Some people are simply good at it and enjoy doing it by themselves, while others could use some help. It’s just the way we as individuals are built 
And yes, you’re probably right, the more obvious clients for such services would be people with big budgets and little time, but not only, as I said above, hiring an interior designer might actually help you with better deals that you would get as a regular customer so it’s just as good of an option to people with smaller budgets, because they could help make the best out of that budget.
Why would you necessarily see it as a waste of money?As I mentioned above it could actually help you save some money, or just make sure that your budget no matter how big or small is it’s directed in the important places that would actually help make a good impression for your listing. And also, it could help by avoiding costly mistakes that someone from the lack of experience might make. It’s just a matter of perspective, and in the end it pays off. Regarding the remote services, it’s a common practice nowadays and it seems to work pretty well, and I think that first of all is because it’s cheaper than the on site services, because the interior designer has the commodity of doing their job from their couch at home for example, or they just don’t add the costs of transportation to your property, they can make their own schedule and still provide great design concepts for your property, so for this, they will charge less that you would get charged by a person that would come on-site.
So what ball park would you charge to provide a design and sourcing service for a three bedroom house. Assume a Victorian house with kitchen, dining room and living room, where each room needs designing and sourcing.
How much would you be able to save a client in terms of discounts.
I am just trying to get an understanding of how your service could end up being cost neutral or minimal for those with small budgets?
And I am definitely right in cash rich, time poor being your target market for this type of service. (I am sure you know this from your other interior design clients).
I think you would be better off trying to work directly with Airbnb to become a contract designer for their Plus listings. No idea if Air would be interested in that.
If you’re flogging your business here and doing market research, you’ll get more enthusiastic participation if you offer a benefit (gift card, chance to win x hours of design service, etc.)
I think it is time to create that new section: “New members joining and within the hour trying to sell their services by pretending to 1. ask leading questions or 2. tell members that they are doing ‘research’ or 3. adding a link selling their services and pretending it is being added to ‘help the community’.”
Membership posts are accrued when:
Become argumentative when challenged or questioned
Become coy when asked about their true reason for joining.
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People don’t like paying for a service
Sorry to tell you, but you will be fighting an uphill battle. As I said in another topic: People are very willing to pay for products, but are not very willing to pay for a service. (See topic Furnishing Services .)
- People don’t understand why it takes you 10, 20, 40+ … hours to source and chose a few nice products. “Why waste my money?”
- They don’t respect your work: “I don’t need anyone tell me how to spend my money.” or in other words “The only thing you will do is spend money and not add anything else.”
- They don’t value your work correctly “Why would I pay you for something I can do myself?”
Bad moment
Other problem for designers, unlike e.a. real estate agents, you are coming in the moment that all money is only going out. In the case of AirBnB hosts: Some start BnB’ing from their own home already in search of extra income. Others just invested in a property to BnB, and maybe already have to worry about how to pay the mortgage.
AirBnB = uncertainty
There is a lot of uncertainty in AirBnB’ing so people are reluctant to invest a lot of money. Quite a few hosts on this forum have told stories of how they source things at very low cost (overstock, second hand, …) or even for free (e.a. mattresses). This is a service you will not be able to provide, because your time would cost too much.
Extra investment does not always equal extra income
If I recall well, people have commented on this forum that extra investments haven’t always resulted in extra income. This due to many reasons, but in any case it’s something YOU can’t control. Therefor it’s also uncertain if you indeed will add value.
Regional and other restrictions of your service
If you are located in Spain, what kind of products can you source for someone in e.a. Belgium, USA, Peru?
How can you provide a plan if you can’t go onsite to measure?
On another note
I’m convinced of the added value of designers 
, but I’m not the one to be convinced. You will have to decide how you will market your service and what kind of service you can and want to offer. For AirBnB hosts I would argue that most will not want to pay you an awful lot of money. As for this forum, hosts can already find a lot of free advice (also on design 
).
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I’m with GutHend on this one.
I wasn’t sure if Airbnb would be a winner in my area so started on a shoestring budget. I sourced almost everything from family storage. The first twin beds I bought for $50/ea off Amazon. As much as I respect those with real design expertise, I couldn’t have afforded to forgo absolute necessities (towels, good linens) for their services.
I did read a lot of vacation rental design blogs (One Chic Retreat was my favorite). Perhaps you could see how that model works? I believe she generates some leads for full jobs from her blogs, but also offers mini-consultations (remotely) and likely gets a small cut from products she suggests on her site.
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Here on Hawaii Island, only the richest of the rich or the relatively rich can afford designers for their vacation rentals. It’s a certain high end clientele renting a high end place. I’m not sure there would really be a market for this unless these were rentals in places like Kukio or Mauna Lani.
As someone here once mentioned, in order to avoid disappointment and damage, only outfit your rental places with industrial strength stuff. Not sure if custom couches, wall treatments or draperies would fit the bill for most ordinary Airbnb hosts such as ourselves.
