Anyone do weekly or monthly vacation rental and not shorter term?

[Lesley C Sheppard]

Hi everyone,

This is my first post and I look forward to learning from the experienced folks on this board.

I've been a landlord for many years and currently own three properties. Two are vacation rentals and one is my home that I'm leaving and will rent out as an executive/corporate housing home (moving into my future husband's home, but want to keep mine). I'm semi-retired and don't think I want to buy anymore income real estate. I will become an equity partner in my husband's home when we marry. Four properties will be enough for someone who wants to eventually become a total "good-time Charlie." :)

I actively manage the Lake Tahoe rental and the quality of my housekeeping service has dropped quite a bit over the past six months. This started when the woman's husband started to clean with her. What used to take her a few hours to clean (four-bedroom/four-bathroom condo), now takes her and her husband about 30 minutes. However, they are not really cleaning anymore, just pushing dirt around and the place is now grimy and rather disgusting. I had not done much inspecting this year due to travel and the pandemic, but when I did right after their last cleaning, I was shocked at how badly it was cleaned. I won't go into details, but it was not rentable in that condition. 

I did a big clean myself this past week to get it back to a decent level, but will not use this service again. Now that I'm looking for another housekeeping service, I'm seeing all kinds of hybrid models of vacation rental services. Partial management, full management, some businesses selling app services (but no help with housekeeping, maintenance -- you know -- the real work), ala cart services, housekeeping services that are also doing maintenance and some management, etc. 

I have no mortgage on this place and the carrying costs are roughly $1,000/month with HOA, taxes, utils, maintenance, etc. I've completely renovated it over the past few years, so it's in great shape and very nice. I plan to use it more, say one or two weeks per month in the summer. Not sure about winter use, but I used to stay there for a week or so each winter. I live about an hour away, so it's pretty easy to get to.

With the pandemic, I had to shut down for a couple of months, then per our county's health department, was only able to rent for two-week stays or longer. To my surprise, I got two one-month stays and when things opened up more I got an additional two one-week stays.

These longer stays replaced the mostly weekend-long reservations that all cancelled as the pandemic unfolded. My place is walking distance to a national hotel with a large wedding operation and my place has been popular with wedding parties as a result. My place is also walking distance to the beaches and restaurants.

After losing the wedding parties, the longer stays replaced them. These longer stays have different issues than the weekend stays with more wear and tear and they become dirtier, but there is less work on my part once the renters are in the condo.

I'm having trouble figuring out how going to a longer-stay model would affect my income. Obviously, I want to cover my carrying cost, but still like some income. To get the month-long rentals, I discounted my nightly rate by about 50% and that worked.

Also, a lot of these hybrid and full management models claim to be able to increase income substantially and I'm not sure how they do it. I advertise my place on Airbnb, Zillow, and Craigslist. I have most of my bookings from Airbnb and get a lot of interest from my Zillow ad for longer term rentals if that's the route I want to go. There are two other places in my complex that are also vacation rentals and I'm right in the middle price-wise for a similar product. 

Has anyone gone to a weekly-only or monthly-only vacation rental model? Tried one of these partial-management models? I'm curious as to how this has worked for you. Thanks very much.

[Chad Hale]

My experience with Tahoe management companies is that the newer (cheaper) internet based companies don't have the local resources to do the job.  Cleaning being one of the biggest.  Tahoe is a transient work location for many people.  Finding good reliable workers can be a challenge.  I've seen too many start out ok and then fall apart in terms of quality and reliability.  Trying to get things done can be challenging too.  There's a reason the saying "Tahoe Time" exists.  Things will get done when they get done.

Long term housing is in short supply, long term rentals may be an option for you?  You'll make less but not have the turn over churn.  Weekly rentals during the high seasons are nearly as successful as 2-4 days rentals assuming you are in a good location.  

Everyone is claiming they can do better than where you are at.  That's simply marketing.  Depending on how well your property is currently run will validate that statement or not.

[Lesley C Sheppard]

Hi Chad,

Thanks for the feedback on the app-based management businesses in Tahoe. If providing good houskeeping services is the biggest weakness of these businesses, they will be of no help to me. Housekeeping is my biggest need!

As for the long-term rental option, I rented out this place for over 15 years as a long-term rental. I had some great tenants but some that used the bedroom as a small engine repair shop. After the engine repair experience, I did a big remodel and furnished the place and went short-term and started enjoying the place myself again between renters.

Since I would like to continue to use the unit, using some type of short-term/medium-term model seems to be the only way. I'll continue to manage the place myself, but if you can recommend a local housekeeping or management service with a decent track record, let me know. Thanks again.

Lesley

[Dustin Allen]

@Lesley C Sheppard

Is your rental located in South Lake Tahoe? If so, I can probably help you find someone. The season lease model works pretty well for a lot of second home owners who still want to use their house part time. Rent it out for the winter or the summer and keep it available for yourself the other season while filling in with shorter term stays if you have the permit. This year will be a little difficult to do that because the J1 employees will not be coming for the foreseeable future. 

[Chad Hale]

@Lesley C Sheppard   PM Sent

[Lesley C Sheppard]

Hi Dustin,

My place is located in Incline Village. If you know of any housekeeping vacation rental business that services this area, please pm me.

I may consider leasing my place out on a ski lease this year. I once rented a place I used to own up on Kingsbury Grade, as a ski lease to a family from the Bay Area.

In a normal year, I'm contacted by dozens of J1 workers wanting to rent my place winter and summer. This summer, I've been contacted by students wanting housing as they will be attending Sierra Nevada College. Our complex was once the defacto dormatory for the college and that's when it was pretty rummy-dummy. We've done a lot (and spent a lot, including a $57k assessment for each condo owner) to the complex to improve it and I don't want to go backwards. 

Thanks very much.

Lesley Sheppard

[Lesley C Sheppard]

I reviewed my listing, updated the photos with my own previously-taken photos, scheduled a professional photographer to come and shoot the place once I can get a bit more deep cleaning done (windows, etc.), and simplified my pricing seasonally, which should give me a slight raise. 

For the peak periods, instead of weekly rentals, I'm going to try a five-night minimum. I came to this decision after interviewing a couple of local property management companies and this is what they do. I roughly duplicated their annual schedule, mirroring their minimum nights and pricing structure, altering it to fit my place. With the 5-night minimum, I can still block off time here and there to stay at the property myself. I'll see how this goes next summer and re-evaluate then.

I have secured cleaning help for the short term and will continue to vet companies for a longer-term vacation rental cleaning relationship. In speaking with these companies and comparing some of the properties they clean, I have lots of ideas to implement to further improve my place. At this point, it's mostly decorating, but I also updated some of my house rules, based on what the cleaning companies said were problem areas.

I'm still researching leasing my property out as a ski lease this coming winter. My place is two miles from the local ski hill and would be a good match for a family or two families. I'm not interested in leasing to a bunch of young and/or party types for a whole winter, that seems commonly done and would work better in a free-standing house than a condo. I may put an ad on a Bay Area, CA ski lease website to see what interest I generate.

Also, while comparing properties in my neighborhood for rates and schedules, I found a development that I really like. I'm going to do a walk around next time I'm at my unit to see it up close, but may consider a 1031 exchange into one of these other units in the future, so you'll see an additional post from me on this. :) Thanks for the comments on my first post, they were very helpful!

[Jo-Ann Lapin]

Feel free to pm me. I have a good referral for you .