The Short-Term Rental Design ROI Guide: What Actually Pays You Back (And What Doesn't)
- Apr 20
- 7 min read
There's a particular feeling you get scrolling through short-term rentals at 11pm, two glasses of wine deep, trying to book a weekend away. Most listings look like:
A grey sofa
A canvas print of the word "ADVENTURE"
That one weird artificial plant everyone seems to own
And every time I see it, I die a little. Some insane people are just picking a slightly different shade of beige to sleep in.
And yet, every few listings, one stops you: Sumptuous moody lighting, a sofa you want to live on, and a space that's beautifully staged and photographed that transports you there. You book it without thinking, probably at a higher rate than the beige nightmare flat next door. That, my friends, is interior design working its magic.
Here's the bit nobody mentions though: not all design spend is equal, and some of the most expensive upgrades do absolutely nada!
I've spent over a decade managing high-end residential builds and designing interiors. I've seen people drop four figures on a rug that gets destroyed within the first month, and I've seen a £180 lighting swap keep the summer listings fully booked.
The difference isn't taste. It's all in the strategy.
So here's a proper breakdown: where to spend, where not to, and roughly what you should expect back. No throw-pillow fluff.
The Only Number That Actually Matters
Before we talk upgrades, a quick reframe. Hosts obsess over nightly rates. The smarter metric is RevPAR = revenue per available rental night. It bakes in occupancy, so you stop getting fooled by high rates on an empty calendar or high occupancy at a fire-sale price.
RevPAR = nightly rate × occupancy.
A flat at £120/night with 80% occupancy makes £96 RevPAR. A flat at £160/night with 55% occupancy makes £88. The second host is convinced they're winning because the rate looks better. They're not.
Design investments should be judged on RevPAR lift, not just on whether the room looks nicer. Keep that in mind as we go.
The High-ROI Upgrades
These are the ones I'd fund first on any STR (Short-Term-Let), almost regardless of the property type or location. They pay back fastest because they affect the two things that actually drive bookings: how your listing photographs, and how guests feel in the space.
1. Layered Lighting
Budget: £300–£1,200 depending on property size.
Expected return: noticeable. This is the single biggest photo quality upgrade most hosts can make.
Most STRs are lit by a single overhead bulb per room. In person it's fine. In photos, it's brutal - flat, shadowless, faintly institutional.
Add table lamps, a floor lamp, a pendant over the dining area, and some soft wall-mounted uplighting in darker corners. Three light sources per room, minimum. Warm bulbs (2700K), not daylight.
2. The Bed (The Whole Bed, Not Just The Frame)
Budget: £600–£1,400 per bedroom.
Expected return: direct line to reviews, repeat bookings, and the ability to charge more.
Hotels spend serious money on beds for a reason. A proper bed is a mattress you'd actually want to sleep on, a mattress protector, a topper, 300-thread-count sheets minimum, four pillows (two soft, two firm), and a duvet that suits the season.
3. A Proper Workspace
Budget: £250–£1000.
Expected return: opens up the midweek business traveller market, which is where the real money sits.
Not a wee bistro table in the corner with a hard chair. A proper desk, minimum 90cm wide, decent task chair, good lamp, extension lead with enough sockets, and soft furnishing behind you so you don't look like you're on Zoom from a cupboard. If your property is near any city centre or business district, this is the upgrade that opens up Monday-to-Thursday business travellers on Airbnb, VRBO, and Booking.com.
4. The Kitchen Essentials Kit
Budget: £200–£500.
Expected return: fewer bad reviews, more confident pricing.
Sharp knives. A decent chopping board. One good frying pan, not four knackered ones. A coffee setup that works (Bialetti or a pod machine with pods stocked). Proper wine glasses. Quality olive oil, salt, pepper, and a small welcome tray of coffee, tea, and biscuits. None of this is expensive. All of it gets mentioned in reviews.
5. Blackout curtains and sound comfort
Budget: £150–£400 per room.
Expected return: higher review scores for sleep quality, which is one of Airbnb's category ratings.
If you want people to sleep well, and you do, you need blackout lining and something to soften the room acoustically - rugs, fabric headboards, curtains with proper weight. Hard-surfaced rooms echo. Guests won't complain explicitly, but they'll knock a star off somewhere.
6. Professional Photographs
Budget: £300–£800 for most properties. Luxury, multi-bedroom, or listings wanting twilight and drone shots can push £1,000+.
Expected return: Airbnb's own data shows listings with professional photos earn around 40% more and get 24% more bookings. It's the cheapest upgrade on this list, and the one with the clearest ROI.
