Digital Social Hour - How Airbnb Algorithms Actually Work: Insider Tips You Need I Quentin West DSH #471

Starting point is 00:00:00 List like your highlight reel for the first five, because if you notice, if you click on the listing, you only see five photos. You don't want to put like five of the same room there because people get bored. They'll click off. You want it to be organized and visually appealing, but also functional. So like for us, we'll have master bedroom, we'll have living room, we'll have outdoor amenities. We'll have everything categorized. Is that something that Airbnb can pick up on and start marketing to more clients? Wherever you guys are watching this show, I would truly appreciate it if you follow or subscribe. It helps a lot with the algorithm. It helps us get bigger and better guests,

Starting point is 00:00:39 and it helps us grow the team. Truly means a lot. Thank you guys for supporting, and here's the episode all right guys from north carolina someone my height six five quinton west we're gonna learn about airbnb today how's it going my brother good how are you man good how was the flight and it was it was great it was coast to coast right yeah coast to coast north carolina that's always a tough one for me man because i mean you're six five so you can relate those coast to coast oh man if you're not sleeping it's rough yeah it was definitely worth the 35 to upgrade to an exit seat yeah at the minimum i gotta have either exit or aisle yeah for sure for sure man it's a struggle but uh want to learn about your journey so you're doing airbnb now right yes sir how long you've been

Starting point is 00:01:21 doing that a little over four years okay that's that's pretty new. Yeah. And why did you start? Where were you at when you were starting out? Yeah, so kind of taking things a little further back. I dropped out of college. I knew I always wanted to do something non-traditional. Kind of went to school just for my parents, honestly. And then I worked construction for a little while, decided I hated that too. Uh, and so I wanted to go into real estate and I made a terrible decision, bought a house right before I quit my job, uh, went into real estate and I was planning on my commissions to kind of take off. And it didn't really happen like that. About three months in, I couldn't afford my house payment anymore. And so, uh, just by coincidence, I met with a friend right before I was kind of making the decision

Starting point is 00:02:10 on if I wanted to sell the house, let it go to the bank or something else. He was like, yeah, I just inherited a house and I put it on Airbnb and it's making $4,000 a month. It's like, wow, well, that's right down the street from my house. Let me just move back in with mom and dad i'll put this place on airbnb and maybe i can make my payment this month and uh never intended on it to be a business never thought i would profit and the first month i profited a thousand dollars wow second month i profited fifteen hundred dollars i was only making two three grand a month at the time so that was a ton of money to me. And I started looking for ways to buy houses creatively,

Starting point is 00:02:48 like 0% down, subject to all this crazy stuff that you hear online when you're first learning about investing. None of it really seemed attainable. And then I heard somebody talking about arbitrage, where you rent a property and then sublease it on Airbnb. And so I didn't even finish that video. I went straight to Zillow. I found a house exactly like mine. I reached out

Starting point is 00:03:11 to them, started asking if I could sublease it on Airbnb. And within seven days, I was sitting across the table from a guy, signed my first lease, used a credit card and every little penny I could to furnish it off a Facebook marketplace. And then 14 months later, I was cashflow on 14,000 a month. Damn. That's what happened quick. Yeah. So that first house where you subleased, did you have to pay him like a deposit and everything? Yeah. I had to pay first month's rent and deposit. And I had no money. So like, that's the biggest objection uh, objection that I get. I have no money. How do I start? Well, I had $6,000 on a credit card. So I sent myself an invoice from my company through QuickBooks, paid it with the credit card, took out the cash. Uh, and then

Starting point is 00:03:58 I use that for my first month's rent and deposit. Wow. And you were that confident it would work out? Yeah. I mean, I just, I had no other option. I didn't want to continue struggling like I was. I knew that, you know, I had little to nothing to lose. So why not just take the risk? Yeah. So from there, you had two properties. What is it at now? Now we have 40. Damn. 37 are arbitrage. I own three and I coach people all over the world. That's incredible. And you've done that in four years. Yeah, four years. And it's all in North Carolina? All in North Carolina right now. We've had, I bounced around in the past. We had some in

