JC2 Dreams - building a successful nightly rental business

Adventures in hosting

Things we’ve learned along the way and the products that helped get us to Super Host status within 9 months.

Our journey to Airbnb hosting was rather quick and eventful along the way.

May 24, 2022 my husband’s “Grumpy Cat” calendar at work was one for the books.  It said “tell me the words I love to hear, I’m leaving”.  The corporate grind was getting to him and he was ready to call it quits.  The next day his friend and boss opened up about having started an Airbnb business.  He shared a couple of book titles with my husband and by the end of the weekend he had read through the books.  He isn’t a reader so this was an amazing site to see.  The most impactful book was “Rich Dad, Poor Dad” by Robert T, Kiyosaki. Not everyone will agree with the concepts in this book or understand what you are doing.  It made sense to us and has worked out so far.  

June 3, 2022 JC2 Dreams, LLC was officially registered with the State of Missouri.

We made a couple of day trips to Branson looking at properties.  We even put an offer in on one, expecting to counter and end up where we wanted to be.  This one didn’t work out and actually resulted in that property being pulled off the market.  Although this was disappointing at the time, looking back it was a blessing that allowed us to end up where we currently are.  

We learned that pictures can be deceiving as some of the really nice properties in pictures were horrible inside.  If looking to start an Airbnb in a condo, look around the outside and see how well the properties are taken care of.  There was one that no matter how well you took care of your unit, the outside would deter the guests and leave a bad experience.  

Fast forward a couple of weeks to Father’s Day Weekend and another day of looking at properties with our realtor.  During the morning meeting, we made the comment that “we could never buy a place site-unseen”.  Before we left to start our viewings for the day, we learned that several units another realtor in the agency had listed were dropping prices that day.  The kicker, we couldn’t get into them as they were rented.  

We viewed the ones on our list, drove by the areas that two of the units were in that interested  us the most and went on our way from the realtor for the day.  We drove back to one of the units and went to the Marina that comes with the condo.  Water soothes my soul and clams me.  We talked, we prayed and left there knowing we wanted to put an offer in on the two condos.  We called our realtor and let her know, figuring it would be over the phone or email since it was already after 5 on a Saturday night.  Nope, she said meet me back at the office and we’ll get them written up.  By the end of the night we had submitted offers on two condos site-unseen.  I joked to my husband he was getting quite the Father’s Day gift.  Sure enough, the next morning during church we were getting messages that they had countered and we needed to sign as soon as possible because someone else was wanting to put offers in.  Before we ever left the parking lot we had signed both counter offers and had official contracts on two properties, all from our phones.  

The first time we saw either condo was during the inspection process which went smoothly and within the month we were closed.  Thankfully both condos were ready to go and already had bookings scheduled.  We worked out an arrangement with the previous owner that worked out well for both of us.  There are several different ways to do this, having guests cancel and rebook wasn’t ideal as there was no guarantee they would re-book with us.  We ended up taking over communication on all bookings after closing and came to a financial agreement.  

One important lesson we learned was that internet service didn’t switch easily and we actually had to postpone switching it over until the units were empty and we could take the time to switch the service and get everything set up correctly.  

All in all everything was a smooth transition with that end of things.  However, stay tuned for the big hiccup we encountered and how we overcame it…

***disclaimer, this post contains affiliate links that we earn a small percentage from***