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In this episode, Alessandra and Jeff from Loma Homes dive into "themed" vacation rentals and how they outperform the competition.
Get more bookings for your short-term rental, Airbnb or vacation rental with the Elevate Your Bookings podcast. Brought to you by Guest Hook.
Hey everyone. It's Alexander. And we're back with another episode on our elevate your booking show. I'm here today with Jeff, from Loma Holmes. How are you doing today? Jeff? I'm doing great on a Sandra. How are you? I'm doing very. We're super excited to have you on today and tell our listeners a little bit about yourself, your background in the vacation rental industry, whatever info you want to give us.
Yeah, absolutely. So I let's see, I've been doing this full-time for about a year and a half, which is been really fun and exciting, best jump I ever made before doing short-term rentals. I was actually working for a tech startup and I started doing short-term rentals on the. I purchased my first property out in Joshua tree, California, because I had heard this, the short term rental thing can create great cashflow and how it will be my full time gig one.
So we did that and it worked out, ended up shifting gears away from California. A little bit, did some analysis and my background is heavily heavy in data. So I, we did a lot of research and found some profitable areas in Florida about a year and a half ago. We, I should say two years ago, we bought a property in the Orlando area.
We called 12 parsecs, which has a galaxy thing. And then COVID hit and that was fun. A whole bunch of cancellations and things, but through it all, we actually ended up making a profit on that first year of our first theme property. And that's when we knew that we were onto something exciting. If you can make a profit in the middle of COVID without.
Then this is good, fast forward. And we now have 13 properties and looking to scale our business and taking on investors to do that. And here we are. So we now have our fourth property. Our fourth themed property is going live soon and just expanding our port. Yeah. Honestly, when I saw your properties, I'm like, oh my God, these are amazing.
They really are. They're beautiful properties at themed properties are awesome. What made you come up with a theme? I know you said you had a property in Joshua tree, right? That's how you started off. So what made you move into the theme? That is a great question. It really all came from, again, being very data driven.
We knew that the short-term rental market was going to. Go crazy in the sense that there's just so much profit being made on short-term rentals, anywhere there's profit, there's going to be new entrance to that model. And if we were going to be successful longterm, we had to be different. We really had to be something that people would be willing to pay a premium for.
And when we got into Joshua tree, we did some research and found the why people were going into Joshua tree and the reason that people were going there, it was a lot of millennial travelers from LA it's. Joshua tree was like three hours from two or three hours from LA and they're were going out there to escape the city.
And it was just this. Hippie Wonderland. And so we bought a dumb, we put three trailers on it and mural. And made this Bohemian Wonderland for people that they have yoga retreats on. And it was just perfect. And so that went well enough that we thought, but this experience thing is really we're onto something here.
And so we did more research and we found this profitable pocket in Orlando. And as we did more research on that, we found that the top properties in Orlando had a theme to them, or they at least have themed rooms. And we also noticed that there was just enormous competition in Orlando, just thousands and thousands of properties.
And they all look the same and we thought, okay, if we want to be competitive here, we're going to have to niche down. And do something really unique. And so when we looked into it like, okay, people are coming to Orlando wive, obviously for the theme parks and they're coming with big families. So we need a bigger property and they're coming to experience these theme properties or the I'm sorry, the theme parks.
And so we thought, what if we could create a property that was an extension. Of the theme park. What if we could give them the experience that doesn't have to end when they go home for the night? And so we did that and we picked a galaxy theme, a wizard theme, and a dinosaur theme. We're currently working on a castle theme.
That's going to go live here next month. And they've all been extremely successful. So hope that's not too long ago. No, that's great. I love when people explain their stories and how they come up with things. I did do some research on my end, and obviously if you're doing these themed vacation rentals, it's really to differentiate yourself.
What you did was obviously. Awesome because, you know, you did the research, you obviously, you said you're a data guy, you looked into everything and you really figured out how to make yourself different, how to make your business different. I did look into this a little bit and I did, I found like this article from lodge fly.
