The Design Decisions That Actually Increase Bookings with Courtney Petrovich

**SPEAKER_1** (0:05)
Welcome to The Short Term Show, the show about short term rentals and long term wealth, with real property owners hosting real properties, who are crushing it in the vacation and short term rental space. And here's your host, Avery Carl.

**Avery Carl** (0:29)
Hey, y'all, welcome back to another episode of The Short Term Show. I've got a really cool guest today. We've got Courtney Petrovich. She is an Airbnb and short term rental designer, which I always love talking about design. It's so much fun. We talk about so many numbers on here that it's, I'm looking forward to talking about something else. So I'm, as always, your host, Avery Carl and I'll go ahead and introduce Courtney. How's it going, Courtney?

**Courtney Petrovich** (0:53)
Hey, Avery. I'm doing well. Thanks so much for having me on. I'm excited to talk to you today. And I am excited that we always get to talk about fun things on the design side too.

**Avery Carl** (1:02)
Yes. So much more fun. Nice change of pace.

**Courtney Petrovich** (1:05)
Yes. Although design is like so much more number based than people think when it is short term rentals or boutique hotels, right? These investment assets, but we do get to also talk about super fun, fun things also.

**Avery Carl** (1:17)
Yes. Yes. So will you just tell our listeners a little bit about yourself and how you got into the business?

**Courtney Petrovich** (1:23)
Yeah. So as you mentioned, I'm Courtney Petrovich. I'm the founder and principal of Denori Designs, and short term rental design company. And we also have now branched into boutique hotels and resorts and designing different asset classes within hospitality.

**Avery Carl** (1:43)
Love that. So how did you get into that?

**Courtney Petrovich** (1:46)
Yeah, I started as an investor actually in long-term rentals in 2016 Bought my first long-term rental and just grew that portfolio slowly near where I live. And in the early 2021, 2022, started researching short-term rentals and was just really fascinated by the hospitality side of it. So different than a long-term rental mentality. And so over the last few years, I've sold off all of my long-term rentals and I purchased my first short-term rental in South Carolina. And it was eight bedrooms and I live in Colorado. And I was like, well, why can't I design this? And so designed that property from across the country and went out for install and just absolutely fell in love with it and decided that this is what I want to do for everyone to bring design to the world. So that's exactly how I got started.

**Avery Carl** (2:42)
Awesome. So where is your short-term rental in South Carolina?

**Courtney Petrovich** (2:46)
It's in North Myrtle Beach. So we're about 30 to 40 minutes north of Myrtle. So we don't get the party scene. We get like families and golfers a little bit more low-key.

**Avery Carl** (2:58)
Yeah, totally, totally. So how big is that property? How many bedrooms?

**Courtney Petrovich** (3:02)
It's eight bedrooms, seven baths. And so that first one that we bought is a duplex. So the other side has eight bedrooms, seven baths as well, but it's owned by someone else. And then this December, we actually purchased one a block away and it's also eight bedrooms, seven baths, same layout. So it's been really cool to replicate what we've done previously.

**Avery Carl** (3:23)
Okay. So let's talk a little bit about like how you got that and you designed it and then you just said, I want to do this for everyone. So how did you go from just being a short terminal owner to getting clients?

**Courtney Petrovich** (3:41)
Yeah, I just set my mind that I wanted to help others just because it was such a fun process. I saw not right away, but obviously over the first year of operating, I saw a huge number of differences. So we went from 120,000 before we purchased it as annual revenue to 254 gross annual revenue. So I was like, oh my gosh, we can make an impact for guests and investors. And just started kind of getting my name out there, looking through Facebook groups. And someone posted in a Myrtle Beach real estate investors Facebook group, hey, looking to redesign my condo.
And so I just reached out to that person and he ended up being my first client. And he owns a management company and was able to refer me to other clients. And we've just built a reputation from there and really built the business around that reputation that we've built.

**Avery Carl** (4:32)
Awesome. So where is your favorite place to design, or where has been your favorite property?