It was straight back into an action packed week after the ski trip, with the highlight definitely being picking up the keys to our new acquisition. More on that in a moment.
By way of a quick summary, here are some of the key challenges and learns for the week along with an explanation to help those facing similar things:
Accounting and financial management
This is in relation to the fact that we are managing all booking revenue for a few different entities through a client account (essentially like a letting agent does), and that client account requires to be accurately reconciled and managed in order to hold all future revenue until the relevant month and distribute net revenue from the month that was. This has all been fine managing manually on excel to date however it is not scalable and there are of course better ways of managing and tracking this through software like Quickbooks, as we are implementing. All fun and numbers.
Kigo website and SEO
We’ve had the entry level kigo website for a few months now and as we are learning the SEO capabilities of it are quite limited. The fact I am not an SEO expert means I’m starting from a position of total naivety however with the help of asking the right questions I’m gradually wrapping my head round what kigo websites can and can’t do. I’m also looking at the self hosted website option using the kigo widget (which would allow carte blanche on the SEO front) however kigo are now disencouraging users away from that route in favour of using their Core API to pull information from the app to a third party website. However the downside with this is that the new website would to need be built from scratch.
Listings on airbnb
If you have a business airbnb account you may have noticed that new listings in major cities may not be approved like they are on your personal airbnb accounts. For example you can’t list properties in Edinburgh city centre with a business airbnb account, I’m guessing it’s the same in London and possibly Glasgow. We’ve been aware of this for a while however now we are finding that airbnb are not approving properties with postcodes in the surrounding areas of Edinburgh. Their automatic filtering system can’t discern too well between the postcodes and even though you are in a different local authority, you might get a message saying, “The listing is in a prohibited vacation rental market.” Don’t worry though, by contacting ukaccountmanagers@airbnb.com you can appeal and have these listed, it just causes a small delay.
So, back to our recent purchase. As you can see, Chris and I are now the proud owners of a tired but well proportioned 3 bedroom 1 bathroom flat. The plan has always been to gut it, completely refurb (including adding an ensuite bathroom), furnishing/dressing it for SA, manage the unit as SA, and then sell as a hands free and high cashflowing asset to an investor (hands free because we can manage it along with our own portfolio).
In thinking through the various steps involved, Chris and I thought it could provide a fantastic opportunity to not only document, but also to publicise in some way a kind of ‘look over our shoulder’ as we work the property through the various steps, uncovering things and making progress to the end goal.
It would be good to know if such an idea would be of interest to some people. If so please do let Chris and I know, then we can keep you posted as we figure out the optimal way to capture and share the journey so that it may also benefit others.
Have a great week ahead.