Airbnb Design Mistakes That Cost Investors Bookings | Erica Dike

Erica Dike (00:00)
So a big mistake that they’ll make is they choose things based on what they like. So they have a Pinterest board of all these things they’ve saved and they wanna have it, they wanna love it and show their friends like, look at my property. it’s this and that. But it’s not a dollhouse. It is a moving, performing business.

And so I have to come in and kind of be the middle ground to like this is what you like, but if it’s getting in the way of how it’s going to perform, we’re going to have to change that. But if it doesn’t affect it at all, then we can go on.

Freddie Steen (02:08)
Hey everyone. Welcome to the Investor Fuel Podcast by Real Estate Pros. I’m your host, Freddie and today I’m joined by someone I’ve been looking forward to chatting with. Erica from Erica Ooh Designs, who’s been making serious moves in the rental arbitrage space with design strategy. That’s right, folks. She is a design strategist, someone who is going in and reimagining.

A niche in the industry that we thought we all knew. Erica, I’m glad to have you here. I think our listeners are going to take something away from how you’re approaching this space of short-term rentals, long-term rentals, by coming in and showing owners and operators how to redesign and reimagine their spaces. So let’s dive in. First off, for people who may not be familiar with your world,

Give us the short version. Erica, what’s your main focus these days? And what markets is Erica Ooh Designs operating in right now?

Erica Dike (03:10)
Freddie, thank you so much for having me on the show. So I am based in Houston, Texas. I work all over the United States. So if it’s somewhere that I can fly to, I’m available. If it’s somewhere where I can fly to, I also offer virtual ⁓ services as well.

Freddie Steen (03:28)
What’s your main focus these days?

Erica Dike (03:30)
So I mainly focus on vacation rentals, short-term rentals, midterm rentals. Pretty much it’s properties that investors take and they furnish and they rent them out not long term, but any time less than 12 months.

Freddie Steen (03:45)
So would this be similar to some of the large brands we’ve heard of, like Airbnb?

Erica Dike (03:50)
Yes. So these are properties that you can list on Airbnb, VRBO, as well as direct booking for those who have established a brand on social media and things like that. Absolutely.

Freddie Steen (04:02)
Erica, you have an amazing backstory, which includes your first kind of dipping your toe into the water of real estate as an owner operator in college. Tell us about that.

Erica Dike (04:16)
Okay, so this is always an interesting story. I love telling it because it’s so random. But I was in college, ⁓ it was like maybe my last couple months ⁓ of the semester and the Super Bowl came to Houston. So I decided to list my apartment on Airbnb because that’s what everybody was doing in the city at the time.

Now, some people got booked, some people didn’t. I was one of the lucky ones that got booked because my apartment was pretty close to ⁓ NRG where the Super Bowl was happening. And it was pretty much booked the same day I listed it. And every weekend after that, it was continued to be booked. And so that made me really get into it like, this isn’t just a one time thing. This can be something that I do. So I started listening to podcasts, learning more about the short term rental world.

And when I graduated, I got an apartment to list on Airbnb and it was booked every time. And I just kept doing it. ⁓ I would reach out to landlords that had vacant long-term rental properties and I would tell them about short-term rentals and we would work with them to transform those to short-term rentals. And they started getting booked. And I developed a formula during this process because it wasn’t by chance, you know.

People were not just paying top dollar because it looked good. There was something that was working. And so over time I fine-tuned that. And that’s what I call my designing for dollars formula. And now that I’ve pivoted full time to just designing vacation rentals, I use this formula to help investors make serious money.

Freddie Steen (05:52)
Design for dollars formula. You heard it here on the Real Estate Pros Investor Fuel podcast. Erica, I love it. I mean, what caught my attention about you was the way you’ve been able to approach a market, which we think we know in a fresh light in multiple markets while still keeping margins strong, particularly since your pivot comes from a random event in college and grows into an entire business.

That’s not easy, especially in this climate. What’s been the key to keeping that machine running smoothly?