Starting point is 00:04:32 Arizona. We had some in Texas. Ultimately, I made some bad decisions on those markets. They didn't work out well. I invested in the wrong time of the year, but we can make just as much or more in our hometown it was kind of that nostalgia of having a nationwide business right um so now we're back to our roots and it's better than ever yeah sometimes it's good just to be hands-on i feel like with the b&b's because some people spread out and then you hear that they scale too quick but it's good to just yeah that was a problem i mean i it was all a numbers game for me at that point. Like I wanted 100 units and then I realized I could make just as much, if not more, with 50 and not have as much of a headache. Right. Yeah. And you see this Airbnb bust right now going on. So what exactly is that about lot of people. The biggest thing I see is people come in and

Starting point is 00:05:26 they have no idea how to run their numbers. They're investing blindly. In fact, I talked with a guy a couple of days ago and he invested in a market that had six Airbnbs. He was wondering why it wasn't making money. Six in the whole city? Six in the whole city. Wow. There's no traffic. There's no reason why people are coming there, but he spent over $50,000 on down payment furniture to fit this place out. Crazy. So they don't know how to invest. They don't know how to run the numbers. They don't know how to market.

Starting point is 00:05:52 So they don't know how to get guests to their Airbnb listing. They don't know how to get bookings or price. Right. So that's the main issues I see. And it's now become more challenging than ever because there's more people putting properties on Airbnb. So Airbnb is saying, well, if we have all of these hosts, we only want to market the most professional and the best hosts out of this entire pool.

Starting point is 00:06:19 So what are we looking for? We're looking for the best photos. We're looking for listing optimization. We're looking for people that know how to price. And so if you don't know how to do any of that, you're getting put to the back page. Right. When you travel, are you a hotel or Airbnb type of guy? Typically hotel if I'm alone. Okay. One, it's cost. Two, it's convenience. If I'm with family, I would much rather do an Airbnb. Right uh better experience you can all be together you don't have to book multiple rooms but it's kind of hard to beat the wind here dude it's yeah in

Starting point is 00:06:50 vegas it's a no-brainer i think to go to hotels but in sedona i will say we did an airbnb out there in arizona and it had a beautiful view and i actually liked it yeah but usually i am a hotel guy yeah yeah hotel they, especially places like this, everything's so convenient. Yeah, because plus you have the networking aspect too. Yeah, for sure. I was talking to a couple of your guys in the lobby. Exactly, and there's always guys walking past here, man.

Starting point is 00:07:15 Like Mark Cuban walked by the other day. Oh, that's awesome. Yeah, a lot of good people stay at the Wynn. In terms of optimizing people's listings, is that something that costs money? Is it like Amazon where you pay to rank higher? You don't pay to rank. So think about Airbnb's listing optimization,

Starting point is 00:07:36 like how they look at a listing from a funnel standpoint. So you have views at the top. Then you have clicks, engagement, bookings, and reviews. So at each one of those points in that client process, you get a point in the algorithm. So the more views you get, you get more points. But if they don't make it to a click, like where they're viewing your actual listing, then it hurts you because your conversion rate is off. Then if they don't engage, that hurts you even more. So you want to get people to book as much as possible and then ultimately get those reviews. So one thing that we do is one,

Starting point is 00:08:11 put calls to action in the listing description. That gets people to engage and send you inquiries. So it gives you a boost in the algorithm, even if they don't book. Just because Airbnb sees that they're engaging, they're going to push you up in the algorithm interesting then we want to monetize for what's called retention so out of the people that are viewing your listing how many are you retaining versus how many are clicking right back off so how can we structure your photos in a way that attracts potential clients potential guests and then also keeps them looking through your photos and your description and everything else you have to offer. So one thing that we do is one, put a list like your highlight reel for the first five,

Starting point is 00:08:52 because if you notice, if you click on a listing, you only see five photos. You don't want to put like five of the same room there because people get bored. They'll click off. And then for your description, you want it to be organized and visually appealing, but also functional. So what I mean by that is when they click on your description, is it a full paragraph where people are getting overwhelmed and not reading it? Or is it organized where people can find what they want quickly? So like for us, we'll have master bedroom, we'll have living room, we'll have outdoor amenities. We'll have everything categorized so they can find what they want quickly and they'll actually

Starting point is 00:09:28 look through it and read. And then also, is it functional from a search engine optimization standpoint? Like are there keywords in there where Airbnb can pick up off of those? Like say you're five minutes from the beach. Is that something that Airbnb can pick up on and start marketing to more clients? Right. I love that. And you mentioned you have three of your own and 37 arbitrage, right? Yeah. Three I own, 37 are arbitrage. They're still mine. I have an ownership interest since I have the lease, but somebody else does own the property. Got it. Which ones are bringing higher profit margins? You said, um, I would say right now the higher end luxury homes definitely are. Um, you can invest around 20 to 25 K and profit three to 7,000 a month. Wow. So you make it back in four months. Yeah.

