Thanks For Visiting

Maintenance is always a hot button issue in the STR world. Let’s face it, properties are living, breathing organisms. They are constantly changing and in need of our love and attention. Unfortunately, we can’t always predict when that love and attention is needed, forcing us to schedule service, at times, during a guest’s stay. Today’s episode is all about managing the super important communicatio...

How can you ethically list your large rental twice to make the most of a bigger property? In Sarah’s example, we split a fourplex in two by installing quality door locks on the two upstairs bedrooms, and listing the property twice: one listing with 4 bedrooms for 8 guests, and the other with 2 bedrooms for 4 guests. With this setup, you can still make the most of your property based on the time of...

Dr. Erin Hudson went from being in private practice to moving into single-family investment properties, short-term rentals, and then jumped into the multifamily space and is making big waves! She is one of five founding partners of Quattro Capital, which is an equity real estate firm that buys apartments ranging from 30 units to 250 units. Erin is also a licensed financial professional and helps o...

We’re all about giving a holistic approach to your short-term rental: looking at the whole picture, from safety, marketing, real estate, and more. And while we’ve touched on all of the things you need to buy for your properties, we haven’t discussed how you can best capitalize on the purchases you make to get the most out of them. Kara Greene is an influencer on Instagram with over 47 thousand fol...

Rachel Gainsbrugh went from being a healthcare professional by day to real estate investor by night in the luxury and corporate short-term rental space to taking on real estate full time. Now, she’s passionate about teaching busy professionals how to create a life they won’t want to vacation from – all by investing in luxury vacation rental and ownership investment in the most profitable markets o...

Shopping for your property never gets old. It’s not just about doing it as quickly or cheaply as possible—it’s about putting a piece of yourself and your style into your short-term rental. But while the shopping experience might be fun, there are plenty of parts that aren’t—from seeing the price tag at the end of it all, to juggling tracking and deliveries across multiple brands, and more. Marc is...

In this episode, we break down the endless opportunities available by making your property as accessible as possible. Lorraine Woodward is founder and CEO of Becoming RentABLE, a new listing platform where she and her team are aiming to change the way the short-term industry looks and redefine what it means to have a truly accessible STR. We talk about what makes a property accessible (or not), ho...

It’s been far too long since Justin Ford has been on the show, but don’t worry, he’s going to make up for it. He’s been steeped in the short-term rental industry since his last appearance, and he’s going to share with us all of the trends and themes he’s noticed when it comes to safety. One issue in particular that he keeps seeing is that people still don’t have smoke and carbon monoxide alarms in...

Emily Miethner, like many of you, is a serial entrepreneur with a focus on social media, community building, and digital marketing. She’s an award-winning speaker and adjunct professor with over 12 years of experience delivering engaging talks both online and off. Not only does she specialize in social media, but she’s decoded how it works with short-term rentals as well. In 2021, she opened her f...

Do you realize how important you are to your guests, to your community, to your family – and to people you don’t even know? Kisa Heyer, CEO of The Dream Foundation, joins us to talk about the organization's special relationship with Airbnb hosts across the country, the very important role business owners and hosts can play in making dreams come true, and how you can take part in the magic. Resourc...

Jeff Brown is here to teach us how to dream big and scale our businesses with investor capital. He’s the co-founder of Loma Homes, a vacation rental brand that specializes in unique themed experiences. He talks about what you need to do to get started looking for investors, the way that will affect your approach to finding properties, his “20% rule” for ensuring revenue, and how to build a portfol...

One thing nobody tells you when you start your hosting journey is that you’re going to have to get really, really good at revenue management. Well, scratch that, because we’re going to tell you now – with a little help from a member of our Hosting Business Mastery group, Kylan Pimley! We talk about the moment she realized that this needed to be managed like a business, when they began making the s...

