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Unique house for filming

Earn money as a host

This lady earns RM7500 in 3 days, and how you can do it too

From 2015, with the rise of Airbnb in Malaysia on their home-sharing platform that allows travelers to find a place to stay. Anne is one of the first hosts that jumps right into the trend. Like most property owners, she is not only sharing her extra room but also the whole house for travelers to stay.

Anne and her husband, CT, owns an old house in Sentul where CT grew up together with his parents and grandparents as the first generation of a Chinese family that moved to Malaysia

One of the room in Anne's Airbnb listing

The special thing

Her listing is very different from other properties that are listed on Airbnb. The whole house is full of antiques and gives a very nostalgic presence for its renters. Only renting the room for RM90/night, the travelers are still not satisfied. Because the house has no air-conditioner and is uncomfortable for most travelers from overseas.

Comparing with other listings that are offering a better place to stay with modern facilities at a lower price, Anne’s listing faded out on Airbnb, leaving the house unseen in the depths of 3million Airbnb listings. 

Trying different things

The couple quickly realize that the travelers are looking for a night of comfortable stay and do not appreciate the nostalgic presence of the building. The couple struggles to share their homes to rent everywhere on the internet, but there’s no one who is willing to stay in a home that is not comfortable.

They thought of reducing the price to RM65/night but not only that it backfired by positioning itself as a cheap listing in an inconvenient area, the rented night barely covers the cost to maintain the house. Old buildings are expensive to maintain due to higher wear and tear.

The AHA! moment

It started on a day at the end of 2018, when the couple received a call from a friend who is a producer at TV station. The call goes like this:

Producer: Hey, I’m looking for an old house for Chinese New Year shooting. On your Facebook I saw you posting an old house, is it yours?

A & CT: Yes, it is ours.

Producer: Wow, awesome. Can I drop by tomorrow and take a look? We’d like to have a film shooting here, we’re shooting a Chinese New Year video for Petronas. I saw on Airbnb you’re renting it for RM65/night for a room, how about the whole house?

A & CT: For the whole house, we can give a rate of RM800/night.

Producer: Wow that’s awfully cheap. Let’s talk about the price when I’m there tomorrow.

Anne hung up the phone, the word “Wow that’s awfully cheap” lingers in her mind for all day. How is the space awfully cheap? She started doing some homework and found other similar buildings are renting at RM150 per hour!

No wonder it is “awfully cheap”…

What changes

Renting spaces for commercial purposes can be often priced higher as compared to staying for the whole night.

This changes the whole mindset of the couple and started branding their space as a nostalgic event space, instead of a room for homestays.

Over the past 2 years, they’ve hosted a lot of events for businesses from a corporate getaway, annual dinner, traditional chinese weddings, commercial shoots and more.

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Hosting with Chupspace just makes all the difference, it's easy to earn money just by sharing spaces for a few hour.
Vince L.
Host since Aug '18

It's not an overnight success

You can say that the space sells by itself because it is so special and it is one-of-a-kind. But over hundreds and thousands of spaces that we’ve got in touch with, Anne & CT is one of the most persistent and friendliest hosts we’ve met.

Always improving the space and maintaining the client’s happiness, is a continuous effort that makes them successful today.

There are days when there’s too much to handle, from client visits, accounting, payment collection and damage to the space, it’s the attitude that sets them apart from others. 

Anne Wong

Anne is one of the first hosts on Chupspace from November 2018. She operates a bungalow cum. event space that makes her around RM20,000 per month.

Check out Anne’s listing here

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Chupspace connects professionals to creative spaces, while helping small business owners monetise their underutilised spaces by the hour.

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How to accept booking on Chupspace

You received your first request, hurray! Thousands of people visit Chupspace everyday in search for the perfect space for their meetings, events & production. You received an email notification that someone is interested to book your place, but they still have yet to confirm a booking or make payment.

What's next?

You need to login to your account and check your booking details, and of course message the guests to see if its the right fit for them. How do you do that? Here’s some step by step guide on what you can and should do before accepting a booking

1. Login and check booking details

If you received a booking from Chupspace, you are sure to have an account by now. Login to your account and check on the Bookings tab. In case you forgotten your password, you can always request a reset on the sign in page.

2. Check on the summary

This is a summary of your booking you received, and the details when they book your space. Press Confirm button to see further details or chat with the guests.