Starting point is 00:10:18 Wow. Yeah. So it's a very quick turnaround. That's why like, I think it's the best investment model for anybody starting out. Yeah. I might have to look into this and diversify into this, honestly. That's great. And you could even apply this to a commercial real estate. We've done this with warehouses. So I have a warehouse. It's 45,000 square feet. We invested, I think it was about 8,000 to paint the office and put some new carpet in and uh like upfit the hvac system and we're renting it for 6 000 we're subleasing it for 10 for two years damn so there's no cleaning there's no maintenance it's triple net they pay all the utilities incredible that's

Starting point is 00:10:58 very little headache i mean i didn't make that much money when i first started out nah that's what 4 000 profit a month? 4,000 a month. And it, I mean, probably less than 10 hours a week, 10 hours a year worth of work. Insane. You hear this term thrown around passive income. Yeah. Now when it comes to Airbnb, is that something that makes sense or are you pretty hands-on? So I probably on the 40 units, I probably work five minutes to 20 minutes a day. That's it? That's it. Wow.

Starting point is 00:11:26 But you've got to have a team in place. Right. You can't be a solopreneur trying to handle all your messages and your repairs and your claims and things like that. My team right now, I have a maintenance department. I have a full-time maintenance guy. I have my personal assistant. She handles all the messaging, the complaints, things like that. And then we have eight full-time cleaners and a cleaning manager.

Starting point is 00:11:51 Got it. You can have less if you don't own a cleaning company. I own a cleaning company, so I consider them as part of my team. Right. That must save you a ton of money, the fact that you own the cleaning part. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I was looking at our cleaning costs one time. I don't know how much it is now, but we were spending 15 or 20k a month on cleaning jeez i was like if i just owned the company i could profit at least 25 of this right yeah that's a no-brainer i mean i pay my cleaners god damn it keeps going up it's like 500 every two weeks so that's yeah a thousand a month just for my house yeah exactly which is crazy exactly cleaning costs is it'll definitely kill you in this business if you don't watch it uh also the

Starting point is 00:12:31 quality it's got to be there i had a couple come on a couple weeks ago hardstock family they own a cleaning company they're doing 1.5 mil a year yeah i believe it crazy especially commercial cleaning you can break into that industry i mean you, you're talking like, I think I was looking at 85 cents per square foot is what you can charge just to clean the floors. So imagine if you're cleaning the wind, you're making millions a month. Yeah, exactly. This place is huge. I get lost in this hotel. If you go on that way, there's a whole conference center and golf course.

Starting point is 00:13:01 I haven't even been there yet. Yeah, that's what I mean, man. It's crazy. So you said you want to scale to 50 and you're comfortable at 50 yeah so right now we're looking at hotels so that's like the next natural progression i feel like uh is boutique hotels basically taking a motel or a hotel that's been there for 50 years uh going in and remodeling it and turning them into individual units that you can rent on airbnb interesting yeah and kind of creating a whole experience around it so right so kind of like how the wind has you know the ipads and everything to turn on the lights yeah like that really higher end niche stuff putting that into a hotel and wrapping a

Starting point is 00:13:42 theme around it uh that's super popular right now. And you're making a ton of money just because the value is different. So like on a single family asset, the value of the property is based on the market value, like the comps in the area. On a commercial asset, like a hotel. Are you interested in coming on the Digital Social Hour podcast as a guest? We'll click the application link below in the description of this video. We are always looking for cool stories, cool entrepreneurs to talk to you about business and life. Click the application link below and here's the episode, guys. It's based on the net operating income. So if you increase your net revenue each year, you're automatically adding potentially hundreds of thousands, if not millions of dollars in equity

