Hello. Welcome back to another great episode. My name is Sarah Karakaian.

I'm Annette Grant, and together we are. Thanks for Visiting.

Let's start this episode like we do each and every week. Featuring one of you are incredible listeners who is sharing your property over at strshare.com so we can celebrate you with all of the other TFE listeners. Annette, who are we sharing this week?

This week we are sharing thehohnstead, and that is T-H-E-H-O-H-N-S-T-E-A-D. Run. Don't walk to look at their Instagram, and then I want you to go directly to their direct bookings site, thehohnstead.com. This couple has been hosting for over 10 years. They built their glamping site themselves and they are absolutely crushing it. They have five cabins. They have group retreats. They have workshops on their property, please go check them out, see what they've done. If you have any, like any dream inside of you that you wanna make happen, they will be inspiration for you. And this is about what your dream is in your short term rental business, maybe you wanna be in the mountains, maybe you wanna be in the beach, maybe you wanna be in city center, whatever that might be. They are just proof that if you put in the hard, hard work, the blood, sweat, and tears, which I'm sure they have into this property. You can have the short term rental business of your dreams, and so I really want you to check them out for inspiration. Uh, go ahead and like all their photos, go ahead and book something there in Missoula, Montana. I want you to take a look also at the amazing location they chose a very smart close to airport, close to a, um, an amphitheater close to a city, but far enough away. I think that was really well done. The last thing I want you to check out when you are on their website, they have a little more than a minute video about themselves and their property. To me it was this, a commercial, if you will, that makes you want to stop, look at your calendar and book a trip to go see them. So please check them out. Uh, we. Would just love if they could get some, um, some likes, some love, some dms and just let, letting them know that they are inspiration. They're have just crushed it, knocked it outta the park. And I have to share, Sarah and I are working on our land project right now.

They offered so much inspiration.

So much inspiration. So, um, please, when we give, when we do these STR shares, that's why we're doing this. We are sharing it so you guys can get inspired, um, by each and every host that we share.

Let's move on to today's episode. And I love being ahead of the game. I love being prepared. I love the feeling of calm whenever I can harness it, and that is what today's episode is all about. Is all of you thinking a little bit ahead? So that you can start off 2026 in this place of having everything in order, knowing exactly what you'd like to do and how you'd like to move forward. That doesn't happen by you sitting down in December and preparing for January. That happens by you sitting down right now. Let this episode be the catalyst of you scheduling time on your calendar and tackle the five end of year tasks. They're a little bit bigger than a task, but. Five end of year considerations so that you can start off 2026. That much more prepared, that much more organized, and with a plan plus it'll make closing down 2025. Also not stressful, not biting you in the butt because you're like, I wish I would've known this when I still had time to make some changes so I could have hit some financial goals. Now is the time to do it, and that is what today's episode is all about. Let's get to it. Here we're gonna, we're gonna start off with the one that I think. Stops most hosts from moving forward, which is you have to review your revenue. How did you do so far this year? Now we're talking to you in, you know, beginning of or middle of Q3, end of Q3 in this video right now. And so. How did Q1 go? How did Q2 go? And if you didn't get that information.

You should already know this.

You should already know it.

But it's not too late.

Start right now. And if you can start doing that back work. And here's what, here's what I like to do. I like to chunk it into the quarters. So how did Q1 go? So January, February, and March for each property. And it's, it's, it is easy information to get if you have it readily accessible. So what was our average daily rate for that property in that month? What was our occupancy rate for that property in that month? And then we love getting Rev Pan. Rev Pan is occupancy times a DR. That is a great metric because it's not just about what you price your property at. It's not just about the occupancy rate, right? Because you could have high occupancy, but really low average daily rate, and that number can be significantly lower than if you have lower occupancy and a higher average daily rate. So Rev Pan combines those two numbers and really shows us how a property is performing overall. And so if you can get that for each month. And then for the rest of the year, set yourself up to make sure you're setting up some dates for yourself to review your revenue. This is gonna help you understand what is your best performer, what is your worst performer, right? And you can set goals for 2026 and some goals you have for 2026. You have to start thinking about now.

Absolutely. And these, we want you to set, and I'm a dreamer, everybody, listen, I, I set impossible goals, but when it comes to short term rentals, when it comes to having only 365 days of revenue, we have to set realistic goals. We cannot be guessing here.

