What amenities should be included in an Airbnb?

What’s up guys, in today’s video we’re going to be talking about the must have nice to have and extra bonus amenities that you can add to your short term rental. I’m going to walk through my ideas on what are the absolute necessities in short term rentals. I think a lot of posts miss out on as well as some nice to have memories that are really quick and easy to add that I really think that honestly, most short term rentals if not all should include in order to increase bookings and just how better overall guest experience. So then I’m also going to share with you some of the best amenities that you can add that are going to make your place more desirable to guests get you more bookings, and ultimately help you to make more money as a short term rental house. So to start with, let’s talk about the absolute necessities. The first of which is probably a pretty obvious one to most every Wi Fi, Wi Fi is an absolute must have when it comes to hosting on short term rental. Unless you’re in the rare very rare circumstance of being an off grid cabin or something of the like really Wi Fi and specifically as fast Wi Fi as possible is going to be an absolute must, anything less, and your guests are going to end up complaining and being upset, especially now that so many people are booking short term rental properties in order to work from them. Especially during the week, you’re gonna get a lot of bookings like that. And so you really want to make sure you have great Wi Fi. The next one, I’m shocked that I even have to bring up but honestly, I’ve travelled too many times where this wasn’t included. And so I’m going to make a note of it here potable water. Now this is specifically applicable in any area, if you ever travelled to an area where there’s not potable drinking water from the taps, you really want to make sure that as a host, you’re including some bottled water for your guests, I can’t tell you the number of times that I’ve travelled to somewhere like Southeast Asia, I checked into my Airbnb late at night after I got in from a late night flight, one drops of water and there’s not drinkable tap water and nor is there any bottled water in the fridge. And then it’s a really big pain for you to have to then go out late at night, find a 711 or somewhere and grab water walk all the way back just so you can have a glass of water. So make sure you’ve got potable water for guests to drink. It doesn’t necessarily have to be enough for their entire stay. But it should be enough to at least just get them started for that first night. The next thing again, this is something that I really am surprised I have to bring up. But again, it’s something that I’m seeing more and more hosts excluding from their listing. And that’s bedding and towels. I understand that laundry and maintaining your linens can be a pain as a short term rental host. We have other videos on this channel that explain exactly how to do a really great job of optimising and Systemising that process. But let’s face it, having bedding and towels is an absolute must your short term rental, there’s nothing more frustrating than booking a place only then realise that you’ve got to bring your own bedding. And then you don’t have a bed the same size as the one there at the property. So now you’ve got to go and buy bedding just for that it’s so wasteful, I’m spending I agree and it’s such a huge pain. And then at the end of it, you have to then take off all your bedding, you got to make beds when you get there. And when you leave, you then got to take off all the bedding, pack it up, take it with you and do your own laundry. Absolutely not, I’m not gonna tornado of anger, make sure you’ve got really great bedding and towels out your short term rental property. Next is coffee and tea. This one’s a little bit less. So I do think you can get away with not having this, I would definitely recommend at least having a kettle a coffee maker, and or some mugs. But you’ll want to make sure that in most light listings, you’ll want to just include some coffee and or tea so the guests can enjoy that during their stay. Next is going to be cooking essentials for any short term rental that has a kitchen or kitchenette that guests can cook at, you’ll want to make sure that the cooking essentials like your oil, your toilet, pepper, everything like that was there for the guests. Because, again, if you’re there for just a couple of days, having to buy an entire bottle of olive oil just to cook one egg is a total waste and a really big frustration. So just make sure those things are there. The other thing I’m going to put on this list is a smart TV. And I know this is gonna be a little bit controversial. But I honestly think that having a smart TV at your listing, if you’re going to have a TV at all, is kind of the only way to go. Because guests are mostly nowadays going to be using the TV to connect to streaming services like Netflix, Hulu, Disney plus whatever it might be. So give them a smart TV that allows them to do that really easily without having to hook up their computer or caste or anything more technical ways of doing that. Now it doesn’t necessarily have to be a natural Smart TV, you can add something like an Apple TV or Google Chromecast, things like that, that just make it easier. But honestly, the easiest solution is to just have a smart TV so I would recommend that for most people. Now next let’s move into and again