3. Check booking details

It is advised to message the guests and invite them to book. This is to clarify any doubts and details of the guest before making payment, this will significantly increase your position in Chupspace and the guests experience.

4. Chat with guests online

Chat online with guests on their needs, and once you come into a mutual agreement on the price, and time. You can ask the guests to make payment through Chupspace.

By accepting a booking online, you are provided with dispute solution, customer support, and safeguard from scams and non-repayment. What’s best is that client gets an immediate invoice after payment so you can be hassle free without any paperwork.

5. Welcome guests and get paid

Once guests make a payment, they’re informed on how to access the space. From where to park, how to come to the space from the parking and how to access to the space. You can always edit this information in your “My listing” tab.

All you have to do is to setup the place as informed, and the guest arrives and use the place as planned. If your guests need extra items like food, equipment and onsite support, always engage our concierge team to get everything handled for you with no additional charges.

Payment will be deposited directly into the bank account you provided at “Payment method” tab.

Other inquiries?

Get in touch with our support team by clicking the live chat! Once again, we hope you enjoy your journey as a host, and we want to let you know that we’re always here to help you succeed.

Because your success is our success.

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7 things to know before accepting a film shoot booking

Professional production crew often look for apartment and homes to shoot in. Whether if it’s a short film, TV commercial, drama, or movie, professionals can find spaces that suits their next shoot easily on Chupspace.

While you can rent your apartment on Airbnb, it is very unlikely that you’ll be renting out the whole house as you will lose your place for the night. There are no easy way to make use of your existing space before Chupspace in Malaysia.

Become a host

What should you consider before accepting a booking?

Hosts on Chupspace shares their apartment while not losing a place to sleep at night for small meetings, parties and filming purposes. We heard hosts have concerns when being approached by production crew to use the house for shooting.

Here are 7 things that you should take into consideration before accepting a film production booking:

1. Will it disturbs my neighbour?

If you’re a host sharing your home, chances are you’re already disturbing your neighbour. As most people may feel uncomfortable having strangers in their private residence. Our advise here is that informing your neighbour when the shooting will be at and telling them your safety measures to ease them.

Tell the crew beforehand that there will be no loud noises and you reserve the right to ask them leave with no refund if they break the house rules. Most crews will inform you what scene they intend to shoot before booking your space, so you know if your space can cater their needs.

2. How much should I charge?

Depending on the scene, film production usually involve heavy equipment and these equipment consumes quite some electricity. Take into consideration this factor before setting your price for production. Typically, hosts charge around 4x extra on what you rent on Airbnb when renting to production crew to cover electricity cost.

If you’ve created a listing on Chupspace, you’re sure to know that you can set different prices for “Offsites”, “Events” and “Productions” listings. Setting different price for each while taking into consideration the the different nature for each type of booking is crucial for your hosting success.

3. Potential flooring scratches

Production crews usually brings in heavy equipment, and involve moving of furniture to make your space fit the scene. This may cause scratches on the flooring, or furniture in the process. Ask the crew if they intend to move furniture around so you can make preparation work or at least present when they move the things around.

Take a photo of the space before and after moving the furniture. If you find any scratches and damages after the shoot, present proof to Chupspace and make claims on the damages.

4. Insurance for shooting

It involves intensive paperwork if you requests insurance before shooting at your space. It safeguards you from any potential damages occurred to both the crew and you during the shoot. However, it is time-consuming to do it yourself, or by the production crew.

Luckily, marketplaces like Chupspace has built in a system that make safe, and protecting both parties during the booking.

Connecting people to creative spaces

Chupspace helps business owners monetise their spaces by the hour for meetings, events, and production.

5. Getting permit from local community

If the shooting involve public area, like roadside or outside your house compound, you should request the crew to show permit to shoot in those areas. No action needs to be taken if the shooting only involved scenes inside your compound, which is privately owned.

If your space has JMB/MC, you need to seek approval from them before the shoot to avoid disturbance on shooting day.

6. A lot of vehicles and crews

If you’re hosting the shoot in a private residence, you may need to get additional parking for the crew before the shoot. As most crews involved big trucks and around 10-15 people, it may disturb the local community.

Inform the crew and neighbours beforehand, prepare enough of parking for the crew. Tell them how many spots are available and where can / can’t they park in the area.

