We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful co-founders of Dijo Homes, Dina & Joey Schechter. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with them below.

Dina & Joey, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Getting that first client is always an exciting milestone. Can you talk to us about how you got your first customer who wasn’t a friend, family, or acquaintance?

We had just completed a few of the renovations on our own properties and getting them ready for short term rental. We had a website and a very small following on Instagram but Joey received an email from someone who was interested in hearing more about what we do. She had just bought a house in the area where we have most of our properties and was wanting to rent it out. She was so excited to hear our story and what she could earn through short term rental and she signed with us later that week! She has been the most enthusiastic hype girl and one of our best clients. She understands all of the effort that goes on behind the scenes and occasionally there are some things we cannot control and will get better for the next booking. She has also referred us which has brought more new clients and we appreciate her so much!

Dina & Joey, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

Joey and I met working for a short term rental hospitality company. As two motivated, hard working individuals, we were instantly drawn to each other. We were both part of the operations team at our company so we worked closely alongside one another often and while building out new units and organizing inventory, we got to know each other quite well. Unfortunately, the COVID-19 Pandemic cost us both our jobs and we were left, for lack of a better word, devastated. It was a difficult time not being able to work but we decided to take our financial future into our own hands; we started to brainstorm a plan for our company. We put together a business proposal and managed to raise funding through our network – alas, Dijo Homes was born! We started with 1 home and fast forward 2 years, we now have 20 listings!

We are a construction hospitality company with a keen focus on quality, integrity, and service. Our company owns and manages six full-service Airbnb homes that we have completely gutted and renovated ourselves and we manage another eight client homes. We are currently accepting new clients and aim to grow to 30 total listings by the end of the year. For anyone even thinking of short term rental, we welcome all of your questions and would love to get you started. It has been extremely rewarding to not only provide our clients with the peace of mind that their homes are being taken care of but generating a stream of passive income for them all the while.

Additionally, we just acquired Infinity Ranch located out in Dripping Springs with 4 luxury tiny homes and plan to add 4 more by summer 2023. This property is near all of the beautiful hill country wedding venues, wineries/distilleries and just 15 minutes outside of downtown Dripping Springs. It is perfect to host wedding parties and their families, a family reunion, or just a quiet getaway from the hustle and bustle.

We’d love to hear the story of how you built up your social media audience?

We had a very small following on social media so we decided to do a giveaway with a local account. They have a ton of followers and we often enter the giveaways they post so we thought it would be worth it. They did a full post and stories on Instagram where to enter, people had to like and follow our account and we gained close to 2,000 followers which was amazing! Since then we have upped our reels game and that has helped us to gain more followers as well.

The key is consistency. Some reels get minimal views, while others get thousands. There really is no rhyme or reason to it but the more we post and engage, we see the following grow. It is definitely something that we have had to work on but we are getting better with each one and hope to keep the reels coming!

Any stories or insights that might help us understand how you’ve built such a strong reputation?

I think our quality product. We did all of the renovations for the homes that we rent out and so we ensure a high quality home. While working on the houses, Joey encountered neighbors and other people who were just curious about what we were doing. They saw the homes and one has even become a mentee on his own projects and we took one of his houses on as a rental property. We also take this into consideration when taking on a new client. We want to continue to offer a quality product for our guests so we vet the homes and ask that any repairs/renovations/furniture upgrades are completed before we move forward.

Additionally, we excel at customer service and communication. If you look at our reviews, it is 5 stars across the board for host communication and that goes a long way in the hospitality business. We give the same service to each of our clients and they have referred us because of this. Our ability to provide our clients the peace of mind that everything is being taken care of but also keeping them in the loop when needed, is a balancing act that we have mastered.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.dijohomes.com
• Instagram: @dijohomes

Image Credits
Mandy Harris