Starting point is 00:14:25 to that property. Right. Yeah. The hotel industry always fascinated me because if you think about even just the wind, it's 300 a night and they have God knows how many rooms. Oh yeah. They're literally printing money and you only get like what, 300 square feet? Yeah. I think, I think mine's 750 or something. Well, the point is it's's very the dollar per square foot ratio like you said it's pretty pretty absurd absolutely and it's just for one room i mean most of them don't even have a kitchen or anything yeah not to mention all the upsells they hit you with oh yeah eight dollars for a fiji water it's like 15 bucks for resort out here in vegas they actually make more off the gambling than the room i heard so that's, definitely. Yeah, when I was looking to book, I booked this place because of convenience,

Starting point is 00:15:08 but there were rooms like $7 a night. What? Yeah, $7 a night. Really? I guess they pick up on the gambling for people coming in. Wow. I don't know if that was a glitch or something. I think the original price was like $125, and it was cut down to $7.

Starting point is 00:15:24 For the wind? No, not for the win. For a different hotel. Oh, I thought you meant the win. I was comparing all the hotels in the area because I didn't know where you guys were located first. That was probably like Luxor, Circus Circus. I don't remember what it was. I was like, wow, I've never seen a price like that.

Starting point is 00:15:38 There's some old ones from the 60s and 70s. I know Circus Circus is like $20. Luxor, where Grant cardone had 10x the first year was like 20 bucks yeah and uh yeah that was my first time in vegas and that was quite the experience have you been to a 10x growth con no i've never been really no any real estate conferences um i've been to uh well mark evans event dm live is not really a real estate okay it's more of a business and private equity event. But I would say that's the closest thing I've been to.

Starting point is 00:16:09 Got it. As far as like a big conference. I've been to mastermind events and like mansion masterminds. Yeah, I'm a fan of those. But nothing really big. Yeah, I feel like masterminds are more valuable than conferences, to be honest. Yeah, absolutely. That's why we started holding them.

Starting point is 00:16:21 So we had our first one end end of november last year our next one's gonna be in june in north carolina no uh well this one this past one was in ashville the next one's gonna be in destin florida nice how's the entrepreneur scene where you're at in north carolina is it pretty prominent honestly not really i mean i live in a town of 25 000 people that's it yeah damn so growing up you know if you made six figures you're rich yeah big deal yes i mean i never really i knew i want to do something bigger than those people but i didn't really understand how available money was right like how much you could actually make if you became more valuable so that was like once I took a step out and started traveling to places

Starting point is 00:17:05 like this and, you know, getting in rooms with bigger players, it kind of blew my mind because at first, you know, cause I was like 23 when I stepped out. Um, and you know, I was making at least a half million a year at the time. Wow. And so I thought I was doing big stuff. Yeah. And that's a lot of 23 yeah yeah definitely but i was sitting next to a guy that was like 25 two years older than me he was doing 10 million was he's drop shipping no he's syndicating real estate so he at the time he's building out a hangar with uh airbnb on top of it wow just nuts but uh yeah you you realize how much of a small fish you are when when you get out into bigger areas like vegas and absolutely miami and places like that similar story to me i grew up in

Starting point is 00:17:50 in jersey town called bridgewater okay and not as small as 25 but it was all basically nine to fivers yeah very few entrepreneurs yep so growing up i kind of struggled fitting in and had big goals and yeah went to my first mastermind i was making like 100k a year you know at 21 thought i was killing it um because everyone in college was broke oh yeah so making 100k was like you're the man and dude absolutely i was the brokest kid by far in that mastermind it wasn't even close everyone there was making millions a year yeah dude it's nuts it's nuts and you know it's easy to lose friends because people don't like leveling up right uh you know a lot of people from my hometown people that i was really close with

Starting point is 00:18:31 you know they just they don't they don't see the the forest through the trees you know they're working that nine to five they they're they think because they're working hard that they're doing all they can but they really need to educate themselves and they'll see the possibility that's available. That's the reason why I started coaching, because I love helping people see the opportunity and what's possible. Some people never leave their town, man. It's a shame, honestly, because traveling is one of my favorite things to do, just experiencing new cultures and cuisines. And yeah, once I started traveling more, it really opened up my perspective i recommend everyone travel as much as they can yeah absolutely yeah i just got back from cabo with