And the, and we'll go, I'm gonna share an example with you, with one of our properties in just a moment. But why is this important to do now? And not at the end, at the end of the year is because for us, for example, our really slow and challenging season is January, February and March. Now we teach Annette that we'd rather you focus and put a lot of more energy in your high season. Get money while it's, while it's plentiful.

The demand is there, right.

But that doesn't mean that we don't try creative things each year. To improve on our slow season, but if we wanna hit January head on with something creative and different and new, or at least better than last year, we have to start planning for that now. So we can put into motion November in December and then get moving with that, with that strategy in January 'cause December, it's probably too late. People who were looking at booking have already booked, right? Like there's, there's, there's no market to capture. So we got a quick example for you.

So, for example, Sarah and I own multiple properties together, but the specific home town home we were reviewing, um, was really exciting. We were with our team, we have a revenue manager on our team. If you don't have one, you are your revenue manager. So we were comparing, uh, the years side by. And we were looking at our peak seasons and our peak months and our ADR had increased.

Woohoo!

Which made sense because we knew we were pushing rate during busy times. And if you have not pushed rates against AKA raising your rate. You need to, you should be, you should challenge yourself to push your rate during those peak seasons.

But when we looked at the slower season dates, our average daily rate was significantly higher in the market.

We were testing to see 'cause we had been pushing it.

Yeah. We wanted to see where the ceiling was and sometimes, in any business, everyone, you test things to see how far you can push it. And you might fall flat on some experiments, but if you don't try it, you'll never know what that ceiling is. So we regret nothing. But what it did tell us is that we were pushing too hard on price when demand wasn't there.

Mm-hmm. So we had to adjust our strategy to be more competitive during those shoulder dates.

But knowing and comparing year over year. With enough time to think about what can I do differently? And for us, we implemented a midterm rental strategy. So we had to get, we had to start preparing for that midterm rental strategy in October. In like get it going in November. Really try to lock down that tenant in December so they can move in January. And if we do our work well they stay for the three months that are really slow for us, so we can get geared back up for a high season. But all that takes prep work thought and time.

And we are here to eradicate hosts saying, I panicked and lowered my price. We want, we are here to just eradicate panic pricing and that's what this sit down looking at, your numbers will take care of. Up next, you're gonna meet with your financial team. You've already had that internal meeting with yourself, your numbers, and maybe your internal team. But now it is time to schedule with your accountant, your tax preparer, anyone that helps you with, uh, your tax preparation. You wanna do that now before the 1099 season chaos, before all the last minuters wanna start putting there. Their priorities in front of yours. We wanna make sure that you have that time scheduled because we need to review your write-offs. All right? We need to look, we know you're reinvesting in your property, so we wanna look at that CapEx timing, though. CapEx expenses, and are those capital expenditures? Could they be eligible for tax benefits? We wanna make sure that those are getting taken care of ahead of time.

We were just talking to an expert bookkeeper and he was saying that if we are categorizing our, uh, maintenance and our supplies incorrectly. And if we're not having someone who's educated with the tax code, look at the way you're categorizing. You could be leaving money on the table. So for me, I'll give you a little tip. Every May I meet with my CPA, my accountant, and every October. In May, it's mostly can you take a look at my bookkeeping? Am I doing everything correctly? Because he can go, he, he like just know, like he can look at my chart of accounts and say like, this loan is off and you probably put the interest the wrong place here. Like he just can gimme a quick.

First of all, he just doesn't know. He's a professional should.

You're right, I'm paying him to know.

And that's a key here. What I think, this is one thing that people get wrong, Sarah said she meets and I do too. We have the same tax professional May in October. Listen, we pay for their time.

Yeah.

We see a lot of people that don't wanna invest in that. They only wanna invest in the tax return filing. Listen, you need to pay for that extra time. They're gonna comb through, they're gonna take that with you. So let's, let's get out of that just one time a year meeting with them for the returns. This is where you're gonna get a huge return on your investment is meeting more often and being able to take the time when you're not under that tax deadline.

Right. And one, one quick tip before we leave this section of meeting with your financial team is going over the write-offs and the, and making sure your capital expenditures are properly categorized. It's also prepping for your 1099s if in the United States, right? So independent contractors who you have to issue, um, a 1099 to the time to do that and to get their. Information. Yeah. Or their social security number and their address it, the time is not January. Well, the time is when you hire them or.

