The Boost Hospitality Podcast is back for another season! And we are now in Season 6. And this time, we are currently on the second episode of season six! In this episode, Trish McGirr, our special guest for today, will talk about more and more in-depth with how Serviced Accommodation works and how to successfully run a SA property.
Let us know more about our guest in this episode.
Trish is one of the leading experts in negotiation, and she has been into properties since 2004. Also, she's a professional business consultant and trainer. If you are looking to get into service accommodation, or you are struggling to get over the research to plan in, and how to convince an estate agent or a landlord to let you rent that property on a rent to rent model, this is the episode for you.
And make sure you listen right to the very end because Trish is going to leave us with a free download that you can get to discover her KUDDLE checklist.
What is Serviced Accommodation?
Serviced accommodation has become one of the strategies that's blown up on the back of Airbnb, Booking.com and that kind of stuff. So that's kind of where I come in, that's where I've caught my teeth in service accommodation and corporate treats. When you are looking to take the train in it that you've got from service accommodation weekends and whatnot, d you're looking to put theory into practice which is where so many people fall what tips and advice, how can we go from the method in how can we go to finding our first property of those properties to agree to this rental model.
What sort of ideas can you share?
The first thing I would say about serviced accommodation is that it's them if the essence of all good marketing is enough. Who is the client that you think is going to go into that property?
Am I looking for apartments? Am I looking for two-bed properties, or am I looking for three-bed properties, or am I looking for if they have en-suites? Know what your market is, are you going for the regular kind of you know weekend dare I say.
People who are coming in and they're tourist coming into that area. Are they going to be more cooperative type clients are they going to be bigger groups, are they going to be smaller. You've got to pick what you think is your marketplace. So the first thing I would say is “do your research in your area”. There's no point in rocking off and having a property and find out you can't get the bloody thing left, d you can't get booked.
Setup a Rightmove account
When you've decided on your area, you're now looking at whether you're corporate or whether you're going to do the holiday tree in the past three of the weekend treats or a bit of a mix and you've worked at which property.
The next thing you want to do is, and this is easy to do, set up a Rightmove account, go into Rightmove pick the area geographically that you're looking at. Draw a border around it and search for the properties in that area that are from that fits the kind of format you've just discussed your ideal customer avatar, probably wants a 2 bedroom apartment with a beautiful en-suite, they want parking, they want close to city centre, they want something modern, or whatever.
You can then use a Rightmove plus account to draw a beautiful little map when the comfort of your home with a gin and tonic in your hand and pick out the properties that fit that profile and then start to knock them off less. So before you've even gone to an agent, you've now narrowed that, maybe a list of several hundred properties down to four, five, six, eight, ten properties. For you, potentially to ring-fence as they should be on. They should be on your watch list. And then again, doing a bit of research on those tables.
What would you recommend if I've got those
The next thing I would do about serviced accommodation is when I'm looking at those properties, I'm looking at you, you're taking cues from what you're saying. So what you're looking at is you're filtering them by the price per month. But you also want to take cues from what you can see on the screen the description of the property, does it look like it's available like right now. You want to look at the condition of the property.
What are the pictures looked like at those properties? Does it look like somebody's looking after it? Does it look like you're going to have to put a bit of money into it because you might be solving the landlord problem? If you come along and say:
“Look I want to rent that property, I'm gonna put some money into it, we want to improve it. I'm gonna give you a perfect rent on it for some time, but you're gonna have to give me some leeway for me to make yeah obviously my money back by doing something different.”
But you've got to tip cues by actually reading the text. You have to look at the picture and see what the evidence is telling you about that listing.
What is the biggest mistake about serviced accommodation that people make at this stage?
I think the biggest mistake is that people go in, they've been on a course and like: “Hey, we've all done it, and I've done it come fresh out.”
Of course, full of ideas, full of enthusiasm. But you then go out, and the first thing you do is yet you stumble into an estate agent with a vague idea of what you're looking for, a vague idea of what you can afford to put into the property. And you're using language that the agent has heard 100 million times before from everybody else who's ever come off a course.
So the biggest mistake is not doing the due diligence, yet not being clear on your avatar, not being clear on your market, not being clear on the sort of property that you need to acquire for the market place you want to be in.
Being clear and ready about your serviced accommodation
I'm not clear on the costs, not being clear on how much you're going to need for the light fittings, knives, forks, just put all your setup costs that's not even accounting for what you have to pay the agent and if you're going to go in and talk business, you need to be really clear.
I think the scariest thing for some people is to go into an estate agent and start to talk about I want to, you know so they all speak about corporate less. Most people I've got corporate less, I've got clients that are ready to put that property, and I want you to know whatever.
An agent is a business person; their responsibility is not to you, their duties to their landlord. You have to talk in a way that is to the benefit of the landlord. Again, I think one of the mistakes we make when we're novices at this, and once we're new in any business is that we're busy talking about money.
You know I'm going to give the landlord more money, I'm going to provide the agent with more money, I'm going to you know, it's going to be the phrases I hear people use all the time.
What you should be getting from a real estate agent or landlord
If you think of the agent has never heard somebody say those words before, you are on you, you're living under a rock. I believe the expression that comes to mind is you can't bullshit a bullshitter.
If you go in to see an agent, you go in with a sample of maybe one or two properties that are subspecific interest to you. I would also recommend that when you go, you go in and you are very clear about what you're saying.
The sort of client you have and you're upfront with the agent that you intend to put your corporate clients into that property. This is where it gets sticky because an agent will say “and what other experience do you have?” and this is where someone's bottom falls out, and they think “well I haven't got any”.
It's always perfect to bring someone with you who has that credibility and experience to get you going and get over that when you are specific with an agent. When you go in with costings, when you go in showing that you are ready, willing and able to move on the deal now, and you can sign off on that property, then you are much more likely to have an agent say “I will put that proposition in front of my landlord” and those are the words you want to hear.
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Visit Trish's website here and download her KUDDLE checklist.
