Detailing our Guest Avatar
Stephanie and I wanted to use this week to provide a market update on how our 4 bedroom home in the Poconos is performing and analyze some of the key factors we think are contributing to this. We won’t bore you with all the great amenities we put in the home. You can check it out for yourself HERE! That being said, we think you’ll see a recurring theme here of amenities and design as it relates to our
GUEST AVATAR
Here is an overview of the home and how it has performed thus far:
1. It’s a 4 bedroom home that sleeps 12 (this number is important)
2. We DO NOT live on a lake or have a water/ski mountain view
3. Our underwriting estimated a gross revenue of 80k when appropriately managed. Just 3.5 months in, we’ve already logged 52k. We believe 90k is now achievable.
This image below shows our occupancy for the next 7, 30 and 60 days. Although you can’t see it here, the market comparisons are as follows:
- Next 7 days occupancy for our house is 71%! (Market is 22%)
- Next 30 day occupancy for our house is 40%! (Market is 12%)
- Next 60 day occupancy for our house is 43% ! (Market is 12%)
So how are we outperforming the Poconos market in nearly every single statistical category? The answer lies in our commitment to our GUEST AVATAR. In other words, we designed a home and marketing strategy to a very specific client and have not wavered from this. Let’s meet our guest avatars now:
GUEST AVATAR
Meet Sisters, Suzy and Sally. Both Suzy and Sally want to escape the city life of {Insert Philly, NYC or NJ} for long weekend trips in the mountains. Each of the sisters have 2-3 children, and while they love traveling with their kids, they need a place that will safely entertain the kids while allowing the adults to enjoy some R&R. In doing so, they look for a place that is both kid and adult friendly, that offers privacy (when the inevitable child meltdown occurs) and a small bit of luxury. Because Suzy and Sally want to travel together, they split the cost 50/50 and don’t mind the higher nightly rate because of this.
We think you get the idea now! Our guest avatar is the multi-family trip for people looking to escape the city for 2-4 day trips (recall above when I said guest count was important? If we only sleep 8-10, this may not be enough to entice two families to vacation together). We accomplish this by designing a house with themed rooms and endless entertainment for both kids and adults. Although our HOA does provide a pool for guests, we do not belong to a lake or beach, nor do we have a ski in/ski out home in the winter. However, by investing in a regional market, where guests can drive 2- 3 hours out of major cities AND feel like their family needs are met, we are tracking to exceed our Cash on Cash Return and Gross Revenue goals!
It hasn’t been all positive. We’ve learned some valuable lessons along the way so stay tuned for next week’s newsletter on some of the unexpected obstacles we
encountered and how we handled them.
