The big talking point of 2024
[00:00:00] Mark: One of the big talking points of 2024. Is hyperlocal, but also regulations. How can we, you, combat unfair regulations that are sweeping, not only your towns, and your cities, but Europe, America, Australia, and further afield? The more that the short-term rental industry grows, the more that the hotel world and further afield will try and put a cap on the growth.
[00:00:34] Because for every stay in a short-term rental, you can guarantee the hotel world is getting annoyed at that. Now, how do we combat unfair regulations? How can we showcase that we are professional hosts, professional business owners, and not Airbnb charlatans as the media is painting this picture across the internet?
[00:00:54] One person and one company that are doing that is David Kraus of Rent Responsibly. I've known David for a couple of years now. We, met recently at the Verma event in America, and I was very lucky to grab him for 20 minutes to talk about Rent Responsibly, but also the brand new Rent Responsibly network.
[00:01:13] So out of all the podcasts I've done, the 711, 712 that we're at right now with this episode. This is one of the most important things you must listen to and watch. This year, 2024, because if you haven't got regulations in your area. They are coming and you better believe it without further ado. Let me hand you over to Mr.
[00:01:31] David Krauss, who's going to give you a super quick intro and we get stuck into it.
[00:01:35] David: My boostly friends. This is your boy, Dave Krauss reporting live from Fort Worth, Texas. I am. Uh, a short-term rental owner and host at heart. That's where I got my start in this space. Like many of you, I didn't go to university to, uh, become what I am today, but, uh, fell in love with the industry upon entry.
[00:02:01] Just loved meeting the people, of course, supporting myself and ultimately my family. Was just a little piece of magic that I didn't know I would grow up, to discover. And once I did, uh, I wanted, I wanted more. I wanted to, too, I was obsessed, right? Like everybody else. Uh, if you're listening to this podcast, I know you're obsessed and there's nothing wrong with that.
What brought David here today
[00:02:24] Um, but really what, what, uh, brought me here today to talk with you, Mark is, is the journey I went on after somebody threw a party. At my short-term rental. So I was running about nine short-term rentals. I was the king of short-term rentals in Dallas, Texas at the time. And, uh, you know, had this, this great reservation.
[00:02:47] It seemed like there was no spidey sense going on. Didn't seem like anything was wrong. Uh, but come to find out after the guests left that they threw a massive party, uh, which is if it's happened to you, uh, I feel for you, it happened to me. This is 2015 and I immediately looked just like, you know, any other problem solver for a solution to that problem.
[00:03:11] And there was no such. Technology or method other than going and putting your ear with a cup to the door to see how loud it was, which is impossible. You'd never do that. Um, so I found a friend who could build me a sensor that would ultimately. Uh, help me monitor the property. So that turned into noise awareness.
[00:03:32] You may have heard of noise aware. If you haven't, you can check it out. There are other noise monitors out there, but I started noise awareness after this party and after a couple of years, uh, four to be exact. Talking about decibels and noise and nuisance issues and community and party houses, uh, which by the way is a really fun thing to talk about for four years.
[00:03:56] Um, I, I was kinda, I was done with decibels, you know, I, I had already. Gotten the claim to fame of being the international party pooper, which again, is not something I wanted to grow up to be, but it happened anyways. Uh, anyways, after, after noise aware, I started to notice and to really look, look inside the industry and say, what is missing that I'm.
[00:04:19] Perfectly suited to try to tackle to focus on and what I realized is the regulatory issues just were mushrooming. They were, they were blowing up. They were, you know, finding small towns, big towns, urban environments in the U S where I am international all over the world. These regulatory issues were coming up.
[00:04:41] And because I'd been talking about noise, nuisance, party houses, and community relations, I realized I knew. A lot more than the average person. And the key, the key to our future laid in how we, as a community, we, uh, us are as an industry, get organized, get involved, get into advocacy, show up to these conversations professionally.
[00:05:04] In an organized way, and so rent responsibly where I'm the CEO and co-founder now is the community building and education platform for our industry, and we help local communities, local alliances, local associations.
About the virtual events
[00:05:20] Mark: Can you just talk about the virtual events that you host annually and why you do 'em and sort of the, the, the, the, the things that you get on the back end of, of, of doing these.
[00:05:28] David: Sure, and thank you for attending that virtual event. Mark. Uh, we, we welcome 1 and all. So, as a community building and education underscoring the education piece, we do national events, uh, and international on that. In that case, uh, events where we focus oftentimes on a value that we have internally. So sometimes it's community, sometimes it's sustainability, things of that nature.