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This is a perfect answer. I would love a (free) designer, but I don’t have the budget to use one, and I would have to be guaranteed a return on investment to justify creating a budget.
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Very good point about the wear and tear. That completely changes the parameters around the design.
The problem with the whole idea is that the people who care about having a good interior design are often the type of people who enjoy doing it themselves. Abd the people who care less about design are not really interested either. And I’m sorry but I think it is super dishonest to act like an interior designer is going to save you money by using special discounts. It’s just not true. Maybe they save you 20% on some unique designer piece through their connections, but their contacts are priced 30% higher than normal stores to start. So realistically you could get something similar for less by shopping on your own. Most people ( especially on a budget) know how to shop in the price range they can afford, and for many airbnbs I assume furnishings come from affordable big box stores. Designers are not getting discounts at Walmart, Amazon, Goodwill, Target, Home Goods, yard sales, furniture warehouses, etc. Abd the people who want a designer have already decided that the cost is worth it for the time and expertise, but don’t act like anyone is hiring a designer in order to save money.
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well for me its a YES…i would hire one…and oops and im going too …i enjoy doing them them - 2 more coming - its a collaboration - fun to exchange ideas and its a pre-airbnb element which i enjoy - also to be honest i think a designed flat/house will make you stand out - when i stay on airbnb i go for something different/design/interesting - dont like standard rooms - worked with a designer a few times and really enjoyed it - there is money involved but you get it back - more rents on ur place - higher price range - but as we say - IN TASTE AND COLOUR - THERE ARE NO COMRADES )…maybe more soviet than now )…my problem with a general design company (there are some out there) is that they cant source their things in each country - it would have to be a national design service who knows what they can source - so for me its A YES PLEASE@!
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is that your portfolio on your webpage?
I wish we could come, damn politics, now the consulate has been thrown out of St. P and the state dept has issued a travel advisory. Otherwise we would be looking into coming!!
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Never! My favorite part of my business is starting a new unit. I have ripped a unit down to the floor joists and rebuilt it all by myself. I have my own designs, my own shopping lists, my own crew who works with me… I love it. I drink like 3 cups of coffee, put on Flock of Seagulls, and click on the purchase button on Amazon, on a $10k order, which ships directly to my unit, and then my wife and I spend about 4 hours putting it together. I love it!
It gives me an excuse to shop, to build things, to make things nicer and more beautiful. I’ve been remodeling since I was a kid with my dad, and I would never hire someone else. We do this as a service for our clients as well, and charge about $150/hr for the two of us.
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where are you mike? could be tempted to use ur services )…thinking of having another place somwhere else…id also like to do it all myself just never learnt how…best let the professionals do it )…
no no no…thats press and media…all is normal…still sitting drinking cof over the canals…nothing has changed…forget about that…thats politics…life continues peacefully as normal.
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The visa process seems quite complicated but doable.
Why did they throw our diplomats out? Of course I know the US is doing the same to yours.
Glad to hear it’s normal and peaceful. But good for US tourists??
I am in Bozeman, MT, USA, but we operate in NY, and MT. Developing a 6 unit STR outside of Yellowstone National Park. I am very stressed about it, but it is getting along on its own now. It is commercial property, so by state law, I am not allowed to do things like plumbing, electrical, HVAC, foundations, and basically everything which can save me money.
I only do hands on type stuff in Bozeman, MT and the surrounding area. I’m a licensed sales agent in MT, who specializes in ABB type rentals. I know my market inside out and have 11 years of real estate investing experience here. Just starting to take clients! Everything else has been in the family.
We’ve had a lot of regulations get dumped on us as of last Jan/Feb, but I register STR’s for my clients. It’s expensive now, which is unfortunate, but there are ways around these laws.
@Helsi – It’s quite difficult to come up with a cost estimation on based on a general description of a place, there is a lot of things to consider when pricing for a project, me personally, I preffer working with flat fees based on an estimation of the effort I’ll have to put in that project, and that comes after a consultation and after we decide all the services that the owner asks.
- there are people that require 3D renderings because they cannot imagine how the place would look like from floorplans and when it comes to the 3D renderings alone there is also at least a 2 way of doing it:
o you can either sketch up in some user friendly software that would give you an idea of how the place would look like but the furnishings and accessories will be similar to what you sourced, not exactly the same - this option it’s less expensive because it’s not that time consuming
o or you can make the rendering from scratch in professional software where you will have to build/customize the exact items that you sourced and that takes time and I would have to hire a professional to do that, so I’ll have to charge the client extra for that service - also, there is the number of reviews requested that I’ll have to take into consideration, because there are lots of people that change their mind in the middle of the project and you have to redo the entire project, or most of it
the discounts could vary from 3% to about 10% depending on the vendor and the quantity of items I purchase from them (not just for your project for example, but for all the projects that I’m using their products for example)
It’s not a standard “recipe” all I was trying to do is to point out that there are ways of working around any budget and I was giving some examples on how that could work.
