With any rental property, you are looking to fulfill a need in the community by providing a service. Once you’ve determined the target audience of the property, you must determine what you intend to accomplish with this property. What will your goal be?
If you’ve read up on a lot of goal setting practices, you’ve probably heard that your goals should be SMART. Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-bound. This is always a great practice to follow, but deciding on the goal of your entire STR property can prove difficult to measure. As with any advice, take the parts that are useful to you and implement in a way that works for you. For me, having a specific goal was the most important aspect.
Your goal should be a clear, concise summation of your end product. A goal should not use superfluous language that distracts or confuses. There should be two, at most three, objectives within any goal. Any more and you open yourself up to losing focus of what you actually want to accomplish. By having so few objectives, you can easily ask your self “Does this furniture/amenity/layout serve my objectives?” and quickly affirm or deny.
Cleanliness is the foundation of any short term rental. High levels of cleanliness are expected and spotlessness is the norm. Airbnb has pushed out sub-par properties, even if they were priced appropriately, in favor of a higher end properties in an attempt to standardize its product. This has led the average consumer to have extremely high expectations when it comes to the cleanliness of properties. Most any other “issues” with a property can be overlooked as long as it is clean. With this in mind, clean is the most important part of every property’s goal. So much so, that I will sacrifice style for ease of cleaning. (Ex: glass top tables attract fingerprints and must be cleaned with anti-streak cleaner until they are perfectly clean while any other hard top surface can simply be sanitized. They take longer to clean and require special products, so I will not put glass top tables in my STRs) Every property should have clean as one of its goals.
Example Goal: The goal of this property is a comfortable and clean space that is ready to open in 3 months.
While looking for bunk beds for the guest bedroom, there were many options available. Each time I looked at a piece, I would ask myself, “Is this bunk bed comfortable and clean?”
Is it easy to get in and out of (comfortable)
Is it easy to make the beds (clean)
Is it made of a material and in a style that is easy to wipe down (clean)
Can it sleep the number of people intended (comfortable)
Will it fit in the space (comfortable)
Is the style more casual (comfortable)
Many beds would have fit, but quite a few had detailing around the sides that would have been difficult to clean. We ended up going with a more rustic, all-wood bunk bed that was easy to wipe down, fit well in the space, and comfortably fit two people. By having a clear and concise goal, I was able to easily decide which bunk bed worked best for this property.
This property was set up to host a maximum of 6 people, so we had to ensure the living room and dining room would comfortably seat 6 people. Since comfort was an objective, we invested money in buying new comfortable mattresses and saved money by buying the kitchen table second hand that was basic but easy to clean. Each decision was driven by the goal.
When you have a budget and have to decide where to invest money, let the goal guide you. When you’re overwhelmed by the choices, let the goal guide you. When you’re worried about having a cohesive end product, the goal will tie everything together.
As with any project, having a clear and concise goal helps you to stay focused and accomplish that goal. Remember to limits your objectives of the goal to no more than three. Allow the goal to be the guiding factor behind your decisions. And remember, take this with a grain of salt and do what works best for you.
Little Beach Hosting 
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