Starting point is 00:19:10 andy elliott oh nice muscle that was that was fun that looked like a good that was a mastermind right yeah yeah kind of a mansion mastermind there was there's probably 20 people there nice uh but uh probably the most high-end event people wise that I've ever been to. Yeah. And, uh, it's, I'm already seeing a return on it from things that, from changes that I've made in my business or ways I was thinking before where like, you know, sometimes when you're in the, the hustle and, and, you know, running through your, your daily, daily um schedule and the way you operate you don't see areas where you could really monetize what you're doing but um and so just having some conversations with some of those guys it's like dang like why am i operating this way exactly

Starting point is 00:19:57 yeah because we have so many limiting beliefs that we don't even know about because we were programmed and we just got used to it oh yeah and the only way to kind of escape that is to get around different perspectives. And you want those perspectives to be guys killing it, you know, doing way better than you. Those guys are doing nine figures a year. I've had them on the podcast and just having them chat with me for an hour has changed my life as well. And you got to experience two, three days with them and you made that investment. It was probably a big investment, but most people aren't willing to invest like that. Oh yeah, man. I mean, it was 20K. When I first started this, thinking about spending $20,000 on an event, I mean, the event was 15, but all in all 20K. The flight. But yeah, but thinking about when I first started investing that much into just a trip, i would have told you i was crazy i mean 20k is a lot of money oh yeah no

Starting point is 00:20:49 matter who you are you know that's just not you know throwing money away but uh you know i would say i've already made a quarter of it back and it hasn't even been a month yet and not only that you can text them whenever you want now and just having them in your rolodex there'll be future opportunities in future years where you'll be able to make you know 100k just from texting them yeah exactly you know i was having this same conversation with somebody that was at the meetup and they they were kind of not so optimistic about what they would learn and you know my response was dude if you don't learn anything else it's the relationship and the fact that you invested in these people right that's the most valuable thing you will get out

Starting point is 00:21:30 of this absolutely because when you see them in the future or if you ever need something they will be there because you invested in them you're not just a freeloader that's trying to give free advice exactly and now you'll be backstage at limitless in april i was there last year and it changed my my life dude i mean i got ty lopez on the show because of that i got andy elliott i got so many guests that's all it all just snowballed into this what it is now yeah and it's all because of that event yeah i remember seeing your pictures from that yeah just access man just having access is huge because think about it they have thousands of people hitting them up yeah so to be able to be there with them physically is very hard to do yeah definitely and and for anybody listening like it's important in in those interactions to actually provide value like that's that's the

Starting point is 00:22:15 thing you you provide a value you have an audience like there's a genuine relationship there uh i think a lot of people approach those situations just trying to figure out what they can take. Yeah. So one of, one of Keaton's biggest, um, lessons to us at that event was creating non-transactional relationships. So figuring out how you can give, give, give, give, give without asking for anything in return. Yeah. And you know, I feel like I've always been on the closer side of that, but not to the extreme that he was talking about. And since I put just that in place, since I've gotten back, I've gotten several opportunities that I probably wouldn't have before. Because when you first start out and the way that we're born and raised, everything's transactional.

Starting point is 00:23:07 It's, okay, Sean, I'm going to be on your show or do this. What are you going to do for me? Exactly. It's never, okay, what can I do for you? Let me go above and beyond, and then whatever happens, happens. If you decide to offer me an opportunity in the future, great. If not, great. Yeah, I love that and i

Starting point is 00:23:26 witnessed it firsthand from keaton actually so after he came on the podcast he's like hey man look through my instagram anyone you see me with in a photo uh let me know and i'll get them on your show that's awesome so i do that i sent him a list of eight huge names like cody sanchez russell brunson tony robbins like the biggest names you could think of. He puts me in a group chat with every single person individually. That's awesome. Within 24 hours. So he just operates so efficiently and he didn't need to do that. You know what I mean? No, absolutely not. But the fact that he did that now, now I feel like I owe him. Yeah, exactly. And that's what it's all about. And I think that's why he's so successful. And he's gone super viral on my show talking about about did you see that clip where he bought the land before he bought the house yeah i mean that

