Part 2 of a 2 Part Blog Series
By Casey Louw
(IGrow Writer)
This is Part 2 of my Interview with Carina Kenny, owner of Kinsail Beach Villa, where she continues sharing her experiences as a short-term rental investor.
View Part 1 of the Interview for more insights on making your short-term rental property a success!
Carina offers practical, actionable advice and investor-focused strategies for short-term rentals, which are gaining popularity as a core component of successful property portfolios.
Key Takeaways from my interview with Carina Kenny
- Your short-term rental property’s location is essential.
- Tenant needs are important: guests prefer furnished, premium, well-fitted accommodation, with adequate kitchen and living space. Guests also seek short-term stays close to amenities and fun activities.
- Short-term property rental management is key to success: operating efficiently and being organised ensures your property’s smooth running and a good ROI.
- Excellent rental returns are on offer: your rental income changes seasonally. However, if you are well-situated, short-term rental properties can potentially outperform long-term buy-to-let investments. Rental income growth is significant if you are positioned well in terms of market demand.
- Short-term rentals diversify your property portfolio.
INTERVIEW DISCUSSION FINALE WITH CARINA KENNY, SHORT-TERM RENTAL PROPERTY OWNER OF KINSAIL BEACH VILLA
1. Does your property manager handle housekeeping? Would she welcome guests and hand over the keys?
Carina Kenny: Yes, she goes to the house every day to make sure the garden is looked after. She also makes sure the alarm is set and handles the weekly cleaning. She’s got to be there when the bin gets cleaned.
Casey: And changing the linen and all that sort of thing, she would handle all that?
Carina Kenny: Yes, Everything.
Another alternative that also works well, if you don’t want to employ someone, is using a cleaning service. They charge you 30% of the booking value, and they clean, re-stock toilet paper, and let the guests in.
2. Are they tied to Perfect Hideaways or is that a separate company?
Carina Kenny: No, that’s a service from separate short-term rentals management companies. They do everything on your behalf to run the property. So, it’s a very good way to ensure your short-term rental is successful.
3. What makes Perfect Hideaways a good short-term rental marketing option as opposed to other platforms like Airbnb?
Carina Kenny: I think if you list your property with Airbnb and Booking.com, you will have a multitude of people looking at your listing. So, you’ll have access to a huge market. I think that’s a plus. And the commissions are probably less than what Perfect Hideaways charges.
But the reason why I decided to go with Perfect Hideaways is that they send me high-end clients. Kinsail Beach Villa is well-suited to this with high-end furnishings and decor. And Perfect Hideaways screens potential booking candidates very carefully. Most of the clients that they send to me, they know personally. There’s hardly been any wear and tear or damage to my property.
5. Does Perfect Hideaways handle all the bookings for you, and then they let you know about them?
Carina Kenny: Yes. The team at Perfect Hideaways handles the bookings. They help guests get to the house, and they inform them of the do’s and don’ts. They take the booking money and a breakage deposit. And if there’s any niggly little problem, they have a problem-solving PR department, and they sort out any little glitches.
It’s fantastic working with them!
6. Do they regularly market your property and offer a package deal or a special rate in off-peak season on their site?
Carina Kenny: Yes, they do excellent marketing for me. They have a “Wednesday club” where, if your property is not rented out by the weekend, they feature it on the “Wednesday Club.” Then they offer a discount, and people can book at the last minute.
If you notice you’ve got a slow month that’s not fully booked, then Perfect Hideaways does a two-for-three offer. You pay for two nights, then you get one night free, known as their curated offers.
7. And how would you know that a booking’s been made? Is there a notification that comes through to you?
Carina Kenny: Yes. I get an email, and then they also have a WhatsApp group. So, they would communicate with me in both. They offer excellent communication.
8. Do you market the property personally, in other ways? Do you have your own website?
Carina Kenny: Yes, I can if I want to, but I made a decision not to do that.
9. Are you supposed to market your property personally, or can you if you want to?
Carina Kenny: I do have my own website, and people phone me, but I refer them to Perfect Hideaways. It’s a formula that makes sense for me.
I can up my turnover if I start doing that and I think that next winter I might start doing something like that. I could do some social media marketing on my own. But at the moment, I’m happy to use Perfect Hideaways for Kinsail Beach Villa.
10. Would Perfect Hideaways send social media influencers to come and stay at Kinsail so they can promote your short-term rental in Cape Town?
Carina Kenny: Yes, they send influencers who are quite high-profile to stay, and they give me fantastic coverage.
Casey: Would an influencer be able to stay as a complimentary guest, and then they would review and market Kinsail on their social media profiles?