Correct. But that doesn't always happen.

But if you are, if you happen to be in your slower season right now, right in the, in the early fall time, then that is a time like, shoot, I, I did pay that painter more than 600 bucks. Mm-hmm. I don't have a W-9 for her, because technically as a business owner, which you all are. You owe them their 1099 before the end of January. And so if you gotta chase 'em down, email 'em, call. And they're not calling you back. Yeah, because they're busy too. Trying to get organized. Now's the time. So go through your vendors, who you hired. If you're not in the United States, if you have something similar. If you're not sure, find out because now's the time to do it.

Now we're gonna audit our systems and our tech stack. All right, so busy season is the ultimate stress test for your tech stack. For your tools.

What is the tech stack? Let's just give an example.

Um, any sort of technology that you use.

Okay.

Someone that could be free, let's say like Gmail, but if you use Google Workspace. That would be paid for, let's say you use any sort of task management, Asana is what we use, and you could have free version, paid version. Uh, we use breezeway. Hostly. We could go on and on with all the tech tools.

All the tech. The tech is fun. Sometimes we're like, oh, that'll solve my problem and just bring that in.

However, this is a time, and we do this we sit down, we, and we list all of them. Okay. You've gotta know what helped me, what caused me stress. And quite honestly, what did I just not use at all? So here's how we're gonna run that simple tech audit.

All right, like Annette said, let us list all of your tools. All right. And a great way to do this is yes, you can go off of memory. I also have a folder on my iPhone that I have all of my short-term rental business tech in. If there's an app for it. You can also go onto your credit card, your bank account, and scroll. Like I would scroll at least three months 'cause if something charges you quarterly or there are things that charge you every six months too.

The annual ones really get you.

The annual thing ones they do get you.

Annual ones, get you.

But don't like, don't go solely off of memory. Because I've had that where I'm like, all right, I do pay for that every six months. List them all down. Channel managers like, uh. Well, there are some, there are some channel managers, and they may not apply to you, but where you pay for them to be a part of, you know, Airbnb, they take a cut. There's other ones that you might, for example, Furnished Finder. You have to pay a fee to be on their platform, which is great 'cause then they don't take a cut of it when you get a stay. Pricing software, guest messaging apps, accounting tools, I could go on and on. Then we're gonna review the pricing of each piece of software, like we just said, is it annual? Is it monthly? And then we're gonna score them, which one actually saved time? Which ones felt clunky or created duplicate work, or just, I can't get myself to get in there and use the thing. Right? That we all have that tech that we thought was gonna be the banger and like take our business that next level. And you can ask yourself like, do these tools talk to each other? Or am I so copy and pasting between platforms? Or maybe the question is, Hey, I really love this. And, uh, I've been a user of it for a long time. I'm gonna reach out to a sales rep and see if there's a better deal for me. We assume that the price that we've always been paying is the price that we always have to pay, and that's not always the case. Sometimes these tech companies, especially if you've been around for a while, they have better deals going on. They don't wanna lose you as a customer.

Negotiate.

Say, Hey, I'm considering this other PMS over here, but if you can gimme a sweet deal, I'll consider staying. It's worth it, especially for the ones that have a higher price tag.

Mm-hmm.

But as you have these listed, you have the pricing when they get, and honestly, if you can create a spreadsheet for yourself and just keep this somewhere in like your Google Drive folder so you can refer to it. And when you sign up for New Tech, add it. When you decide to cancel it, remove it that way. You always have it there. You can decide to keep it, maybe upgrade it, or if you just don't have the time to learn how to use it and it's really not gonna impact your hosting business. Just get rid of it.

Cut it out.

Okay. Property care and guest experience audit. Right. Have you scheduled?

Yes. You said audit, so loving.

Yeah.

I love it.

It is so cathartic to just,

deep clean the grout.

Yes.

I'm actually here for you on deep cleaning the grout.

Yes.

With the steamer.

Yes.

Ooh, the steamer gets it.

I love it. I'll steam the mattress like let's.

I'll steam the curtains.

Go, or, well, actually, you know what I got from you. Our exterior light fixtures have never been more clean than when Annette gets her mom,

Yeah.

To clean them. I'm like, look, I looked at it in awe. I was like, I have never had an, that looks out of the box, and I'm sure it was hung in 1944.

Mm-hmm.

