Today we’d like to introduce you to Erin and Paul Johnson.
Hi Erin and Paul, thanks for joining us today. We’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
Paul and I married in 2000. I own my own business as a professional portrait and wedding photographer. Paul has worked in residential remodeling for over 20 years also. We got our fist house in Minneapolis right after we got married and did many things to improve the house. We loved giving our house a refresh. A few years after that house we had a baby and moved to the suburbs. We enjoyed the burbs and had 2 more kids.
Our businesses continued to grow and we remodeled every room in our second house. We moved a 3rd time just a couple miles away to a bigger home. All that to say we really enjoy houses and we wanted our work to involve working with houses. For years we casually looked into buying an investment property in the Twin Cities. We had it in our minds that we would get a long term rental. For a long time, we put money away each money to create a big nest egg to be able to buy an investment property.
A few years ago we were ready to move forward and got another couple to partner with. The other couple ended up backing out and we stopped looking. I started to switch my interest from long term rental to short term rental. I liked the idea of also decorating a house.
We took a few trips to Arizona and just loved it there. From the beginning of our marriage, we dream of having a second place in a warmer state to escape the Minnesota winters. I had photographed a wedding in Arizona about 13 years ago and we really fell in love with the desert.
Fast forward to the pandemic and everything changed in my photography business. All of my work was taken away and no one was booking. Thankful Paul continued to do remodeling work and even got busier. I had more time and started to really think about what other passions I could persue besides photography. I love the service part of being a wedding photographer and thought I would do well as a host. I travel a bit and really appreciate when places are done well and all the extras that hosts do. We wanted to get the house in Arizona that we dreamed about. We had enough money saved for money down and money to get the house set up. We decided to just start looking and see what happens.
We got a referral for a realtor in AZ and he helped us narrow down the right house. The process was exciting and stressful all at once. The marked was a bit crazy. We would find a house online and send our realtor to see it and then put an offer in. Eventually, we didn’t have time to send him to see the house and just put in offers after seeing it online. I spent a lot of time researching areas and using software to help me determine if each potential house would be profitable as a str. We ended up paying $10k over asking cause that was the market! After about 3 month of looking, we had an accepted offer and we’re excited to get into it.
From the beginning, I had a lot of photos pinned on Pinterest with the look I wanted in the house. I started looking for what couch, blankets, dishes, etc, that I wanted in each room. I had shopping carts saved on Amazon, Target and All Modern. Since it was a pandemic I had to find everything that could come in time to put everything together in weeks A lot of furniture stores where taking months to delivery furniture and we didn’t have months.
It was my goal to start ordering things before we left so that we could set up the whole house in two weeks and then start renting it on Airbnb and Vrbo. I was also working with a strict budget and had to get creative with putting items together to still get the look I wanted. I spent hours and hours looking online for the right items and researching everything that was needed for a successful str.
We closed on the house in MN and then took the weekend to drive down to spend 2 weeks to set everything up. It was so exciting to put everything together. A lot of the items in the house are from Target and Amazon. At one point I maxed out my Target credit card and then maxed out my husband’s target credit card so then I took my 18 year old daughter to target to get a credit card. That 10% off made a big difference plus we got an additional discount for my daughter’s friend working at target. We ended up paying our balances off in full so that we could continue to use our target cards and get that discount. After everything was set up we did pay off all the credit cards from the money we had saved.
We are very happy with the house we got and have been running the airbnb/vrbo business for about 6 months.
Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
I wouldn’t say a smooth road but I feel like there was an inner driving force that made me do it and kept telling me it was a good idea. That inner small still voice that was cheering me on even when things were hard. Not to say that means it will be wildly successful but something I just had to do.
It was one of the most stressful things we have done. We had to make decisions fast and that is hard when it was a lot of money to us. We had an accepted offer on a house and then I flew down to see it and when I saw the house I didn’t like it since it needed too much work. It was very stressful deciding if we should move forward or walk away from the house. We did decide to walk away and I am glad we did. We put in many offers and got outbid many times. It was stressful knowing if a house was in an area we would like since we weren’t down in Arizona and didn’t know any of the areas. We asked ourselves many times if we should keep moving forward.