Erica Dike (07:12)
simple as understanding people. So, you know, there is data you can look at, there is strategy that we look at, but ultimately it comes down to understanding people because vacation rentals, short-term rentals, midterm rentals, it’s all hospitality. And yes, when you get the property, that’s real estate, but hospitality is what turns that property into something where you make money. So when you understand who you’re trying to attract

To your property, you can design solely for them. And it’s no longer just guessing, like, I’m gonna put this, I’m gonna put that. I hope when I launch people book, but you know what they’re looking for. So you put it in there. And when you launch, there are people already looking for this. So it really takes out all the guesswork and makes it kind of actual investing, you know. That’s what I think.

Freddie Steen (08:03)
Erica, in an era where we are amidst such a rash of of people ⁓ designing, you know, designing with with AI and all the tools that are available for us, ⁓ you’re unique because you have done something different where you are utilizing AI and I and technology in the growth of Erica Ooh Designs, but you have in this moment decided that you would focus

On actually designing for the human in the loop. What’s made you so strong in that space? And what are the trends coming in twenty twenty seven? Designing for humans.

Erica Dike (08:39)
I come from a large family. So I grew up seeing how when we host people, what different people need, how they are, like being able to read people, being able to anticipate their needs before they get here. So when we’re prepping for them to come over, I’m hearing what my mom says. Make sure there’s enough seating, you know, make sure there’s soap in the bathroom, just basic things that make people feel thought of and cared about. You know, I’ll go to people’s houses and

I feel like, man, you didn’t really think much about me coming over. Like you just have it, you know, how you live. But so I think that really gave me an edge in going into it, understanding people. And AI, I use it a lot. Like it helps me read trends. It helps me foresee trends. Like it ⁓ I use a lot of data. I go on platforms like BNB Calc, and I will look at the top performing.

⁓ properties in that market and see what guests are raving about in the reviews, see what amenities it’s offering. And I use that to create my own story in this property. So that can look like, you know, running a prompt like, hey, Claude, if a guest is coming to this market with this many people and they’re celebrating X, Y, and Z event, what are some top five things they’ll be looking for? And when I have that list, I can cross-check it with

what is top performing in that market already, what is missing. It helps me to think faster, but it doesn’t replace my thinking. I still have to guide it. So AI is very great in building on, but you cannot use it just alone.

Freddie Steen (10:18)
I love what you said about that. Being a person who ⁓ has a niche in design, real estate pros, investor field podcast, we’ve had the the great pleasure of talking to great architects and designers all over the world ⁓ this year. It’s really been tremendous. But you actually are taking design from another aspect. Before the pod, we were talking, and you mentioned to me that one of the

Beautiful things that you’ve been able to uncover in your business is talking to owners and operators who are interested in designing for dollars, which is kind of a, you were saying is a thought shift for a lot of persons that are in the rental arbitrage business. Can you go deeper into that?

Erica Dike (11:02)
Yeah, absolutely. So there are a lot of designers now. When I first started, vacation rental designers weren’t really a thing. We just had regular interior designers. It was probably like three years ago, maybe, that we had the first vacation rental design ⁓ conference at High Point. So like it’s becoming a market now, but there’s still a huge thought shift that needs to happen because they feel like

A lot of people think vacation rental design is just supposed to be fun. So it’s like, I won’t normally do this at home, but my vacation rental, I can do woo-woo wa. Great. But at the end of the day, once you’re done having your fun, putting all your fun pieces in there, you’re probably gonna be at home stressing out, like, I hope I get booked. I have to change my prices. You know, that’s where the real business comes in. And so the shift comes from

Thinking about that business before you pull the trigger on purchases. So thinking about who are you trying to attract? What the what numbers are you trying to hit? What is that average nightly rate that you’re trying to get? You know, your performer, you have all these numbers about how this property is going to perform and why it was a great deal. But to guarantee that, you need to have a design strategy. And so it comes from thinking deeper than just what.

wallpaper should I put here or what trending ⁓ sofa should I include in this design? It should be who’s coming, what do they need? How does this space need to flow? How does this space need to function? And what things are they looking at that’s going to cause them to click on your listing and pull the trigger to book because you’re not the only property out there. So you have to make sure that you’re including things that will make you stand out and become the only option.

