two to three months, we’ll go back and move another five to 10 from the owner’s closet over out for guest use. Just because those things disappear quite a bit too.

Avery Carl [00:16:51]:
Yeah. Yes, they do.

Kelsey Ardwin [00:16:53]:
We use, like, a Rubbermaid, you know, like the easy lid Rubbermaid ones, and we don’t find that they walk away, I think, because they don’t look disposable, like. And so people don’t seem to take them. Thus far, this worked out just fine.

Avery Carl [00:17:08]:
All right. Yeah, they’re. They’re really nice to have when you’re there. If I could feasibly figure out a way to. To make that work without them, without losing lids and things like that, I would totally do that. All right. Anything else related to the kitchen before we move on.

David Hickel [00:17:24]:
The only other thing I do is I keep an emergency stockpile the up, like in a very top cabinet out of the way. And I’ll usually add like one extra wine bottle opener, one extra can opener, just a couple of the commonly used things that commonly go missing, and I put them out of the way where people don’t see it. So that way, when I get the text saying, hey, like where’s the wine bottle opener? I tell them the normal spot and it’s gone. Then I can tell them like, hey, just look up above the stove. And then hopefully, fingers crossed, save the day that way.

Kelsey Ardwin [00:17:48]:
Nice. That’s a nice way to do without involving a cleaner or anything like that. One thing I would say is that people a lot of times are making a drink upstairs, taking it downstairs. Could be to like a hot tub area. Could just be that they’re, you know, outside and it’s windy. And so I like to provide plastic drinkware rather than glasses. And especially like wine glasses. Like I’d rather provide like a plastic stimulus tumbler than a, you know, like a glass stemmed one.

Avery Carl [00:18:19]:
Yeah, stemless tumblers are the way to go for sure. So let’s move on to some other common areas. So let’s talk about TVs. So for us, we get all Roku TVs. Not the sticks that plug in, but the actual TVs. So that way the sticks don’t get up and walk away. But the remotes for those are interchangeable. So if remotes get moved around into different rooms and switched up, everything will still work.

Avery Carl [00:18:45]:
And all the remotes are the same, so people aren’t having to figure out how to use a bunch of different remotes. But what do you guys use?

Kelsey Ardwin [00:18:51]:
Same. And we use like a total mount remote holder in each one of the rooms so that the remotes have a home to live in. So hopefully they will be in that home when the next person arrives.

David Hickel [00:19:02]:
That’s a great idea. Yeah. Right now I. I don’t use Roku’s, but I do use the same brand of smart TV throughout the house. And then I keep two to three extra remotes stashed in the owner’s closet. That way if one of them disappears, they can just move one from one room to the next to turn the TV on and use it. And then it’s easy for cleaners to replace on the next. But I like that idea of having the remote mount.

David Hickel [00:19:21]:
That way hopefully fewer of those go disappearing.

Kelsey Ardwin [00:19:24]:
One time we found a remote on the top of our, you know, like a caged fan. It was on the top, the caged fan. I’m like, how does it even get there, kids?

Avery Carl [00:19:36]:
All right, so we’ve got. We talked about kitchen, we talked about the living room. Well, the tv. So let’s talk about linen. So sheets and towels. How many sets of. Of these things in which. By set, I mean what is out in the house when a guest gets there? So one set is the sheets on the bed and the towels and stuff in the bathroom when the guests get there.

Avery Carl [00:19:56]:
So how many sets of these do you guys get for this market?

David Hickel [00:19:58]:
Yeah, so we’ve gone back and forth on that. Previous cleaners didn’t like making bunk beds, so they would just leave the sheets neatly folded on the bunk beds. Our current cleaners we convinced to actually make all the beds, including the bunk beds, which I think is a lot nicer for the guests just showing up and having everything ready to go, versus having to make a bed. And then we leave one set of bath towels on each bed. Uh, well, one set per person. So if it’s a king bed, we’ll leave two sets there. And then in one of the. In one of the bathrooms, just in one of the closets, we’ll stash.

David Hickel [00:20:26]:
Usually it’s about an extra two to four bath towels, hand towels, and a couple kitchen towels and washcloths as well. That way, if, heaven forbid, like, our cleaners forget to put a couple towels out there, or, you know, if they just have a bunch of kids who accidentally get some towels dirty, they’ve got a few extras that way, like, towels are cheap, you know, six to eight dollars per, versus, like, the cost of a stay, which is. Could be all the way up to a couple thousand dollars. So I’d much rather just not hear about towels by buying a few. A few more than I need, versus trying to skimp on them and get calls about that.