A good photographer doesn't just point and shoot. They shoot at wall-height with the camera perfectly level, so your vertical lines stay vertical and rooms don't look like they're tipping over. They bring lighting. They shoot every room from multiple angles. They know the difference between a photo that sells a space and a photo that just shows it.
If your listing is still running on iPad photos you took at 4pm on a grey Tuesday, this is the fastest, cheapest lift you can make. Do everything else on this list first, then get it photographed properly.
The Medium-ROI Upgrades
Worth doing, but only after the essentials are nailed. These lift your listing from competent to memorable.
1. A Styled Entrance Moment
Budget: £150–£500.
Guests form their first impression before they've even taken their coat off. A console table, a lamp that's already on, a mirror, a plant, hooks for coats. Small thing. Big effect on how the rest of the stay registers.
2. Outdoor Space, However Small
Budget: £300–£1,500.
A balcony with two decent chairs and a small table beats one with nothing, every time. If you've got a garden, it becomes a listing hero shot. Outdoor space gets searched for and filtered on. Even a tiny patio is marketable if it's styled properly.
3. A Distinct Visual Identity
Budget: varies wildly - can be done for £500, can easily be £5,000.
The listings that win in a saturated market have an identity. Not a theme (nobody needs the nautical Airbnb with shells in jars), but a genuine point of view. A colour that runs through, a material story, art that feels curated rather than bought in a job lot. This is where bringing in a designer earns its fee.
4. Smart Storage For Guests
Budget: £100–£400.
Suitcase landing spot, proper wardrobe with empty hangers, a bedside surface big enough for a phone and a glass of water, hooks for towels that aren't over a radiator. Basic. Constantly missed but nail the short term rental design.
The Low-ROI Traps
The stuff that feels like it should pay back but mostly doesn't. Either because guests don't notice, guests don't care, or the upgrade gets destroyed within six months.
1. Designer Statement Furniture
A £3,000 sofa in a rental that sleeps six isn't an investment, it's a donation. High-traffic spaces punish delicate pieces. Buy contract-grade or well-made mid-range, spec the upholstery properly, and spend the saved money on things that actually photograph and wear well.
2. Themed Everything. Make It Stop.
The nautical-themed beach house. The tartan-everything Highland cottage. The movie-themed anything. Guests book STRs because they want character, not a costume. A theme dates fast and narrows your audience to the people who want exactly that theme. Location-inspired is good. Theme is not.
3. Hot Tubs, In Some Cases
The exception to the rule. In specific markets - rural cottages, lodges, stag/hen-friendly properties - hot tubs genuinely shift bookings. In urban flats or family-oriented properties, they're usually a maintenance headache that didn't justify the capital cost. Check your market before investing.
4. Smart Home Overload
One smart lock, yes. One decent speaker, sure. A whole home-automation setup where guests have to open an app to turn on a lamp? Not going to work.
5. Trend-Chasing Paint and Wallpaper
The bold accent wall that's everywhere on Instagram this year will look tired in eighteen months. Paint is cheap to redo, so less of a disaster, but anything bespoke or wallpapered at trend-moment peak tends to age badly.
A simple framework for any short term rental design
Before spending money on your STR, ask these four questions. If you can't answer yes to at least two, put the money back in your pocket.
Will it show in the listing photos? (If not, does it affect reviews?)
Will it survive 100+ guest turnovers without looking tired?
Would a well-designed hotel at my price point have this?
Can I articulate how it pays back, in either rate or occupancy?
The four-question filter kills most bad ideas before they become expensive ones.
Where Braw House Comes In
Most hosts don't need an interior designer on-site. What they need is a proper plan. A scheme, a specification, a shopping list, and a sequence for implementation.
If you want an external sense-check on all of this, Airbnb's own Luxe standards say roughly the same thing I've been saying the whole way down this list: cohesive design throughout the home, interiors and amenities in pristine condition, and professional photography showcasing the property. Worth a read if you're serious about pushing your listing up: https://www.airbnb.com/help/article/3307
If you're renovating a period property for short-term let, our Edinburgh tenement renovation guide covers the build-side decisions.
At Braw House we work with short-term rental owners across the UK and beyond. We put together design schemes with photo-real renders so you can see the space before anything's ordered, a full furniture and finishes specification, a realistic budget, and a phased rollout that doesn't black out your calendar. For owners who want it, we can coordinate the whole install.
If you've got a property that's underperforming and you're not sure which upgrades will actually pay for themselves, that's exactly the conversation we're set up for. Give us a shout.
Want to chat it through? Drop us a message at info@brawhouse.com or head to brawhouse.com.
Comments