So all of my properties that I’ve helped clients design, they are all at least top five percent in their market. So we’re not going to page two, three, we’re not doing that. A lot of them are already on the first page. Sometimes they are the top listing, number one listing, because you need to get out there and you need to show that client who’s ready to spend or that guest who’s ready to spend. Like, we thought about you. This is what you’re looking for, this is what you’re looking for. And they’re like, yes, yes, yes, book.

Freddie Steen (13:54)
Our real estate pros audience is getting so much out of this. I have to ask you.

What do owners and operators that have not thought about design first, when you come into that type of client, what are some of give us two things going into twenty twenty seven mistakes that owner operators are making that you have to come in and fix? Don’t give up the secret sauce though.

Erica Dike (14:16)
Okay. ⁓ number one would be personalization. So a big mistake that they’ll make is they choose things based on what they like. So they have a Pinterest board of all these things they’ve saved and they wanna have it, they wanna love it and show their friends like, look at my property. it’s this and that. But it’s not a dollhouse. It is a moving, performing business.

And so I have to come in and kind of be the middle ground to like this is what you like, but if it’s getting in the way of how it’s going to perform, we’re going to have to change that. But if it doesn’t affect it at all, then we can go on. I had a client who we were redesigning their property and they told me they didn’t like the light fixtures in the bathroom. And I told them, you know, changing these fixtures, they’re not going to move the needle at all on ROI. So we’re not going to worry about that.

We’re going to use the money on something else. And that type of conversation is sometimes hard to have with a client who doesn’t understand how things perform. So letting just letting them know like it’s not all about what you like. Actually it’s not about what you like at all, if I’m being honest, it’s more about what’s going to perform. So that’s the number one mistake that I see. Number two mistake that I see is sometimes they pull the trigger on a deal that is good.

But it’s not going to work with the design budget that they have. So what happens is they take that design budget and they try to spread it thin in the property. And it just doesn’t work. So I feel like the best way would be to meet with the designer before you pull the trigger and say, hey, this is the four bedroom property that I have. This is how much that I have to spend. Is it going to work to get me these numbers? And if so, then yes, pull the trigger. But

Oftentimes you may have to scale down to a smaller property where you can do more, you know, and perform better. So those are like very small thoughts. So you feel like it’s not a big idea, but they all have really big ⁓ what do you say, really big ⁓ effects on how your property performs moving forward.

Freddie Steen (17:45)
Every operator I know has a moment where things got real. Erica, maybe it’s a deal that went sideways or a time you had to pivot fast. Would you mind sharing one of those moments for you?

Erica Dike (17:57)
A deal gone sideways. I will say, okay, so I had a project that I worked on last year. It was a new build property. So when I first got in, it was nothing but just dirt. And we went all the way from framing to what it is today. And there was like a lapse in the budget. And so we couldn’t purchase things on time. And we were having to pivot and pivot and pivot. But what made it easy?

was we had a design strategy already outlined. So when, for example, we couldn’t do the sauna in the basement, because we knew who was coming, what we were trying to, the experience we were trying to offer them, we could pivot that space into what is now a speakeasy lounge. So instead of just having an empty little, because you know, a sauna build out is a very small space to begin with. So if you can’t put a sauna, you may just be like, what do I do with this random nook?

But we turned it into a little game area. So there’s a table, there’s banquet seating, there’s a popcorn machine, there’s a shelf with games. It’s a it’s a unique experience, but because we had that design strategy, we were really able to pivot within reason and we didn’t see that fallout in the ROI later.

Freddie Steen (19:11)
That is great. Erica, logistics have been so wacky this year, the last couple of years. Not as bad as it was during the years of COVID. How has Erica Ooh Designs been able to work around some of the delays that have happened with materials and shipping and things of this nature?