So I want to see if you agree with some of these things on themes for vacation rentals. So basically they're saying the do's and don'ts, so it says as the dues. No, your target market. So you agree with that one, right? A hundred percent. The next one is, plan out your ideas and advance. So basically make a mood board, choose colors and shades they're saying, and I know from us working with you, I get to see some of the things you do on your end.
So I think it's pretty cool. So you would obviously agree with this one, right? Yeah, the danger you have with theming is looking tacky. And if you don't present a well orchestrated experience, it will be tacky. So yes. Plan ahead, build vision boards, know exactly what's going into it before you go in and have a vision of what you're building so that when your themed contractors or whoever else is building it, you're not like I got help.
That works. You really need to know what you want in mind, so that. Make adjustments as you can. The biggest risk you have with themed properties, in my opinion, is looking tacky. You really don't want to put a half-baked idea out there because it will look cheap and people will not have the immersive experience they're looking for when they show up.
And it looks like a cheap carnival. So you really need to have your whole identity. All the way into the details so that when you put the finished product together, the pieces fit, you don't want a puzzle that doesn't have pieces that don't come together. Definitely plan ahead for that. Yes. That's the way to go.
Right? Especially in a theme. One is planning ahead. The other do that they said was considered home, made options like customized furniture that can help elevate theme the theme or use DIY. What do you think about that? That's a risky, it depends on how good you are at those things. But again, if you try to do it on the cheap, you run the risk of looking tacky and cheap.
And if you're going to go themed people, when they look at your pictures, they're going to have a vision in their mind of what this is going to be like. And you want to do your best to live up to that vision because they show up and it's just a bunch of cheap trinkets. It's. They're going to be very disappointed.
Just make sure that you're, if you're going to do it yourself, that you were a professional in doing that, and then it's going to look, and then the last one they said was use your imagination, which I think is a key and it's important, right? For sure. I would add to that, that I, not everyone has a bunch of followers, but on Facebook, on social media, I would go on and ask people.
You know what they like and what they want. And you don't have to be the source of all the ideas. A lot of our followers give us the ideas for themes and for specific things that we put in the properties sometimes we'll even, and be like, Hey, which color of cabinet do you like better? And we'll just throw that up there.
And social media people vote and we, and we'll usually pick that one and you don't have to be the source of all good. Yeah. And then the don'ts are funny. This one is venture don't venture into the unknown. So basically avoid themes that are obscure. So basically they're saying choose a theme that's well known or liked by the public, the general public.
The other one was, don't go overboard with a theme. So limit your themes to certain rooms. What about that one? Oh, man, I couldn't disagree more obviously. Now it depends on what they mean by don't go overboard, but really I can't, I don't think you can go too much into it if you're going to do it right. If you're going to create a, an immersive galaxy theme, like one of our rooms has fog machines, led lights, sound effects, like their whole house is built with that.
So I would imagine that probably qualifies as the overboard category, but it works and it does really well. So I would argue that if you don't go all in that's when you run the risk of being half-baked Hmm. You can't charge the same premium. So there's a ton of homes in Orlando that are afraid to not appeal to everyone.
And so they take each room and they feed it to a different Disney character and they try to pull in every movie and board game and candy land that they can imagine so that it appeals to everybody. But what they're doing really in essence is not providing anything to it. If you're not niching down, you're not being the best at anything.
And I think that's the P the risks. The next one is let safety slip. I think this one's kind of, they were more talking about if you could DIY make sure your furniture is safe and childproof we've you said what? The DIY it's a little risky anyway. And then the last don't was don't overlook what your guests really want.
They're saying basically don't clutter your space with too many like knickknacks and pictures and posts. Yeah, it certainly has to be functional. Yeah. There's definitely a delicate balance between form and function and you want it to be beautiful, but it has to be functional, like some of our themes property, I guess all of our theme properties that these have eight bedrooms and things you don't want to put like a card table for your dinner table, they're bringing big groups.
And so we usually take two big dinner tables and put them next to each other and put seating all around. So that, and that's one thing that people love is that. It has a full kitchen and it's just very, it's very functional. We've done Conrad and I've done some research too. And that's one of the biggest things that has been coming up is people want that fully functional kitchen.