this isn’t an exhaustive list. This is just to give you an idea of some of the things that I think get missed most often and also give you an overall feel for what constitutes a must have versus a nice to have versus a bonus amenity some of the nice Have amenities that I see being missed often would be things like phone chargers and bedside lamps, I would honestly put bedside lamps as a lot closer to a must have been a nice to have. But I would see people’s reasoning if they said it was more of a nice to have. And I would say definitely you want to include this anything in the nice to have category you really should still include if you want to be a proper high quality host and you want to be in the top percentile of Airbnb hosts on the platform. So phone chargers or at least stations you can get them from Ikea where people can plug in their USB cords. Super, super helpful, just so if anyone forgets their phone charger, they can easily plug into the one that you’ve got their bedside lamps are again, just a really nice convenience item because it’s a pain to turn off the light and then work your way through the dark to your bed in a room that you’re not familiar with. So have a lamp right beside the bed. also really great for reading for hanging out without having the scourge of the overhead lighting. Guys just want to take a quick break to say that for those of you watching who want to build cashflow, and long term wealth by purchasing Airbnb ease and short term rental properties, there’s a link in the description down below for a free training, they’ll walk you through my exact strategy for investing successfully in Airbnbs. The training walks through the three most important things that you need to know if you want to successfully buy your first or next short term rental property. And again, the link is in the description down below for you to sign up completely free. When you sign up for the training, we’re also going to send you our ROI analysis tool completely free so that you can analyse properties the right way and find properties that will generate amazing returns. Again, the link to sign up is in the description down below. And both the training and the ROI analysis tool are completely free. Next is going to be kitchen appliances and cookware. Obviously the basic kitchen appliances kind of go without saying as a must have. But I’m talking about blenders toasters, microwaves, some of these things that aren’t necessarily a an expectation, but are really nice to have so that people can live the life that they live at home at your place. You don’t want them having to sacrifice and kind of adjust their routine of their schedule because you don’t have a toaster or a microwave. So I would recommend having that and also having some of the standard cookware. So again, pots and pans pans are a must. And I would say cookware like pots or baking sheets, baking trays, that sort of thing are really nice to have one as well. Another one that I debated between a must have are nice to have. And I put it in the nice to have it hangers. And I only put it there because I realised that some people just have drawers for their guests to put their clothes in, which in my opinion is a bit inconvenient. I prefer to hang clothes up. I know a lot of people do as well. So if you have a closet or a hanger rack, which I would honestly recommend for pretty well any listing, then you want to make sure you have hangers as well. Again, nothing more frustrating than realising that you just checked into a place that has closets and no hangers, why would I pack my own hangers to travel to an Airbnb, you don’t want to leave your guests in that situation. Another really great nice to have one is a desk. This is great because specifically Yes, it’s really nice for guests to be able to work at the desk. But also if it’s a proper private desk, then you can set that up as a workstation and then check the box on Airbnb to say that you do have a workstation at your property that’s going to allow you to accept business travel reservations, it’s going to attract more people to your listing. So overall, that’s a really, really nice one to have. Then when you’re thinking about great you want to shift your thinking the real like add on amenities with must have, you just want to think what is absolutely essential, nice to have, what would I expect there to be or want there to be at pretty well any Airbnb or short term rental. And the great to haves are one of the things that would make this stay even better, really augment it make me want to tell other people about this place. And so some of the things that you’re going to see in this list are going to be things that you wouldn’t expect, not necessarily that guests wouldn’t get at a hotel or other accommodation. And so for me, a lot of that is games, I really think of what can I have for guests to do. I’m always thinking about things for them to do when I’m in this great category trying to brainstorm ideas. Games can be really awesome because depending on if you have if you’re optimised for couples or you’re optimised for families or big friend groups or business travel with large groups, games are going to be helpful too and enjoyable for just about anyone with the one kind of main exception. Being solo business travellers games are great for just about everyone else. And games don’t just necessarily have the one type. You can add video games which I don’t recommend as much I really like