Erica Dike (20:09)
Again, having a process is very helpful. So I have a way that I run my projects from beginning to end. No matter where it is, how big it is, how much we’re spending, we do the same steps every time. So when there is something that we need to pivot, it’s not just the mad dash trying to figure things out. I know exactly what that piece is, how we can replace it before.

We purchase anything, everything is rendered. So we know exactly how it looks before we make payments, like literal payments. Everything is put together. So we see that total budget. So if I’m about to order a bed and I see that it’s out of stock, I can change it to something local that will fit the same dimensions, fit the same design pattern, and fit the same cost of that bed. So things are wonky, they’re kind of out of my control, but.

When we have a system and we have processes to guide us, it’s never chaos. It’s always organized chaos. That’s what I always call it.

Freddie Steen (21:11)
Speaking of organized, I’m a person who, a podcaster who had the pleasure of sitting on furniture made by ⁓ one of the great architects of the United States era, so whose name starts with Andrew. And ⁓ one of the things that was unique about Falling Water, one of his flagship homes, is that all the furniture design you can see directly.

With this cantilever design on the house, you can see directly out the window. It’s kind of a unique thing that he that that Wright does. My question to you is what are some what is one of the unique signature things about Erica Ooh designs that if I walked into this VRBO and walked into this Airbnb, I could say, hey, Erica might have touched that. What are some of the trends you follow who are some the designers that influenced you?

Erica Dike (21:59)
So I am not a school trained designer. I actually went to school for management information systems and I worked as a business analyst before I left to be a designer. So let’s put that out there. So yeah, my design skills is something that is innate to me. So when it comes to vacation rental specifically, again, remember I mentioned it’s very different from interior design. So what I do is stay away from trends.

Because in your home, you can follow trends and when it dies, you can change it. But in a vacation rental, it’s really hard to change furniture when you’re already, you know, live or when you see, I’m getting a drop in bookings, no one’s looking for this anymore. So what I try to do is not even I don’t know anything about trends. I don’t know what’s trending. I don’t know the colors. Don’t know, don’t care. But what you will see in my designs is a lot of layering of colors, textures, patterns.

I get a lot people come to me like man, you use so many colors, but each room just still ties together. So you will notice that there’s each space feels alive. There’s a mic drop moment in every room, but it still feels cohesive. So when you look at the listing online, you see all the different colors, but they all work together and you know that it’s one property. If you look at a lot of design properties on platforms like Airbnb right now.

You will see that they’re designed, but usually each room doesn’t, it’s not cohesive. It’s like one design here, one design here, one design there. Each well designed, but it’s not an overall experience. So for me, I use a lot of colors. People know me for using colors, but they also know me for having a functional space. So when you go in there, nothing is in the way. You move freely. When you want to put your cup down, there’s a table right there.

It’s kinda like you have a butler. So my designs are beautiful, but they’re also very functional.

Freddie Steen (23:55)
Being functional and being able to pivot, Erica, that’s the kind of stuff that people don’t talk about enough. And honestly, it’s what separates the folks who just dabble from the ones who stay in the game long term. Let me ask you this. What are you most focused on solving or scaling next? What’s the next real goal for you?

Erica Dike (24:14)
The next real goal for me would be just working with more investors that actually understand how vacation rentals need to perform in 2026 and beyond, based on how they were performing before. Like they they can see how the platforms like Airbnb and VRBO are adapting. So they’re they’re business people, you know, they’re not just

Homeowners that have a second home and they just want to make a little income. These are people that are trying to retire their wives, their parents, themselves and move to a different level ⁓ financially. So they really, really need something that’s going to work and they’re willing to work with an expert that’s going to get them there. So my focus right now is just making sure they know I exist and working with those specific investors.

Freddie Steen (25:03)
Managing that organized chaos that’s big, especially when you’ve already got this innate savant-like ability in design married to your background in management information systems with all the tech that’s going on. I mean, the next move can compound things for you. ⁓ and you’re already ⁓ in the space playing it the way it should be played. I know a lot of people listening.