They want that space. They want the big tables, especially those people that if they're traveling on holiday, if they want to make that Thanksgiving dinner, your kitchen has to be equipped for them to be able to use it. Yep. That's one of the important things right now. They got guests are looking for specifically, and then let's move into marketing, right?
Marketing, the themes, vacation rentals. So what are you, what do you think are the most important things when you're marketing your themes, vacation rentals? Is it the pictures? Is it that the video is in it? Is it the story you're telling through your property description? Yeah, a hundred percent. I think that, I think it's pictures.
And those pictures and those videos, our rule of thumb is that if I wouldn't, if I saw a picture of this, of our property, if I wouldn't share this with a friend and say, holy cow, look at that. Then it's not, it doesn't fit our brand. And that has been the key to our marketing success. When we first, our first property was 1246.
It's a galaxy themed property near Orlando. We wanted people to see the pictures and just Josh. And so each room is themed like a different planet from space and has these crazy beds that are custom carved. And it has these fog machines coming out from underneath the beds and it has lighting effects and everything.
When you go to that extreme, you do something that nobody has done before. That's something that people are willing to share. It's not, wow. Look how pretty that countertop is, right? No, one's going to share that. Uh, social media, unless it's really crazy, like unique, but no, one's going to be like, wow, look how well they clean that.
But it has to be something more extreme, something just out there. And that's what we focus on because it markets, and I've seen, we've posted some of your photos of your properties on our social media. And people are like, oh my God, this is crazy. Like they are really, they I've never seen anything like it, to be honest.
And once I'm going to put your link in the show notes of the website, so people can, whoever's listening to. They're interested in. They can go take a look. Of course, if they want to stay and rent out, one of your properties they'll have the link in here, but they are just, they're wild. They, the, all the specifics and especially in those rooms and one with the dinosaur one, which, what is the name of that one with the Raptor retreat, that one gets me with the bed where it looks like their mouths are off.
No one is a really good one. Yeah. So basically when we're talking about the properties marketing themselves, so are you basically, basically you're saying the photos are just, that's really how they're marketing themselves. Yeah. Yeah. So let me tell you with 12 bar six, we listed that and we put it on our social media or on a Facebook page and we.
I started to let people know, like there's a couple of contacts that I had out in the industry. And I was like, Hey, check this out. And they shared it and it creates this. It's what virality is when people share. It, when it went on, Airbnb, Airbnb picked it up and the PR got an email from their PR person saying, Hey, can, do we have permission to use your picture in our, in our marketing tools?
And we're like, uh, sure. And then we started getting emails left and right from, cause it started to go viral on social media. We gave it to a couple of people who were influencers and they just posted it on their social media. Cause they were friends and they liked us and it went crazy. Soon. We started getting emails from like insider magazine and New York post and daily mail.
Yeah. And they were all just emailing us, Hey, can we write an article on your property? And so that wasn't us reaching out to anyone that was them reaching out to us and ever since then we did that one. And then we did a wizards. And we have the same context that we had from before. And we said, Hey, guess what?
We did another one. And sure enough, they wrote articles on that one too, because we had these relationships established. And that's really how they market themselves. The wizard's way property. We listed that we put it on our own Facebook page. We didn't even give it to an influencer or anything. And within a week we had over 3 million views on that one.
Goodness. Yes. Yeah. And we've been booked solid ever since. And that was a year and a half ago. It's that's the power of theming, right. It takes itself viral and you don't have to spend enormous amounts of efforts on. Yeah. And right now, like you have all the key components, pretty much, you have all these contacts, you made relationships, but I think with you, I think you're just going to continuously, you're going to keep going and you're going to keep like succeeding in this business, which is always a beautiful thing to see in the growth.
And I know you have some more properties coming on, so that's amazing. So do you see, I know you do all the data and all that stuff, but do you see like any type of pattern, have you noticed any type of pattern with your own. And the reason why they're choosing your themed vacation. With our themed rentals.
I actually, I read this book, it was called nail it, then scale it it's all about really getting it right in your business and being an entrepreneur. And it talks about the importance of talking with customers. And so I started to call our guests after they'd left. And I just said, Hey, I'm the founder of Loma homes that you stayed at.