Carina Kenny: Yes. And I’ve been quite impressed with the coverage I have received.
11. How do you get in touch with Perfect Hideaways if you own a luxury rental property and you want to list your own property on their website?
Carina Kenny: You go to their website, perfecthideaways.co.za and then you scroll to the tab “Homeowners”, next you click on the link that says “list your hideaway.”
Then, it will ask you all the necessary questions, or you can just ring them. Their telephone number is on their website too. That’s what I did.
When you list your property with Perfect Hideaways, they market your property well, and this helps you get really good rates. This is because of the way they present your property.
12. As the owner of Kinsail, what do you find are the pros of short-term rentals?
Carina Kenny: When you think of renting out your house on a short-term rental basis, you have a higher income potential.
You can also keep an eye on your property for damage. If, for instance, you have people staying at your property for 6 months, you don’t know what they’re going to do (in terms of wear and tear to your property). Whereas, with shorter stays, your pricing is flexible, you can make your rates higher and lower with every rental. With a six-month rental, it’s a fixed rate. You can’t do anything about it.
And then, with short-term rentals, you also have the use of your house in between. So if I don’t have bookings, then we could go and enjoy a holiday there. Otherwise, if it’s booked long-term, you can’t use your property for yourself.
Short-term rentals also allow us to go into the house and do maintenance, such as work on the garden or clean the windows. So, it’s extremely flexible. The property is under your control.
13. Have you noticed any cons to being a short-term rental property owner?
Carina Kenny: Yes. Obviously, there are cons. There can be a lack of bookings. And then, you don’t make money, but if you have a longer period of bookings, you are covered for that period in terms of rental income. Whereas, if you don’t get bookings for three months, for example, you are out of pocket.
You can have bad booking rates for any reason. It could be bad weather, then nobody comes.
The other cons of short-term rentals are that if people stay for only two nights. Then you’ve got a very high cost of cleaning because you have to keep on changing the bedding.
It gets very expensive because often we have to clean the linen after short stays. It costs a fixed amount to clean the linen. And with lots of people coming in and out, it creates a major increase on wear and tear of the property. This also makes it time-consuming to manage.
14. Do you have a minimum rental period that people can stay for?
Carina Kenny: Two days, usually. However, during Easter, guests have to stay for a minimum of four days. And, in December, they’ve got to stay a minimum of a week.
15. Do you have anything else that you’d like to add that you think would be useful to an IGrow investor considering short-term rental investments?
Carina Kenny: I can highly recommend Perfect Hideaways. It’s stress-free to do business with them.
I’m really happy I decided to turn my house into a short-term rental investment. And I am grateful I took that risk to turn it into holiday accommodation, especially with Kinsail being my first holiday rental property. I think it was a worthwhile idea to make use of the Perfect Hideaways platform. They made the whole process really easy for me.
Casey: It seems like it was worth it! Thank you so much, Carina. I think your insights and your experience and whole journey with Kinsail Beach Villa being listed on Perfect Hideaways proves that the short-term rentals market is actually a profitable and worthwhile investment option for an IGrow investor, with the right property.
Carina Kenny: Yes, absolutely. If you set your property up well, it can be a dream investment!
END OF PART 2
Core messages from the interview
Carina Kenny highlights that short-term rentals are no longer a mere trend – they’re a proven market to capitalise on for smart property investors.
Carina shares her first-hand experiences with guest expectations, booking seasons, the perks of hiring a property manager, to her ideas surrounding ROI, capital appreciation and long-term sustainability. She discovers through her own journey with Kinsail Beach Villa, how the short-term rental market offers flexibility, staying power, rental income security and strong rental returns. Carina emphasises that Perfect Hideaways has formed her ideal partner in her short-term rental property marketing and guest management journey.
Conclusion
With IGrow’s premium short-term rental investment opportunities, you can seal the deal in this booming property market sector. With our growing portfolio of short-term rental investment properties in Cape Town and Johannesburg, investors can grab this unique opportunity to grow their portfolios.
View Part 1 of this Blog Post series for more information on our short-term rentals in Cape Town at The Kingsley in Mowbray, Southern Suburbs and Mzuri Estate in Somerset West, or this stunning luxury villa at L’Hermitage in Franschhoek (fully furnished with all kitchen cutlery and crockery). We also have very limited apartments at The Residency in Sandton for another wonderful short-term rental opportunity in Johannesburg.
Contact an IGrow property investment strategist today, and let’s discuss a potential short-term rental investment property in Cape Town or Johannesburg, depending on your needs.