having board games in my listings. yard games are also fantastic. So things like bocce ball spike ball cornhole, all those sorts of things. Games are really great. You can also add if you want to go a little bit above and beyond, you can add games like ping pong, or foosball and actual gaming units. You can add arcade style games like Pac Man, those have been quite good. So games I think are really good. One to have as well. And that’s one on my list I put here because it’s relatively inexpensive to add. But again, just really augments the stay and allows people to enjoy your space a whole lot more. And that’s sports equipment. What I mean by that is having a baseball, a Frisbee football, if you’ve got an area in the driveway to play basketball, put up a net, have a basketball there, if you’ve got a really big yard, maybe a soccer ball, if you are in an area that’s got lots of hiking nearby, then put some little crampons for them to add on the bottom of their shoes, if they’re hiking in the winter, have snow shoes there. There’s all kinds of different sports equipment you can add that people can easily use at your property. And it’ll just again, allow them to have more things to do. I was recently looking for a place to go with a group of friends during the winter. And when I looked at cottages, there were a whole bunch of them that just didn’t really have any additional menus that would give our group things to do. So when I thought about it, I thought well, we’re pretty much just going to go there and sit there for the whole weekend if we go to this place, because what is there really to do, it’s Canada in the wintertime, they don’t have snowshoes, they don’t have a hot tub, they don’t have a sauna, they don’t have you know anything really to do. And then I look at another competitor’s listing and see they had a movie theatre, all kinds of board games, a hot tub, a sauna, snowshoes, all this other stuff. And I thought, wow, we’re gonna have so much stuff to do that we can’t possibly do it all in the few days that we’re staying there. That’s amazing. That’s exactly what I want. And not only that, but there’s something for everyone. I’m going with a group of different friends with different interests, some people are going to want to go in the hot tub. Some people aren’t some people are going to want to watch movies, some people aren’t. So it’s really great to have all that variety of things to do. And a lot of places suffer from having great things to do in the summertime because they’re near water or things like that, but really not much to do during the wintertime or the offseason. So I’d highly recommend thinking about what people can do at your property regardless of the time of the year or at different times of the year. So another one on the list there. I mentioned it a couple times. OB a movie theatre. I really think it’s a quick and easy add that goes a long way just add a projector a nice sound unit a comfortable place for them to sit, make sure the room can be darkened out and then you’ve got a nice little movie theatre, you can obviously go even further and add sound panels I go the whole nine yards. But at the very least you can spend maybe $600 on a great projector and a sound bar and another $800 or so on a comfortable couch for everyone to sit on. And then you’ve got your own little movie theatre. I really like adding these into the basements of a property because generally that space doesn’t get used for much else if you don’t put something cool in there like a game room or a movie room. Another couple ones that I add on to the list that are definitely more expensive but in my opinion really really well worth the investment will be a hot tub and a sauna, hot tub and sauna are really great. And a lot of markets they are almost must have because so much of the competition have them especially the hot tub. Hot tubs are also a searchable amenity on Airbnb. So you can specifically look for properties that have hot tubs and exclude all the properties without them. And again, that’s something that is going to really limit the amount of demand for your property by not having it if it’s normal in your area for properties to have it and if it’s highly desirable. So I definitely consider those two, they are a larger upfront investment, but in my experience, they more than pay for themselves. Another one that’s really great that I’ve experimented with recently is adding a dome a geodesic dome to the property. The really great thing about this is that it allows for additional accommodation so you can sleep more people at the property, while also being a really cool and fun amenity that people are really attracted to, again with this is kind of where you really want to think about unique things that people can do fun things that people can do while they’re at your property that would cause them to want to book your property as opposed to any of the other potential options nearby. Again, do you have any other thoughts and either the must have nice to have or great to have many sections? Let me know in the comment section down below. I’d love to hear your thoughts. Also, if you liked this video, make sure to give it a thumbs up just hit that like button. It does help me out tremendously with getting these videos in front of more people growing this channel and helping more people to succeed with Airbnb hosting, investing and property management. 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