Starting point is 00:24:09 mindset is crazy yeah you gotta he didn't care about the permits or anything like that he lived on an rv trailer for nine months yeah before building his 10 million dollar house and have you seen his house yeah dude it's nuts yeah it's it's crazy it is crazy but i mean even like their decision making like that's another thing you got to pick up uh if you want to be successful you gotta make decisions fast yep and uh you know i feel like i've always made decisions fast but they're another level yeah you know we were i was talking to andy uh we were walking up from a beach workout it's like have you guys thought about buying a house up here because it was rob and dana bailey's house that we had the event at he's like yeah we just bought one yesterday oh man i'm like that that's nuts those are probably million dollar houses out there

Starting point is 00:24:56 yeah and you can't finance them oh you can't you gotta pay cash really because it's in mexico yeah oh yeah because the banks aren't out and you can't the property. You have to have like a 50-year lease. Whoa. So not only do you have to pay cash, but you can't own them. Well, that market's booming, so that'll probably be a good investment for them. Oh, yeah. Yeah, it definitely will be.

Starting point is 00:25:15 Where's been your favorite places to travel? Honestly, Cabo's on the top of that list. Okay. I got to get out there. Yeah, it's great. I've been to Bora Bora, Italy. I mean, those are... Italy's on the list, too. Italy's great. I've been to Bora Bora, Italy. I mean, those are. Italy's on the list too.

Starting point is 00:25:26 Italy's great. I mean, if you can go to Rome and see the Colosseum, that was great. Get some more rest. But I was so jet lagged. Oh, yeah. Yeah, I was like falling asleep walking down the stairs. It was just a huge time. I think it's nine hours time difference.

Starting point is 00:25:42 Oh, wow. Don't quote me on that. But I was sleepwalking through it. But it was still an amazing experience. Yeah. So you're planning on staying in NC for a while? Yeah, I'll always be in NC. I mean, we live on a 100-acre farm.

Starting point is 00:25:56 Damn. We've got a spot. I never want to move away from that. So no neighbors. Don't have to worry about walking out naked. My girl wants to live on a farm one one day yeah yeah it's it's great we might have to raise a family we're gonna have to look into nc we were looking into pa i'm not a fan of the cold though dude yeah does it get cold in nc it's pretty cold right now okay and down to like 14 lately oh yeah i don't know if i could do it yeah i like snow but yeah i mean we don't get a we don't

Starting point is 00:26:27 get a ton of snow i mean maybe one big day a year um and then the past couple years we haven't even gotten that it's like it'll snow overnight and then it'll melt by the next evening interesting so we don't get a ton that's what you want you don't want to up your driving you know what i mean yeah i mean i like i like one good snow a year where you know you can go out and play around in the snow and drive yeah but uh once it like becomes that nasty mushy snow where it's all like black and like i don't i don't like that kind of snow yeah i'm over i'm over it by that time um do you use any other apps other than airbnb or is that the main ones uh airbnb and vrbo and then we're looking towards google now so google travel um i feel like they're not trying

Starting point is 00:27:12 to step on any toes because they get paid a lot from the other platforms um but they have a great opportunity to completely disrupt the industry i didn't even know they had to travel. Yeah. They, they keep it low key because I think they want to get enough backing behind it before they go live. And like the downside is, you know, much lower than the upside. They can basically flip a switch and start making money immediately. Right. Um, but yeah, I mean, we're looking into that. It's, it's been great so far, Much better than Booking.com. If you focus on those two platforms, you should be able to fill your calendar. If you implement StayFi, it's like a Wi-Fi plugin.

Starting point is 00:27:57 When people log into your Wi-Fi, you get their email info. Then you can drip email campaign to them. That way you get off-site bookings. If you implement those things, you should have get offsite bookings. So if you implement those things, like you should have no problems getting bookings. If so, then you probably need to optimize your listing. You need to look at your pricing. If that doesn't fix it, then you may just be in a bad market. Yeah. That's super smart, man. Well, it's been a pleasure. Where can people find you and learn more about your Airbnb stuff? Yeah. So QDealsHomes on everything. The best place to reach out to me is definitely Instagram.

Starting point is 00:28:30 But if you're starting out in Airbnb or if you have properties already that you want help optimizing and continuing to scale, I'm definitely the guy to talk to. Love it. Thanks for coming on, Quinton. Thanks for watching, guys, as always. And I'll see you tomorrow.

Digital Social Hour - How Airbnb Algorithms Actually Work: Insider Tips You Need I Quentin West DSH #471

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