It's a cute light. It's, it's a cute light, but like, she's old. Yeah. Um, at our, one of our town homes and,

do I need steam cleaned? Because I'm, I wanna be cute and old.

My gosh. Alright anyway, schedule your deep cleans post busy season. So, okay. Let's say fall is not your post busy season. Actually for us, we have a little bit of a lull in August, but then in September,

yeah, that's our busy season.

We pick up 'cause we have college football. So, but regardless, the point is, remains the same. Find the times when you have not as many guests coming in and out and make sure you're being proactive in scheduling, uh, deep cleans. I want you to audit your supplies and inventory. Actually, I was just doing a turnover for one of our midterm rentals and I noticed I really love the plastic soap bottles for the showers. It's, um, it's got this amber color to it. It's so, it looks really sleek, but it's not.

They're plastic and safe.

Yeah, right. It's not gonna fall and break in the shower, but unfortunately the, like the white labeling is coming off of it, like the print. I

need a new one.

So because, and some people may not care about that, but I just want my, I don't want my guests to feel that it's, the bottle has been old and worn and touched by so many other guests prior to them. So for me, it's a great time to get in there and just refresh all the things. So walk that property like a guest, what looks worn down, what needs refreshing, and you don't have to do it. All in one go. I'm not saying to like, take a big chunk of any of your, uh, savings that you've put aside for reinvesting in your property, but make a list, prioritize them. And then as you can implement them so that the property always feels fresh and doesn't feel like you're sleeping at the wheel.

Yeah. And mean this is a time to really check every safety element of your home too. So the property care, this is the time and it really is, it's rewarding. It's. So let's be honest, after you've done that property care inspection, all of the deep cleans, it's most likely you're gonna find some lar- you're gonna uncover some larger maintenance projects that need to be done before spring, summer, your peak season, or you know, depending when that is. And these might be replacing flooring, probably repainting, and maybe it's just an, smaller areas, but maybe there's a bathroom update that needs to be done, some outdoor, maybe your deck needs, uh, fixed, if you know what I'm saying. But here's the deal, you want to schedule these upgrades strategically. You don't wanna be losing money during your peak season. So if you know it's time, let's just get it done so it's not impacting. A guest and you wanna plan that CapEx, this is the time again, let's talk to your tax accountant. Maybe it makes sense to get it in this year. Or maybe they're like, no, let's wait till the beginning of next year. So you can be strategic about these expenses.

And that's going back to meeting with your tax professional. Mm-hmm. In, you know, October or a few months, a couple months before the end of the year.

Right. This, all this weaves together for sure.

It all weaves together, and it's really such a lovely time to do it because you all know the end of the year, for most of us, there are a lot of holidays or at least everyone else's holiday, so your schedule's impacted. Regardless. This is just the perfect time to get reorganized in your hosting business. So that you can step into next year that much more leveled up as a professional host.

Yeah, and here's what happens. What starts to, the amazing part about this, this just starts to become part of your process and your systems every year. So the first time you do these things, it might feel like a heavy lift, but it just gets. Lighter and lighter 'cause we're taking notes. We're making lists for creating checklists here. And it just becomes a really natural rhythm for your business. So that's what happens. The hosts who win year after year after year are the ones that plan now and then continue to execute.

All right, Annette, I'm, I'm, when do you wanna, when do you wanna sit down and do this? You wanna do that?

Yeah. Let's calendar it. Let's get it done.

Yes. Because preparing now and feeling that sense of being ahead And organized just feels so good.

And I am a firm believer because we've seen it in our own business. The more you plan. The more profitability. So planning equals profitability.

It does, mapping it out, having a clear pathway, a clear roadmap and hey, you're gonna go off the beaten path a little bit. You might take a pivot, but that is usually done, you and I do that now with purpose.

Mm-hmm.

Like, Hey, here was the plan for this year. We believe that this pivot is worth it. And so I wanna give everyone permission here. We want you to create this plan, but if you pivot. For it to be done with intentionality and purpose and knowing that, hey, this is the risk that I wanna take in my business. I know that if I follow the plan I made, I'll get to where I wanna go, but what if I did take a left turn? But taking that left turn with some data and stats and intentionality, and I think that's gonna set you apart from the rest of the hosts out there. With that, I am Sarah Karakaian.

I'm Annette Grant, and together we are. Thanks for Visiting.

Talk to you next time.