Ann Ave – St. Louis

Background:

This was an “Emergency Take Over” – The owner called us and said that he needs us to take over 7 properties right away. We had stood up 3 STRs for him the year prior, while he had another management company that he had already been working with handling 7 other properties in the same city. After a year of working with us and 2 years working with the other management company, the difference was not only obvious but to the point that he couldn’t spend even one more month working with the other company in the area. We got a 7k budget per property to redesign and take them over. This not only included materials, but travel costs for my design team to go out there and do their thing as well as the cost of paying those people to do their thing.

4 of the units were model matches, all next door on the same street. We launched them the last week of May, 2024. So June was our first full operational month, and as I write this it is July 29th – so we have 2 full operational months under our belt with these properties.

Here’s the results so far:

June – Bookings have increased 22% year-over-year from $14,418.49 to $17,636.78
July – Bookings have increased 65% year-over-year from $13,936.57 to $22,966.03

With the “Ramp up” phase still going in earnest, we expect the YoY increases to continue and plateau at some point. We will continue to update YoY revenue comparisons on a quarterly basis

Here’s what we changed:

Living Room – We added a new Rug under the couch and a throw blanket on the couch, installed a table under the TV and staged the dining table with flatware.

 

Kitchen – The most notable change was the coffee station.

 

Bedrooms – We added a couple roll away beds to increase bed count, installed black-out curtains to add color and make for a darker room when sleeping, and turned the lights on when we took pictures (Turning the lights on was a consistent difference in every space during photography)

 

 

Bathrooms – We traded out disposable bottles of soap, shampoo, conditioner and body wash for refillable pump bottles; this looks better from an organaztional standpoint and is operationally more efficient. Also we added Q-Tips, cotton balls, Tampons and a makeup towel. These minor conveniences obviously go a long way, as evidenced by the significant revenue increase.

 

 

Master Bedroom – A rug under the seating bench, blackout curtains, lights on during photos:

 

 

Other Changes:

⦁ Door locks – we installed Schlage Encodes on front and rear access doors
⦁ Supplies – We had to bring supplies up to par, things like additional shampoo, linens, coffee pods, toilet paper, paper towels, Etc. Etc.
⦁ Step stools in the bathrooms (for kids)

Other Challenges:

While the above listed material changes seem probably very simple and not commensurate with the 7k budget, aside from traveling to the properties and deciding what needs to be done with the limited budget (Travel + the cost of a knowledge worker), we had to hire help to install things like curtain rods, repair some inoperable fans (this was something the previous guests noted in the reviews as a consistent problem), unbox and build the materials, haul away trash, have the properties cleaned, hire a professional photographer for a new photos shoot – to name a handfull of things that easily consumed the entire 7k budget. While we would normally not even do a job with such a small budget, in this case were were able to achieve some economies of scale that made it worth it to everyone given that the 7k budget was multiplied across all 7 properties.

Summary:

With a tight budget you can make meaningful subtle yet improvements that improve your income to the point that the cost of those improvements can be recouped in only a few months, when considering the consistent thousand dollar+ increase in income per month per property.