[00:05:57] And we dive deep. We get all the, uh, brightest minds on the subject into a good run of show. Sometimes there are single webinars on one particular issue, like a safety issue or something of that nature. And then sometimes we have our, our summits, which, uh, last year we did two of them and we'll have two days of virtue.
[00:06:21] It's a virtual conference. Uh, so we'll talk about everything short-term rentals, but also how to build sustainable organizations, how to avoid burnout, how to, um, you know, take care of employees and, and all sorts of stuff that we as, uh, entrepreneurs. You know, we need to find the information, but we also need it for our industry.
The most common mistake hosts make
[00:06:44] Mark: Some so many people come into your world. Um, whether it's online or you meet in, in person, what would you say is one of the most common, um, mistakes that you see most hosts make when, when they're coming into, into this industry. So they're coming to speak to you and say, David, when you see an event, when you see one of the most common mistakes that they're all making, especially when it comes to what we're talking about here, which is like renting responsibly, regulations, et cetera.
[00:07:13] David: That's a great question. The first thing that comes to mind is that folks don't know how powerful they are and how powerful their voice is at the local level. What I say is you are already an expert in short-term rentals. If you have been a host, you're already an expert in short-term rentals and you have the.
[00:07:40] voice to share that if you are local somewhere and everybody is local somewhere and everybody, if you're listening to this podcast, generally speaking. You've been a host. Therefore you are overqualified to be an advocate or to be involved in the broader conversation. And it doesn't have to be in city hall.
[00:08:01] There are many ways to get involved and we need it as an industry. I hate to be up here saying we need, you need to do this. We all should be doing that. This is not a preachy. Type subject is a community conversation is what kind, how do you show up to our community? How do you show up and contribute to any community mark?
[00:08:21] I know you have a massive and thriving community. It's, you know, you got to encourage people to show up and bring their story and bring their expertise. But, in the world of the regulatory conversation, there are 5 ways you can contribute. So there are the 5 Ts, of advocacy. You have your time. You can.
[00:08:43] Contribute time, volunteer, be on a board, things of that nature. You have treasure. You can contribute financially. You have talent. If you're a great marketer, you have a social media following. That's your talent. You can bring that to bear the two. Most people don't know about, which I think are the most important are your ties.
[00:09:02] So your connections into the community, are you a realtor? Are you your neighbours with the city council member, things like that? And the last is your testimony, which is where I started. You can tell your own story. That is a powerful story. Nobody. Knows not only your story, but, you know, when you put your story out there, uh, and tell people about it, it's cool.
[00:09:27] People think what we do is freaking cool. And it's the only way we build respect and we get credibility is by telling our story. We're the people who we're been looking for. We're the people we've been waiting for. It's our time to tell our story and not let other people do that for us. So. In summation, people don't know the power that they have to tell their own story and how powerful that is.
[00:09:52] Mark: And at the end of the day, your network is your net worth. So the more that you can build that in your local area, then the more that it will power you in, in the long run. But especially as well, what I know to be true, especially with the community. is with regulations that are happening all the time, right?
[00:10:12] They're popping up, uh, all over the world at the moment, but the, the, the areas that have given themselves a fighting chance have got a professional, uh, set off, of hosts. Property management companies at a local level can go together, go to their local MP, go to the electorate, like a member of parliament, elected official and showcase that, listen, this Airbnb brush that the media has been tarnishing us, the whole community with is not true.
[00:10:42] We are a group of professional hosts. This is us. This is our network and we provide X, Y, and Z. And this is all of the safe and secure things that we do behind the scenes. And it's, if, if it wasn't those communities. then there would be much more, um, unfair regulation brought in on a mask. So, uh, Mr. David Christ, thank you so much.
[00:11:02] Uh, and everybody thanks a lot for tuning in. This is an episode 712. I believe we said it before. Uh, it's a lot of episodes and a lot of years of doing this free podcast. Every single week, make sure you go and subscribe to Boothly on YouTube. We've just touched just past, sorry, 10, 700 subscribers. So thank you to everybody who's jumped on there.
[00:11:22] And if you're listening on Spotify or Apple or wherever that is, thank you very much. Keep spreading the word. This is one that I need for you to share. So those liking and commenting, as you all do well, this is the one where you hit the share button and go and drop it into a Facebook group, go and drop it into your LinkedIn groups and all of that.
[00:11:39] And just to draw more awareness because it's awareness of amazing education like this. It's gonna help save our industry. So with that being said, thank you so much and we'll be back, uh, any day now with another episode. Cheers. Now having a blast. Going to
[00:11:53] David: get it on the Bruce Lee podcast. Bruce Lee. Let Bruce Lee 'cause it's so hard on the tees.
[00:11:58] Loosely. Looking up those rhymes. Don't write it, just do it loosely.
