526. Hosting Hotline: Hosting Hotline: What to Do Before You Get the Keys to Your First STR
Thanks For Visiting
Airbnb Superhosts Annette Grant & Sarah Karakaian
4.9 • 589 Ratings
🗓️ 23 December 2025
⏱️ 13 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
This week on the Hosting Hotline, Randa writes in with a question many new hosts face: What should I be focusing on while I’m waiting to take possession of my first short-term rental?
Sarah and Annette walk through exactly how to use this in-between time wisely—so you’re not scrambling once the first guest checks in.
In this episode, we cover:
- Why buying an STR means starting a business—not just furnishing a property
- What to set up financially before you ever get the keys
- How to build your business “dream team” early
- Why revenue strategy should come before design decisions
- What market research you can do without stepping inside the home
- How to start building your operational support system
- The habits every successful host sets up before opening day
- Why consuming too much hosting content can actually slow you down
If you’re waiting to close—or planning your first STR—this episode helps you focus on the work that truly sets you up for long-term success.
Resources mentioned:
Thanks for Visiting Priced & Profitable Bootcamp
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | You're listening to the Thanks for Visiting Podcast. |
| 0:07.8 | We believe hosting with Heart is at the core of every short-term rental. |
| 0:12.8 | With Annette's background in business operation. |
| 0:15.1 | And Sarah's extensive hospitality management and interior design experience, we have welcomed |
| 0:20.3 | thousands of guests from over 30 |
| 0:22.2 | countries earning us over a million dollars and garnering us thousands of five-star reviews. |
| 0:27.9 | We love sharing creative ways for your listing to stand out, serve your guests, and be profitable. |
| 0:34.9 | Each episode, we will have knowledgeable guests who bring value to the short-term rental industry. |
| 0:39.4 | Or we will share our stories of our own experiences so you can implement actual improvements to your rentals. |
| 0:46.4 | Whether you're experienced, new, or nervous to start your own short-term rental, we promise you'll feel right at home. |
| 1:09.5 | Hello, welcome back to another great episode. My name is Sarah Carra Kane. I I'm Annette Grant and together we are thanks for visiting |
| 1:12.1 | and this is the hosting hotline. If you want to get your hosting hotline question answered |
| 1:16.5 | here on the podcast every Tuesday, all you have to do is go to hosting hotline.com. Ask your question |
| 1:22.4 | and we'll answer it here on the podcast. Sometimes though we have such good questions in the |
| 1:27.1 | comment section |
| 1:27.8 | of our YouTube channel or, like this situation, someone wrote into our website. And we love |
| 1:34.4 | answering questions that come into our website. And we thought this one, answering it here on the |
| 1:38.3 | podcast, would serve all of you, our entire audience. So Annette, you want to read the question? Yes. Hi, ladies. We are |
| 1:46.4 | new to STR. I love listening to you ladies and feel like you are my friend in my pocket. |
| 1:52.0 | I like being a pocket friend. I like it. We are buying our first property, but still have a few |
| 1:57.6 | weeks before closing. I'm so anxious to get in there and I am finding it hard to |
| 2:02.9 | figure out what to do in the meantime. I'm using my time curating furniture and coming up with |
... |
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