7. Should I collect security deposit?

Yes! As a lot of times there may be overtime, damages, and other charges that may require additional fees outside the paid amount. Collecting security deposit makes the crew take care of your space more, following rules and leave on time.

Bookings with Chupspace makes it easy to collect security deposit upon booking, and the amount is refunded automatically without needing you to be involved. 

Join the community

Discover, list and book spaces from local hosts

Explore creative spaces

Rent spaces shared by local businesses and homes

Book a space

Share space and earn

Share your home for meetings, events & film production

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Renting your office space by the hour

You renovated your office but not fully utlising it

You’ve spent around RM50,000 renovating your office before you start earning a dime. That’s the norm of businesses in Malaysia and even the world. But as time goes by, you realise that the meeting rooms that you built to meet client, and the conference room is not fully used as you only have weekly or even monthly meetings.

There’s no undoing renovation and you keep paying rent for your underutilised office space. What’s worst is that now you’ve paid a year’s rental in advance to get discounts, and 4 months of deposits and your cash is stuck.

Share your office space

Current market situation

Small businesses suffer from increasing rental cost in Kuala Lumpur with a YoY rental increase of 5%-10%. In tough economic situations, over 90% of small businesses do not last over 2 years.

We’ve seen great cafes, coworking spaces, restaurants, bars and art galleries in urban areas move to a more rural side of the city so it can operate at a lower rent. But does it solve the fact that most businesses suffers from high rental cost?

Riding on coworking trend

A few years back, offices came into the trend of coworking. I assume everyone knows coworking spaces now, as a new one pops out every week across Malaysia. And bigger coworking space operators like WeWork, WORQ, Common Ground, Co3 have significant market shares due to strategic location.

A lot of office owners starts promoting their office as a coworking space, but how can you, a small business owner, compete with companies that do this for a living, and why do people care about coworking in your office? Furthermore, its a long term thing, when people starts coming into your office to work and leave, tops at RM10-RM20 per person. And they stick there for the whole day, and of course expecting coffee and snacks.

Coworking space in KLCC area

Rise of space sharing

As more people move into coworking spaces, and working as a self-employed individual or operate a small team. Often times, they need to move around the city to acquire customers and host events on a different side of town. Here’s when spaces come in, it lets professional to own (or rent) space in their property for a few hours on a particular day. Typically rented out by coworking spaces, in the area they’re visiting as there are transparent and affordable rates.

So why can’t they rent your office, which is nearer to their location and more affordable as compared? It is because they don’t know you exist.

It's an event space.. wait what?

As people have an event in a space in coworking spaces, hence the name “event space”. But after 1000+ bookings that happen on Chupspace, we see the use of space a little differently.

If you’re familiar with Airbnb, it is an online platform that allows homeowners to share their empty rooms for travellers to stay. But there’s a certain group where they would rent an Airbnb for social gathering, family reunion, or even filming. So the usage is much wider and bigger as what is intended by the founders.

Source: Shutterstock

Creating an inclusive world.. well, for small businesses

So how can you, as a business owner, combine these two concepts that I’ve just mentioned (Airbnb and event space), to monetise your empty space and idle times in businesses, so that you can offset your rental & operation cost?

Here we compiled a list of possible solutions that you can use to monetise your business space:

Rent for small activities

You can share your space with people who are interested in having small events, meetings or a film shoot.

As you rent the space from the landlord for 24 hours and only using it for 10 hours a day. Don’t think of events like music festivals or dance parties, but more like networking events, social gathering or even small birthday parties.

Offsite meetings

Income: RM1500/month
Cost: Utilities, staffing, equipment

Challenges: People who look for meeting rooms are always very urgent, and having a staff dedicated to handling inquiries that 80% do not turn into a customer is a headache.

Events

Income: RM6000/month
Cost: Utilities, staffing, equipment

Challenges: Additional staff is required for event logistics, people visiting the office time to time and planning ahead of time.

Photo & Video Production

Income: RM8000/month
Cost: Utilities, staffing, equipment

Challenges: Filming sometimes include heavy machineries that may damage your flooring, and moving of furniture around for the best scene

Key takeaway

Marketplaces like Chupspace lets you monetise your underutilised spaces for meetings, events & production. Where you can share your space by the hour, whether it’s 6PM-10PM, only on weekends or anytime you wish. Why take the hassle of doing it yourself while you can leverage?

Chupspace makes it safe and easy to share your space and earn extra income during downtimes of your business.

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