For the past two years, the short-term rental industry has been quite rocky for investors. However, despite the curfew lockdowns and travel restrictions, vacations have found a way to thrive and continue generating income for hosts.
This is not to say that all Airbnb rentals have been performing well. Only property owners who’ve put in the work by investing in profitable properties, implementing the right short-term investment strategy, and marketing their rentals on the right channels have come out unscathed, if not better.
Airbnb trends for 2022 have shown that there could never be a better time to invest in short-term rentals. Here are some crucial tips to maximize your Airbnb income in 2022.
Make Smart Investment Decisions
Even before we can get to the juicy details, we need to make one thing perfectly clear. Every good and profitable venture begins with smart business decisions. No matter what you try, it’s hard to out-perform a bad investment.
How do you make smart business decisions for a good return on investment?
First, you need to invest in the right property types. Go further and look at the best Airbnb markets 2022. Location really does matter when it comes to buying Airbnb investment property. Investing in the best Airbnb investment locations is always the first step in building a sustainable, high-income business.
Secondly, look at the latest Airbnb data and industry insights. These will help you understand what guests’ preferences and needs have changed compared to last year. For example, more and more guests are beginning to show a preference for quiet destinations and isolated locations, in contrast to bustling cities and international tourist hotspots.
All prudent and successful investors are known to have a knack for research. If you want to create consistent Airbnb income throughout the peak and off-peak seasons, you need to consume a lot of information on timeless destinations and properties. Remember, talking to seasoned realtors is also part of doing your research.
Offer Extra Experience
If you want to gain extra, then you have to offer extra. Instead of just offering your guests a place to stay, go out of your way and share your knowledge to improve your guests’ experience. This is a great way to increase your Airbnb income per booking. It could also create a new channel for earning money.
Airbnb experiences are for everyone. You don’t have to own a short-term rental to offer an experience. So, if you own a vacation rental, why are you holding yourself back? All you have to do is just offer your knowledge about a specific thing or place. This is how you offer more value and make the stay more memorable for your guests.
How do you offer experiences?
You can offer experiences based on passions or interests. For example, if your guests are foodies, you can introduce them to the town’s restaurants and cuisine. You can also simply offer a guide around the neighborhood for guests who might be staying for a longer period. If your rental is located near a beach, you can offer a skydiving experience.
Use your knowledge to your advantage.
Choose the Right Pricing Strategy
Your short-term rental can only generate revenue by getting bookings. If your pricing is unreasonably high, guests will go looking for more competitive rates elsewhere. On the other hand, if you charge too low for the amenities you offer, potential guests may start to question your authenticity and the business won’t be profitable for you.
A transparent and dynamic pricing strategy will attract more bookings and increase your revenue. Guests respond well to great prices and also reward you with great feedback.
A good pricing strategy starts with research and adaptability. Imagine a situation where your competitor is offering the same amenities as you or even more yet charging lower. Guests are more likely to book with your competitor.
Always do your due diligence before setting your price. Look at leading listings and your competitors to price accordingly. Ensure the price is reasonable since guests will know whether you’ve overcharged them after looking at your competitors.
Next, you need to optimize your rates according to the season. Seasons, demand, and pricing all change. One of the costliest mistakes you can make in your vacation rental business is following a “once and for all” pricing strategy where you set the price and completely forget about it.
You need to implement a dynamic pricing strategy. Look at it this way; during the peak season, more tourists are booking rentals and a higher price will help you maximize your Airbnb income. During this season, the demand is high.
On the other hand, bookings are low during the off-season and the market becomes more dormant. Set lower and more transparent prices during this period to attract guests who may be hesitant to travel or go on holiday.
Optimizing your pricing strategy doesn’t only help you generate more Airbnb income consistently throughout the year. It also helps improve your Airbnb rankings and beat your competitors on search results.
Create a Catchy Description
On Airbnb, your description is like your business card. It tells your clients, in this case, potential guests, what you have to offer. A good listing description should tell your guests everything they should know and get their attention at the same time.
Creating an appealing description isn’t everyone’s cup of tea. It’s no easy task. As such, make sure you take your time and do your best to come up with a captivating one. Don’t just craft a poorly-written and half-baked description for the sake of filling the page.
What does a good Airbnb description consist of?
- All home features
- Surrounding amenities
- Transportation tips
- Outdoor spaces
- Location
Use the description to paint a picture of what staying in your rental is going to feel like. Include any other important details your guests should know about before booking.
Accuracy and appeal are key when it comes to Airbnb descriptions. The more you go in-depth and paint a comprehensive picture, the more you’ll stand out and increase your chances of getting more bookings. Remember the market is competitive now more than ever. Uniqueness speaks louder.
If writing or crafting a detailed, appealing, and engaging description is not your strength, we recommend you reach out to a copywriter with experience in writing property descriptions or a real estate professional.