I just want to talk to you about your experience and what we can do about. And what I learned from that experience was that over half of our guests were coming to celebrate the birthday of one of a child. And I did not expect that we would be attracting this local crowd of experience, the secret. And so a lot of, so like we're getting a lot of six to 12 year old boys that are having a birthday party at our galaxy theme home.
And they just are diehard movie fan and they come and they experience that. Or we get a lot of tween girls between the 12 to even 18, or want to experience the wizard's house. And their parents are willing to fork out enormous amounts of money for them to have a birthday and the, oh, and. Because of that, we've actually chosen some of our themes.
Based around birthday experiences. So yeah, we built it for the theme parks, but it ended up being a birthday, stay for a lot of people. That's really interesting, especially that families are going, are willing to do this, but at the same time, that's a cool thing to do because it's such a. They're so well themed that kids probably just love.
They'd rather just be in the house than anywhere else. And we get that comment a lot. People say, you know what? We came with wanting to go to all the parks and Kay, didn't want to leave the house. And that's, we love that we have when people say stuff like that. Yeah. It's amazing to have that. So what are your future plans with your theme to vacation?
So our overall goal really is to build a brand that people recognize and learn to love. There's some brands out there that people just, everyone just loves them. Everyone just knows that if they're in your area, you're going to go there first. And we're trying to build a brand that people know and recognize in the vacation rental space, because there's there, isn't like a known brand.
You think about hotels, you can, you know what you're going to get in America. But what brand do you know what you're going to get in vacation rentals? And we want to be that brand. So we're going to be eventually we're right now, we're, we're in Florida, but we're going to be all over the place. And we want people to look for a Loma homes property before they look for just any Airbnb property.
And that's really our goal over the next four to five years is to grow our portfolio and scale it. And that's our model. We take on investors and we share profits with them and because we're able to make the properties so profitable and that becomes a really good deal. For our investors and for everybody, that's amazing.
The other question I wanted to ask you is do you, with your people reserving, do you find them booking more directly on your website at this point? Is that what you're saying? It's a good question. I'd say right now. 30% direct bookings. We found that Airbnb is starting to bid on Google, the term Loma homes.
They're actually buying the term Loma homes name and they're putting their listing our property there. So people are still getting to it, but they're actually buying our. And getting on first results of Google because of that. So, unfortunately we're still getting a lot of traffic on the listing sites from that, but when they get to the listing site, they see our name all over it in the description.
It's this is one of the Loma homes themed collection. They see our logo is one of the being the manager. They see, it's just, we remind them, Hey, Loma homes is a company that does. And so I think a lot of people then go search online and say, wait, who is this Loma Holmes? And then they book direct. So that's, that's a strategy people can use.
Obviously you can't direct people to your website on your listing site. That's we don't do that. But just knowing, letting people know that you're a brand and that you're a legitimate company that does these themed homes is legitimate. And we do a lot of that, but some people just feel more comfort.
Booking on Airbnb, even though they know you have a direct booking site. Like for example, I paid a premium sometimes to book out or to buy something on Amazon because I knew. I had ordered so much from Amazon already, and I knew I could trust there's customer service and everything that I've booked it, or I'm sorry, I bought it on Amazon versus the direct website, even if I could have saved a couple of bucks.
So I think you get some of that, that people just trust a big company and want to do that. And for those, if they're willing to pay a premium, we're willing to take their booking. But yeah. Yeah. I, even on our side, I like what you were saying about mentioning Loma homes and the property description. It's always good to do that.
You're giving. You're not moving people away from say, for instance, Airbnb, but you are giving them like the clues, like this is who we are. And if someone were to Google you, they're going to find you right away. And obviously they want to go to your website and they're going to see how many other properties you have.
So it's always good to do that on the listing sites is when you have your, you said you're like air me and be like about the host section. The profile picture is. Yeah. Yeah. So that's like all the good little things that you could do to, but you're building yourself on there. But again, like you said, people with.
