The 3 Short Term Rental Competitive Advantages

I've spent over a year interviewing successful short-term rental Entrepreneurs.

In almost every conversation, we talk about the short term rental market becoming saturated.

I'm sure you've heard other people say those exact words and I bet it gets you a little nervous. If I may provide my unsolicited opinion:

I think it's a good thing.

Why?

The market is growing and more people want to play the game.

When an industry grows, opportunities to create new ideas and competitive advantages arise.

And sometimes new, could mean a fortune for you.

How to Create a Competitive Advantage in a Saturated Short-Term Rental Market

After some pondering and peer conversation, I theorized that there are only three ways to create a competitive advantage in the STR space.

Competitive advantages:

• Look

• Feel

• Placement

Nail one, you'll be in a good spot. Nail all three, you'll strike gold.

Advantage One: Look

Attract the window shoppers.

Humans like new and different. If your property visually looks nothing like your competition online, viewers will stop their scroll to look.

Just like Onera Fredericksburg.

To have a visual competitive advantage you must:

• Have something special about your STR

• Capture it with really good photography

• Make the above your centerpiece in a listing.

For people to stop their mindless scroll, you have to give them something to look at.

Advantage Two: Feel

Make your guests feel so good, they tell their friends about you.

Good brands attract new customers really well. Great brands retain them.

I travel to multiple Airbnbs every quarter and only one has mastered this.

Between my notes from that specific stay and the conversation I had with the owners…

I came up with one unified golden rule that will give you that edge.

Some ideas to get you started:

1. Provide actually good coffee.

2. Have a shower robe for every guest.

3. Sunrise alarm (I came up with this).

In my experience, most short-term rentals miss the mark on retaining guests.

Which, for you, provides an opportunity to make more money.

Cha-Ching.

Advantage Three: Placement

Be where your guests are.

Most people put their property on Airbnb or VRBO and call it good. Those are just two channels in the vast universe we call the internet.

For starters, Airbnb gets 115 million visitors on their site. 

Google gets 162.5 billion. 

If you're only using listing tools to market your property, you're missing a whole ocean of potential guests.

Unfortunately, that's how it is for most hosts. 

How to get found on search engines

In order to rank on other search engines you’ll need a website.

Once that’s done, you’ll want to do some basic search engine optimization (SEO).

In short, SEO is putting language on your website that search engines read, then provide to people looking for you.

I recommend learning SEO and adopting it into your business. Not only do most people not do it, but if Airbnb goes down tomorrow, you'll still have a business.

The 3 Ways to Create a Competitive Advantage for Your Short-Term Rental

The short-term rental market is growing and new players are entering the game. This means new ideas, more demand and an abundance of opportunity for those willing to be bold.

Yes, more players means more competition.

But if you master the art of look, feel or placement, you'll stand out like a sore thumb to thrilled vacationers.

What will your competitive advantage be? 

That's all for today. I’ll see you in the next article.

P.s. If you need more inspiration about brands that have chosen to be creative and won, read Airbnbs origin story.