If you rent out a property for short term lets, you’re in good company. Popular rental company Airbnb currently holds over 181000 properties in 191 countries, and is growing at an astounding rate. Lots of people want a piece of this rapidly growing pie. A short term rental can earn at least a bit of extra money per month, and at most, provide enough income for a family to live very comfortably from, depending on the amount and type of properties rented out.
As fantastic an opportunity as a short-term let is, it isn’t as simple as buying a property and raking the cash in though. It can be but, you’re unlikely to maximise your potential income that way. Instead, you’ll need to prepare your property well for eager visitors looking to hand their hard earned money over for a lovely place to stay. With any luck, if you’ve decorated well, you’ll end up with an all-important positive review when they leave, securing the potential for more business moving forward. The question is, what does decorating well mean when it comes to a short term rental?
The Photos Seal The Deal
When a person is looking to purchase a new property studies show that their top priorities are: minimum maintenance, off-street parking and the location of the property. But your customers aren’t buying your rental, they are staying in it for business or pleasure, and that means that a huge focus of your selling point is on the decor. Your customers already know the location because they searched for a property in that area, and they already searched for the ideal amount of bedrooms and types of amenity. But they haven’t yet requested to rent yet, because there’s that one final hurdle before the booking is secured: the photos.
The images will showcase the property and hopefully lead to the customer making a booking with you. Having beautiful decor ensures that you have plenty of material to showcase to your customers.
Where To Start With Your Rental Decor
When you sell a property, you are advised by most reputable estate agencies to make the decor as neutral as possible. When you rent a property, a really good start is to follow that same neutral format. With colour schemes, stick with pale tones and shades throughout. With materials, stick with neutral types like wood, brick, plain tile and metal. The golden rule is to always use the same shade of material as mismatched types can make the property look less finished. There are any examples of rental properties at Rentola – visit website.
How To Make Your Rental Decor Make An Impact
Once you have the foundations of your decor placed with beautiful neutrals, you can really make the aesthetics stand out. A really good way to do that is to choose an area to ‘feature’. A really good inspiration for this is Instagram which has one billion monthly users. Those users are looking for aesthetically pleasing backgrounds to post and these days, Instagram does factor into the decision making of many customers when it comes to booking accommodation.
A really good example of a ‘grammable feature’ is a beautiful bathroom. Escape To The Chateau on Channel 4 provides a gorgeous example of the kind of bathroom that would make your property stand out. In one of designer Angels suites called the ‘botanical’ suite, she uses rich dark green tiles, an abundance of pot plants and the feature of a gorgeous copper roll-top bath. The image of the room is beautiful, and you can easily recreate that kind of aesthetic yourself. Using high-quality bathroom products like those from www.bathdisc.co.uk and plenty of creativity, you can create a stunning bathroom that people want to enjoy and post about. Other ideas for a decor feature are:
• A living wall
• A beautiful outdoor seated area
• A hot tub
• Statement art
• A bookshelf
• An indoor hammock
• A four poster bed
Do have a browse on Instagram and Pinterest for inspiration. Your feature does not have to be expensive or difficult to create, but it does have to give you a wonderful central focus for your rentals marketing.
Once you have your centrepiece you can then build complementary decor throughout your rental to reflect your initial hard work. Building on the theme or style you chose to work your focal-point around.
“I always put in one controversial item. It makes people talk” – Dorothy Draper, Interior Designer
Cultivating a short-term rental aesthetic that is beautiful is a smart business idea. With a focus on what your guests truly want, and the kind of addition that can make your property truly stand out amongst the competition, you can secure regular bookings and that all-important positive feedback.