Avery Carl [00:20:55]:
Yeah, never skimp. I think that’s kind of the golden rule of. Of this business, the hospitality business. We keep three sets. So one is out in the house, one is in the owner’s closet, ready to go if something crazy happens. And then one is, you know, being washed off site from. From the cleaner. So how many towels do you guys supply? Bath towels per bathroom?

Kelsey Ardwin [00:21:18]:
We do one per guest. So it’s. And we always supply. Actually, I say one per guest as the maximum is 12 at the. At this house. And even if two people were going to be staying here, we just stock 12 all the time, every time. And then we Also provide beach towels. I think we provide 12 here.

Kelsey Ardwin [00:21:39]:
And so if somebody did need a towel, you can kind of dip into the beach towels if you needed something beyond the 12 regular towels. So kind of you could use it for whatever you wanted.

David Hickel [00:21:50]:
Yeah, we do the same.

Avery Carl [00:21:52]:
So you kind of touched on beach towels. So what do you do for beach towels then?

Kelsey Ardwin [00:21:56]:
We just roll up the beach towels and we put them in a basket that’s out in the living room so they can use them.

Avery Carl [00:22:02]:
And you make sure that they’re a different color. Like we get the big. They’re multi color, but it’ll be like yellow and white stripes or blue and white stripes. We use those and put them out away from the bathroom so they don’t get mixed up.

Kelsey Ardwin [00:22:13]:
For the. For our first str, we bought like a four pack where it’s like blue and yellow and pink and green or something. And so there’s some differentiation. For our second one, I found a really good sales because it was off season between like Marshalls and believe it or not, five below. They had them for like five bucks. And the. It makes it where most of the towels have a different design on each one. And so the other house sleeps 20.

Kelsey Ardwin [00:22:43]:
And so it’d be a lot more important that you would know you are actually using your towel. So. Yeah, and we have hooks out. So something that we. That we’re doing differently at our second one is with the number of people that it sleeps, we actually are doing like a. Like a coat rack hanger for towels because there’s a couple of shared bathrooms. And so we actually are keeping the towels. Like if I went to the shower and I came back in my room to get dressed, I would hang up my towel and my bedroom, and that way I would know that nobody else used it after I left it in the bathroom.

Avery Carl [00:23:16]:
Yeah, I think that’s really smart.

Kelsey Ardwin [00:23:18]:
It’s just a lot of white towels.

Avery Carl [00:23:19]:
Do you put out any kind of makeup towel or like individual makeup remover wipes?

Kelsey Ardwin [00:23:24]:
What I actually do is I do the same for my guests as I do for myself at home. So I have these little containers and they hold cotton pads, you know, just like little. And then I have what looks like a soap dispenser, and I filled it with micellar water, which is what I use to remove my makeup. And I’ve labeled it, you know, micellar makeup rem. And so you just use it and it’s a. It works and it’s not. I like that it doesn’t create a lot of single use Trash.

Avery Carl [00:23:50]:
I do love the single use or there will be three or four of them, but makeup wipe, makeup remover wipe. So I do. I wear makeup every day and it doesn’t matter like how well I scrub. When I go to use a towel, it is gonna get. There’s still going to be a little makeup on there and the actual like, like makeup remover wipes does get all of it. So it does save the towels in my opinion. Anyway. So what else? What else we not talked about.

Avery Carl [00:24:20]:
We talked about kitchen, we talked about TVs, sheets, towels. Oh, let’s talk about. So your, your paper products, your. And trash bags and things like that. Do your cleaners supply those and you pay a little extra or is that something that you supply and they just let you know when you’re getting low on things and you’ll get on Amazon the second one.

David Hickel [00:24:39]:
Yeah. So Kelsey, I used to do exactly the same. Obviously we. So Kelsey and I used to share the same cleaner. So I did the same thing. I just had Amazon order set up recurring every so often. Our new cleaners, we pay them a little bit extra and they just take care of everything. So all depends on how you pay your cleaners and how you want to pay for all of that.

David Hickel [00:24:58]:
For our new cleaners, we pay them. We pay our cleaning bills just via credit card. And so for us it makes really not much of a difference setting up the orders on Amazon versus just paying them a little bit extra.