Are afraid sometimes to book direct, they're scared that, um, something's going to happen. So we all do, like you mentioned Amazon, we try to stick with the bigger companies and just keep booking that way. I think that's just human nature. We can't really do much about that. Right. We can make our websites, like if you have a direct website and you're getting people to go there, It's really about trust you, you just have to build a really solid professional looking website so that you increase that level of trust, and it makes people more likely to book with you if they can save a few bucks, because I know I'm a lot less trusting of a website that's poorly built and functions poorly and all those things, but if it's a legit website and designed well, I'm more likely to trust it.
Gorgeous everything about 'em Loma Holmes is amazing to me. I don't, I've ever since I started working at guest hook and I saw a homes and I've been part of some of the projects I have from the beginning, I was like, what is this Loma homes? Wow. These businesses always amazing. And I was showing a, I actually showed my mother and the other day, like, Aloma homeless.
She's telling my goodness. Look at these properties are so fun. So it's great. Any advice you can give to those who might be interested in creating themed vacation rentals? Yeah, I would say know your audience, do your research and to, and I can go into detail a little bit there. If you're going to do your research and you want to do a theme, property, read reviews.
The why people are coming to that area. If it's theme parks, then build a theme park experience. If it's for the beach, build a beach experience and the two different experiences, just because you create an immersive, let's call it star Trek experience. You can't put that in the middle of New Zealand and expect that to be right.
If you're gonna be in New Zealand, you need to create a Lord of the rings experience or something that goes with the re the why behind, behind that, I had someone reach out and they're like, oh, I want to build this, this movie experience out here in, where was it? It was like Pittsburgh or something. What are people going to that area for that movie?
Like, why are people going to that area and really focus on the why? And I think. That's really what matters. That's a good advice to give to people when a. That's with anything in life, I've actually done some other type of work and they make you, like, when you start off, they say, what is your why? Like, you have to know your why, even for your why, of why you started Loma Holmes.
And then it's like your why of why are you making. These theme properties. So I think that goes for anything really in life that you're going to do is what is your why or what is the why? So I love that. I love that you said that, and anything with marketing, any marketing advice to wrap up this. Yeah, I would say that if you're only listed on the listing sites, focus on filters, focus on things that get you in more results.
But if you're on, if you're trying to market your own property or your I'm sorry, your own website, it's a whole different ball game. And to get someone on your team that knows what they're doing, learning SEO and recreating that wheel is not going to be worth your time. I recommend getting a, getting a guest hook or getting someone that can help you with that because.
It's a long learning curve. Just know what you're getting into, if that's what you want to do. And thanks for, you know, talking about guests for us. Yeah. There anything else you want to give? Any other advice you have left for our listeners? And that's a good question. Let's see. I would say that if you are, I assume most of your listeners are doing vacation rentals and want to maybe expand their portfolio numbers.
Don't lie. There's a lot of, there's a lot of gurus out there. I have a lot of, there's a lot of opinions. I feel like the internet is swarming with opinions of how to do a vacation rental. Everybody has a course on it. What I would say is trust the numbers. And I have heard words from some of the top gurus that I could straight up tell you are false because they make money saying these things, but really do your numbers.
Look at the analysis and that will not guide you astray. So that's my advice to all those out there. Growing they're busy. I think that's the best advice, because there is a lot of noise, I guess we can call it a lot of noise within the vacation rental industry. And there are a lot of, like you said, all of these courses are popping up and all these, these groups are pumping up and it's, there's so much chatter in there.
I'm in a lot of the groups and some of them are really good and very helpful. And then some of them it's just. Millions of different opinions. And to me, if I was asking that question and I'm getting all these answers, I'd be totally confused or lost. Totally. Yeah. So I wanted to say thank you, Jeff, for being here was a pleasure to have you on thanks for everyone to tuning in and listening to our show today.
And hopefully Jeff was able to help you with. Any theming of a vacation rental, if you aren't going to move into that sector. And as always, if you need any help from us, I guess, took with creating a story-telling description for your vacation rental, contact us that inflight gets to.com and make sure to leave us a review on whichever platform.
You're listening to elevate your bookings on, and we're going to catch you on our next episode. And of course, I'm going to link Jeff's website in the show notes. So whoever's listening. You could go in and take a look and that's it. Thank you so much for listening. Talk to you soon. Bye.