Look, we get it – legal talk isn’t usually the most exciting thing in the world, but Scott Brown, an attorney out of Columbus, Ohio who specializes in intellectual property law for startups and entrepreneurs, keeps things interesting.  He’s been working with us to make sure our business is legally covered and he’s familiar with the greater real estate industry as well. We discuss what you nee...

Finding ways to stand out in the rental industry is key. What better way to stand out than running a massive summer camp out of a historical 1920s speakeasy? Tereasa Surratt is a creative director in Chicago who rescued a century-old 25-acre summer camp that she then renovated with her husband.  She shares how they balance running the, now, 60-person capacity Airbnb summer camp while juggling...

One topic we hear again and again when it comes to short-term rentals: What do we do about pets? Today’s guest is an expert when it comes to incorporating pets into rental properties.  Heather Kazmark is a co-host that works alongside her family at Kradel's Kabins and loves animals and nature. In this episode, listeners will hear all about how to decide whether to list your property as pet-fr...

We are big fans of checklists here at Thanks For Visiting. What better way to ensure that the basics always get handled consistently? In this episode, we share an inspector checklist detailing everything you need to do after the cleaning team does their work.  Trust, but verify. That’s what we always say! Cleaning teams don’t have it easy. When they come into a property, their job is to turn...

Nearly every travel destination is going to experience off seasons at certain times of the year (if you don’t, let us just say — lucky you!). During lean times, it’s essential that you take booking into your own hands, rather than relying on OTAs to bring new guests in. You want to be connecting with the community and becoming a part of it. We call our method of bringing in guests directly our Sal...

Elise Armitage had the good job and a fancy title at a big brand. Her future was laid out in clear steps, but something was missing. It took taking a month from her day job at Google to convince her to dive head first into her side hustle, What The Fab, a start-up fashion and beauty blog that’s grown into a full-on travel and lifestyle brand. She walks us through the steps she took on her way to l...

Not long ago, we announced that the two of us were partnering for our first joint real estate deal. Picking up on that conversation, we wanted to let you know how everything is going so far, what progress has been made, how we structured the deal, and what level of investment we each brought to the table. We’re excited to continue updating you on these important developments and provide an inside...

Following up on last week’s episode covering the basic steps you can take as a host to make sure you have all the simple things dialed in, we look at ways to step back and reconsider your guest experience. The customer is always right, after all. We’ve stayed at at least twenty hotels and short-term rentals over the past year and we always come away with new takeaways each time. Today, we share th...

Even if you’ve been renting and managing for years, we all need to go back to the basics from time to time. What better time than a new year? In this episode, we share seven things you can do, that you probably haven’t been thinking about, to make sure you’re starting off the year on solid footing, literally and figuratively. Resources: Visit thanksforvisiting.me/workshop to watch our Hosting Busi...

Stacey St. John is a boss babe who was bitten by the STR bug and never looked back. While working for a global consulting firm, she fell into the real estate game by accident. After a few short months of renting out that “accidental” investment, Stacey quickly realized that she had an appreciating asset on her hands, all while someone else paid her mortgage, grew her bank account, and earned her t...

We’ve reached the end of the year! 2021 felt like we were finding our way again, but we have high hopes for 2022. As a way of looking back over how far we’ve come during the past 365 days, we want to run down the top 10 episodes from the year to give us a better idea of what you want to hear more of and share what you should go back and listen to if you missed it the first time around.  These...

Managing vacation properties is hard work. Anticipating the needs of guests, taking care of things as issues arise, planning proactive and preventative work, there’s a lot to think about – even more so when you’re operating business from afar.  In this episode, we hear from a successful industry pro living in North America and operating in Europe to learn how she keeps everything in order. Li...

Rental Women’s Summit. It was impossible to see everything there was to see, so we enlisted the help of our Hosting Business Mastery Method members to divide and conquer! In this episode, we share our biggest takeaways from the event. A massive thank you to each and every one of our Hosting Business Mastery Method members: @lacroixcovington @levinaia_estates @gogorgegetaways @aboveandabodeco @velk...