@dpfromva – thank’s for the idea with airbnb plus services, I’ve looked into it a bit and they don’t seem to offer that in my area at the moment, but probably in the future, since it’s a touristy area.
At this point I’m not trying to sell anything, I’m just doing my homework whether this is an area worth investing time and resources in, because in my mind it is, but I just need to confirm it with real business owners that could be potential clients and see where their mind is on the subject because it’s more important that what I think. And yeah, you’re perfectly right about the benefits
@Rolf – I don’t recall using any links to my business in this thread and I definitely think that it’s nothing but a way of saying your thoughts (on, I say, an important subject for a airbnb host) and just argument your choice. For me it’s deffinetly research to see how actual potential clients would see the matter, because in my mind, based on my airbnb experience as a client it should work, but it’s not my opinion that matter here. And the whole idea of participating into a research is completely your choice, if you think the researcher is worth your time to write an answer or if maybe you would be interested in the topic as well and maybe extract a few ideas that would help you in the future, why not, it’s completely up to you, it’s not mandatory or anything.
@GutHend – you’re absolutely right and I really appreciate your comment, it’s exactly on point and well argumented. What I was trying to do on some of my previous responses was not to convince anybody to hire me, or an interior designer in general (I for example would NEVER ever take a project with a client that had to be convinced to use such services, because they will be a nightmare to work with and it’s just not worth the effort because they will always be skeptic and will challenge everything you make). I was just trying to offer a point of view, and maybe educate a bit people on why such services could be important or could add value to them (it’s definitely not something guaranteed, in my opinion in this particular niche, it’s more like an investment and it’s totally up to the owner to do their homework and decide if it’s worth the investment, because it’s not something that everybody should just do, it’s something that you should research on, maybe looking at similar listings to yours that are a bit more well put together and where you could see a designers touch there, and see if those work out better In terms of price and occupancy for example).
Regarding the location restrictions, yes I’m well aware of the fact that it’s an issue, but I was thinking more of providing remote services, maybe for other areas here in Spain that are not near me and it’s not justifying the trip there, but would be doable for me to source furniture, finishes and accessories online, or in specific shops that are available nationwide, and on a larger scale in the idea of extending the services to other countries, I wouldn’t have to do it for every single country, I could just choose some countries where it would make sense to do my research on terms of product sourcing, for example in Europe won’t be such a hassle since there are lots of brands and shops available in most of the European countries, and I don’t see that as much of a barrier anymore. In terms of floor plans, the owners would have to provide the plans to start with, it’s a common practice when working with a designer remotely.
@Allison_H – it’s perfectly normal to start low when you’re not sure if it’s going to work, as I said, this type of service it’s not for everyone, it’s more like an investment for you as an airBNB owner and you have to decide if it’s worth it, maybe it’s not worth the risk in the beginning, but after a while when you see how things evolve could be worth it …
@konacoconutz – agree on the “industrial strength stuff”, the durability and quality of things is a thing that you should keep in mind when sourcing for an AirBNB. About the affording this type of services to me it seems that people see such services are only super expensive, in my opinion there is also a lower budget option for consultancy let’s say, when you have an interior designer come in and give you a couple of ideas, or validate yours, or just add some finishing touches to optimize the place.
@Clemkadiddlehopper – as I said to GutHend, it’s more like an investment that you would have to research on if it’s worth it or not for your market.
@janeandcharley - there are definitely people that really enjoy doing this and they’re fairly good at it I don’t know exactly how the US market works in this field, but in Europe for example, you can get special discounts form usual shops also, not just high end pumped up price ones. I definitely agree that a person that would hire an interior designer has previously made up it’s mind about the added value, I was just saying that saving you some money could also apply, it’s not a rule and it’s definitely not a reason why you should work with a designer.
@Stpetersburg – I’m really glad that this worked out for you in the past and I wish you good luck with your future collaboration As for the national design service, I partially agree with you, it’s deffinetly really important for the designer to have a good knowledge on where they can source best for what kind of items, but I thing that there are cases where you could cover a wider area, for example Europe where as I said before, there are lots of brands and shops available in multiple countries and it makes it a lot easier for you to offer your services in multiple countries.
I don’t have an actually portfolio on my webpage, there are some moodboards from my previous prjects used on my website pages but the portfolio it’s a work in progress at this moment, I recently moved from my home country (Romania) to Spain and I’m trying to start things more seriously here and start doing it as a real business, not just a passion as I was doing it back at home for the last couple of years.
@MikeBozeman – some people are naturally good at it and actually enjoy doing it and eventually transform it into a business that works out perfect for them. Good job and good luck