The most stressful part was setting the house up. The time crutch made it so hard. I had to try and coordinate all the shipments to come in the first few days of when we got there. We needed the beds and bedding to be ready for when we arrived so we had something to sleep on. I had all the bedding and mattresses shipped to a friend’s place in the area and then once we got into town those were the first things we picked up and set up.
We had to fill in with a lot of items from HomeGoods, Ashley furniture, Target and other local stores. All while hunting for the best deals to keep the costs down and making sure everything went together. Another hiccup was that the internet company kept taking longer to set up our wifi and we had used up all our data on our cell phones so it was hard to get all the work done online that we needed to do. We (us and our three kids plus one of our daughter’s friend’s) would all pile in the car and sit in the parking lot at Burger King to use their free wifi.
We also had to replace all the toilets, blinds and scrub clean all the walls and every surface. One time when Paul and I went to pick up some things we came back to the kids trying to clean up an overflowed toilet. The dirty toilet water was all over the bathroom, in the hall, the entryway and had even flowed through the walls to the outside entryway. We knew we didn’t want that problem with guests so we put in more powerful toilets. Another time the kids put a bunch of orange peels down the garbage disposal and clogged it all up. So then we decided to take out the disposal so guests couldn’t do that. Our kids basically showed us where all the potential problems could be for future guests.
We have continued to have challenges after getting the house set-up and started renting. We have had a handful of unpleasant guests. People that have invited way too many friends over to use the pool and hang out. The pool couldn’t keep up with all the use. One guest didn’t follow our pool rules and ended up with a green pool. After they left we ended up doing a $2600 upgrade to the pool to hopefully avoid that problem.
We have had guests smoke cigarettes and marijuana in the house as well as leave excesses messes. We moved from a 3 night minimal to a 4 night minimal to hopefully get rid of some of the weekenders that trash the place. We have raised our minimal nightly and are learning the red flags on who could be a problem guest. We are learning that are ideal guests are family that are coming into town for sports tournaments. Now that we know this we will adjust our listing to target those types of guests. The pool also has proven to be an ongoing thing to spend money and learn about. We will continue to learn and adjust to make our business better and the guest experience better.
Can you tell our readers more about what you do and what you think sets you apart from others?
I would love to help others set up and host a short term rental! I am great at designing the decor for a whole house plus knowing what needs to go into a successful str. I can revamp rentals that need an upgrade, whether that would be with decor or in their online listing. I am excepting more rentals as a host. My goal is to host a handful of properties. You own the property and I do all the work to get it up and running on airbnb/vrbo. I love hosting guests and taking care of their needs while staying at the house. I am a professional photographer so I can take professional photos for others listings on airbnb/vrbo. Paul is does residential remodeling so he can fix up any space to get it ready for renters, from small handyman jobs to full remodels.
As a couple, we have all the tools to decorate, remodel, photograph and host many short term rentals. We are passionate about what we do and strive to offer excellent services. We can not wait to help others create a profitable short term rental!
So, before we go, how can our readers or others connect or collaborate with you? How can they support you?
We love supporting the local restaurants and adventures by having a list of suggested places for our guests to visit.
We would love to work with property owners that want to rent their place as an airbnb/vrbo but don’t want to be the host or do the work to get the property ready. We would love to work with an investor so that we could buy more properties. We would love to work with property owners that need design input/refresh and/or remodeling. We know how to make a place look great!
I would love to work with property owners that need professional staging and photographs for their listing. I can also help other hosts with their Instagram photos.
Pricing:
- Nightly rate starts at $165
Contact Info:
- Email: mail@erinjohnsonphoto.com
- Website: airbnb.com/h/sunnyescapeaz
- Instagram: @sunnyescapeaz
- Other: www.erinjohnsonphoto.com / @erinjohnsonphoto / @naileditdesignbuild
Image Credits
Erin Johnson Photography