Are either earlier in their journey or looking to level up. And I think they benefit from hearing this. Erica, when it comes to building relationships and growing your network, particularly with Erica Ooh Designs, which is exclusive, they have to sign up to do that. What’s the make made the biggest difference for you in growing your network?

Erica Dike (25:49)
Just having conversations. So a while ago, when I was trying to figure out how to run a business that is in the 2026, 2024, like after COVID, the way businesses were ran were different. They’re very online now. And so when I was trying to learn my place in this, I learned that my superpower is having intentional ⁓ relationships with people. So a lot of my clients, when they come to me, it’s not just

Hey, can you help me with a property? But it’s I want to retire my wife and surprise her with this property. Or I grew up with the lake home and now I have this property I want to renovate, but I wanted to make money so that when we’re not there, I don’t feel bad for doing this because it is for my kids, but I don’t want to bear the burden. You know, I’m not wealthy, but like this was something that really changed my life as a kid. So I want to give it to my kids.

The investors that work with me, they have these special stories, and that’s where we connect. And I become like a partner, like cheering you on. Because, you know, you’ll have your friends and family. You’ll tell them, I want to do this. And sometimes they’ll speak a little doubt into like, really? You want an ice cream themed content house, which I have designed, by the way, in Waco. ⁓ and you know, nobody really supports you on that. But when you find me, I’m more than just a designer. I’m more like, okay, here’s how we can.

get this done. It’s it doesn’t matter how big or how crazy your ideas are. And so just being able to connect with people one-on-one, that has been my superpower. And moving forward, I want to continue to create these relationships, but it’s going to be intentional, not because you’re popular or you’re this big fancy realtor. It’s I want to be with real people, real people with real stories.

Freddie Steen (27:37)
Yes, real people, real stories, you know, you can’t fake that. relationships are everything in this space. All right, before we wrap, Erica, if someone wanted to reach out, connect with you, maybe collaborate or learn more about what you’re doing, what’s the best way for them to reach you?

Erica Dike (27:55)
so I do hang out on Instagram a lot. That is where you’ll see more of my active posting. ⁓ but I am everywhere. I am on LinkedIn. I read a lot of the posts there. I do try to post sometimes, but I’m more of a reader, so I enjoy reading those long posts. So if you are on LinkedIn, you can reach out to me. I’ll see you there. ⁓ Instagram DMs always open, my website, always available. And podcasts. I like people to

listen to other podcasts that I’ve been on to try to get to know me before speaking to me. A lot of people come to me that way and when we’re talking, it’s like we’ve met already. So that I’m kind of just everywhere. I am a millennial, so I am online. But ⁓ so pick your poison. I’m there.

Freddie Steen (28:40)
Well, Erica, you have to give us your online handles so we can find you.

Erica Dike (28:44)
⁓ yes. So on Instagram my handle is Erica Ooh Designs. On LinkedIn, I am Erica Dike, D-I-K-E. And on X, I don’t know if people go there anymore, but I am on there as well, Erica D-I-K-E.

Freddie Steen (29:02)
Perfect. ⁓ we have to get your website.

Erica Dike (29:04)
⁓ yeah, of course. See, I am a millennial. No one uses those, but it is www.ericaohh.com.

Freddie Steen (29:17)
Well listen, ⁓ Eric, I appreciate your time, your story, ⁓ and your perspective. We need more people in this space. We’re doing it the right way. Thanks again for being here.

Erica Dike (29:29)
Thank you for having me.

Freddie Steen (29:30)
And for those of you tuning in, if you got value from Erica Dike and Erica Ooh Designs, a design strategist that’s making sure you profit from your rental arbitrage niche, make sure you’re subscribed. We’ve got more conversations coming about more niches, more asset classes, more owners and more operators, just like Erica, who are out there building real businesses just.

like you. We’ll see you on the next episode.