Use Quality Photos and Videos
There’s nothing that makes your business card stand out more than appealing and high-quality photos. Quality pictures are more than essential for anyone looking to market themselves or their services online.
People are known to have short attention spans and get distracted quickly. There’s no better way to grab their attention and get them fixated on your property than using appealing and professional photos.
Also, think of professional photos as a great accompaniment for your mouth-watering description. A combination of both will demonstrate to your guests that you hold your professionalism to high standards.
To get pictures that will sell your short term rental properties, you’ll need more than just a decent camera. It’s best to leave this job to the professionals since they know just the right lighting and composition for clear and appealing vacation rental photos. Another advantage of hiring a professional photographer is that they know how to stage the home to capture the feel you want to convey.
These are factors that elevate your vacation rental from good to exceptional which will, in turn, boost your occupancy rate and revenues. We recommend you budget for one professional photoshoot.
If you have some photography background and the relevant equipment, you can also get good results yourself by adopting a professional photographer’s mindset. You can clear the clutter, play around with the lighting, and stage your rental like hotel rooms. Don’t forget to take several pictures from various angles. Also, use different decor for the winter and summer seasons.
Spread the Word
As a savvy real estate investor, you know it’s not wise depending only on Airbnb to attract guests. You need to promote your rental more if you want to maximize Airbnb income in 2022. Show the world what you have to offer and why they should choose your short-term rental when going on holiday or traveling.
Implementing another marketing strategy can be extremely helpful especially during low seasons. You might want to spend a little more on advertisements on Google and social media, or a combination of both.
The growth of social media channels has made digital marketing generally inexpensive. The majority of the world population barely goes a day without logging into at least one social media platform. Why not target social media users? The good news is that you can do it yourself.
Here are some social media strategies you can use to market your vacation rental business:
- Open a Facebook page for your short-term rental business and share useful information to convince your audience to book with you.
- Open an Instagram account and share high-quality photos of your rental and work with influencers and bloggers to get the word out there.
- Use your Twitter account to start a conversation and use relevant hashtags to ensure your content reaches a wider audience.
Whichever social media strategy you choose to promote your vacation rental, always remember to include the link to the actual Airbnb listing so that people can visit and book. Your goal should be to guide people to the listing. Don’t forget to include relevant keywords to increase your post’s visibility.
Automate Some Tasks
“Time is money”. It’s an old saying but could never resonate with any real estate business more. The fastest way to start losing revenue is by spending endless hours performing monotonous admin tasks and other miscellaneous jobs while you could spend that time being more productive.
Getting more revenue means you need to perform better. Performing better means you need digital assistance. You don’t want your productivity to get affected especially when managing a number of vacation rentals.
As such, if you wish to spend your time more productively carrying out market research and analyzing your short-term rental strategy while also cutting down property management expenses, you need to start using various automation software. The software can deal with numerous tasks such as:
- Checkouts
- Cleaning
- Reviews and many others.
With automation software, you don’t have to type the same reply to guest reviews. You won’t have to manually schedule monthly cleaning. An Airbnb management software can take care of all this.
You can choose to go the automation route either through sites like Airbnb and Booking.com or through property management systems. This way, repetitive and boring tasks can run on their own while you focus on growing your business and implementing better strategies.
While it might require you to spend a huge chunk of your budget, the productivity you get is huge compared to the investment.
Build a Network
As the old adage goes, no man is an island. Similarly, hardly any business can grow alone. To maximize your Airbnb income in 2022, you’ll need to have connections and build a robust network.
All you have to do to build connections is have great communication skills. If there are any local industry events happening near you, be sure not to miss them. These include seminars to reward distributions and any other events relating to Airbnb entrepreneurs.
This is how you meet people who could be instrumental in increasing your Airbnb income. The more you meet people the more you increase your chances of succeeding. They could teach you new strategies or you could meet potential partners.
Boost Your Vacation Rental Income in 2022
One of the best ways of making money in real estate is by investing in short-term rentals. By choosing the right pricing and marketing strategy, you’ll convert your business into a rescission-proof and consistent money-making machine.
Most importantly, you need to make the right business decisions. While this may seem like a lot of work, it doesn’t have to be an uphill task. Mashvisor is your friend.
Since location is one of the most crucial factors when making a real estate investment, carrying out market analysis and looking at Airbnb analytics is important. Use the Real Estate Heatmap to find the most profitable locations and neighborhoods to invest in.
The tool uses different colors to show you the performance of your preferred location based on the following metrics:
- Airbnb rental income
- Airbnb occupancy rate
- Listing price
- Airbnb cash on cash return
Neighborhoods that perform well are represented by the color green while those that perform poorly are represented by red. Yellow and orange represent average neighborhoods. Ready to try this tool? Click here to sign up for a 7-day free trial of Mashvisor today, followed by 15% off for life.