Avery Carl [00:25:08]:
Yeah, I’m a big fan of just paying them extra, but there are some certain things that if you want to do like individual, like nice soaps and lotions and shampoos and stuff that you can order from places like host GPO that are really nice looking that they’re probably not going to be able to get unless they’re buying from host gpo. But it’s just kind of depends on the market, depends on what guests expect, I think. What else related to setup have we not talked about? I mean there’s definitely the property management software which guys we do have. Between my podcast and Luke’s podcast, we have interviewed which mine is the short term show and Luke’s is the short term management show. We have interviewed five or six of the major property management software people, whether it’s their CEO or someone from their marketing team or development team, etc, so definitely check those episodes out to decide which property management software is best for you. I also had price labs on my podcast and that’s a really good one too. So you definitely want to make sure that you Have a property management software and a pricing tool at the very least. I’m also a big fan of a digital guidebook.

Avery Carl [00:26:20]:
We use guesty for host because they will get access to that at the time they book and pay. So they can learn everything, everything they need to know about the property before they even start traveling. Like, there are things that I might want to know that I’m not going to bother a host with asking, like, hey, what kind of coffee maker do you have? I don’t want to bother someone with that. But it would be nice for me to know so that when I’m coming into town, usually late at night from an airport with kids that really need to get to sleep, I’m not grabbing the wrong thing on the way in. Things like that or, you know, how far away from this, how far away from that, what’s around is there. Doordashes, their instacart, all these things that you can put in there so people know exactly what, what everything is. And there’s instructions on how to use all the electronics and how to do the deadbolt and how to do the WI fi thermostat and all these things. And you can also put QR codes around the house next to things that might require instructions so that when people are trying to use them, they can just scan that QR code.

Avery Carl [00:27:18]:
It’ll take them to your guidebook with the instructions. So it’s that like, you can put everything anybody could possibly need to know while they’re staying with you in those guidebooks. So those are the three pieces of software that I recommend. Do you guys have anything to add to that or anything to add to setup as a whole?

David Hickel [00:27:34]:
The QR codes I think are a great idea. I’m actually heading down to Crystal beach here tomorrow evening. As one of the top things on my to do list is just to add the QR codes. Because we use Touch Day for guidebooks. It’s fantastic product, but getting guests to actually read it, even after we send it to them via email, channel, message and text, is still tough. Like, we still get a lot of questions that are already answered in that. So I plan to do the same thing, more or less just linking QR codes to specific parts of the guidebook to answer those questions.

Avery Carl [00:27:59]:
Yeah, Love, love, Touch Day and Hostfully is another one. I haven’t used it, but I know I’ve heard really great things about it. So either of those things would be a great option. Anything else related to setup that we haven’t touched on that our listeners might be, might need to hear that’s, you know, specific to this. This market.

Kelsey Ardwin [00:28:17]:
I think one of the most important things about setup is that you are not just in this market because it is somewhat remote. It’s sort of a sleepy beach town. In this market, guests are going to be spending about 90% of their time either at the house or at the beach. And so the house has to provide a lot of the entertainment. And it doesn’t have to be expensive what you provide, but providing games, board games, books, mostly it’s outdoor type games. Cornhole, ladder, ball. What are they going to do when they get there? And I think also, you know, it’s just like what you were saying about bringing your kid. It’s like, yeah, you’re bringing your kids and all the stuff that comes along with it.

Kelsey Ardwin [00:28:57]:
But do you also have to pack a pack and play in a high chair and four beach chairs and stuff to have fun with, or is all that stuff provided? So we provide a lot of things. It’s not necessary.

David Hickel [00:29:09]:
The beach chairs are a great point. Like, for the beach stuff, specifically, like toys, umbrella, beach chairs. We used to not provide that at all. And we would get questions, I’d say probably about once a month, once every other month, asking about that. And so we finally broke down, just bought a whole bunch, bought a few extras to stash away as well. And the questions have stopped. And I think we have much happier guests now.

Kelsey Ardwin [00:29:29]:
Yeah. And they’ll just. They’ll see there’ll be houses where they advertise that they have those things. And it’s in their photos or it’s in my photos. And our occupancy is better than most. Our occupancy is like 70%, and that’s above the normal. And it’s because we give guests more reasons to say yes and not like, oh, we have to pack all this stuff. It’d be, you know what I mean? Make it an easy yes for them to want to be at your property because it would be so easy to say yes and go have fun.

Avery Carl [00:29:58]:
All right, well, there’s nothing else. On that note, I will sign us off. So thank you guys so much for coming on and talking about this. If you guys are ready to buy with Kelsey in this market, you can email us at agents the shorttermshop.com and we’ll get you connected. Or if you just want to hang out with us more, you can do that by joining our Facebook group. It’s the same title as my book cover right behind me. It’s called short term rental. Long term wealth.

Avery Carl [00:30:21]:
We also have a live Q A every Thursday where we answer all of your questions about short term rentals and you can sign up for that@strquestions.com thanks guys.