Investor · Wilmington, NC · Member since 2022 · 21 posts · 6 votes
How much time do you spend self-managing your short-term rental? Weighing the pros and cons of LTR vs STR in my market. Yes, STRs appear to have better cashflow, but unsure of the time commitment needed. My wife and I have five teenagers at home.
The time is very minimal. I self manage my LTR's and provided you maintain your properties, I get very few LTR rental calls. STR is more work, but once things are in place; cleaners and handyman it's only responding to inquiries. I use instant booking which reduces time. You have to keep up on supplies. I would say if I spend more than 30 minutes a week that would be a lot of time. I am an out of state STR (Beach Town). The revenue compared to LTR is incredible.
The time is very minimal. I self manage my LTR's and provided you maintain your properties, I get very few LTR rental calls. STR is more work, but once things are in place; cleaners and handyman it's only responding to inquiries. I use instant booking which reduces time. You have to keep up on supplies. I would say if I spend more than 30 minutes a week that would be a lot of time. I am an out of state STR (Beach Town). The revenue compared to LTR is incredible.
Probably 20 hours a week managing 23 STRs. That's maintenance, repairs, mowing, collecting rent and running a nationwide multiplatform marketing campaign. @Luke Carl can tell you what my calendars are like.
I'd recommend doing LTR while the teenagers are home and then switching to STR when you become empty nesters. Good STR hosting is not as labor intensive as running a B&B but it does require some of the same attention to customer service.
In my market, the difference between the cashflow for STRs and LTRs is not near enough to make up for the extra work involved with running an STR but we really enjoy managing our STR. We enjoy figuring out what our guests need and providing it.
We are just finishing up a 6 week vacation in the Southwest & California. We've been staying in Airbnb's throughout the trip. It becomes pretty obvious which hosts are just in it for the extra cashflow and which hosts love being hosts.
We are just finishing up a 6 week vacation in the Southwest & California. We've been staying in Airbnb's throughout the trip. It becomes pretty obvious which hosts are just in it for the extra cashflow and which hosts love being hosts.
We are just finishing up a 6 week vacation in the Southwest & California. We've been staying in Airbnb's throughout the trip. It becomes pretty obvious which hosts are just in it for the extra cashflow and which hosts love being hosts.
Awwww, you didn't get to our place! :-)
Where are you? We stayed in Flagstaff, Sedona, Page and in the part of Navajo Nation that is within Arizona. Loved every single one of those Airbnbs.
We are just finishing up a 6 week vacation in the Southwest & California. We've been staying in Airbnb's throughout the trip. It becomes pretty obvious which hosts are just in it for the extra cashflow and which hosts love being hosts.
Awwww, you didn't get to our place! :-)
Where are you? We stayed in Flagstaff, Sedona, Page and in the part of Navajo Nation that is within Arizona. Loved every single one of those Airbnbs.
LTR - no time at all for the most part. STR - time spent booking, cleaning, repairs, issues, maintaining, turning over, Tot submittals etc... I have 6 STR and spend 20 hours per week + 2 long term - hardly anytime. STR - for sure better cash flow. You could always put your teenagers to work :)
I don't spend much time on either type. I self manage all my properties but I have people that do all the work. I handle communications which takes very little time.
Thanks @Paul Sandhu. Great job on your success! Sounds like you're roughly 1+ hours per STR per week.
Have you found scaling up is a bit more efficient? In other words, are certain steps of your process more efficient because you're handling more than one at a time?
@Bruce Woodruff ... Nice! I would not be able to do all the labor, but so good to understand your commitment. That time requirement is inline with my goal.
Thanks @Paul Sandhu. Great job on your success! Sounds like you're roughly 1+ hours per STR per week.
Have you found scaling up is a bit more efficient? In other words, are certain steps of your process more efficient because you're handling more than one at a time?
One time I took my truck and 16 foot trailer to an estate auction. I bought 3 beds, washer/dryer, stove, tables/chairs, a sofa or two and other misc items to fill up the trailer. I kept the trailer in my carport for a month or two until I found a house to buy.
Thanks @Trish Mccoy ... Roughly 3 hours per week sounds very doable. Love the comment about putting the kids to work! I was actually thinking about that when I wrote it... Surely there's some good lessons and opportunities for them in this process.
Thanks @Trish Mccoy ... Roughly 3 hours per week sounds very doable. Love the comment about putting the kids to work! I was actually thinking about that when I wrote it... Surely there's some good lessons and opportunities for them in this process.
Best wishes to you!
I was just looking at the reviews for one of my competitors. She maintains a 4.96 rating! She is married to a local boutique hotel owner. He is a super customer focused charmer and it sounds like those skills have been transferred to his wife. Your teenagers could learn significant hospitality industry skills managing STRs.
You can outsource everything except the communication and still self mange with very little time. You just have to get your contractors (mainly great cleaners) lined up to do the physical work. Then you can easily mange from your phone, heck one of your teenagers could learn to do this and increase their allowance.
We use a PM on our STRs. We self managed long ago (before air BNB). It is not primarily the time that managing STRs require, but STR issues are often high priority. For example we recently had an electronic Wi-Fi lock fail at a unit. When did we find out? When the vacationer tried to get entry with the code that should have worked. They were effectively locked out. Another example is WI-FI down. We had a recent review that was poor due to wi-fi being down. Apparently it was the provider, but as soon as item was reported the management team was on it. They sent someone to unit to look at equipment then called the provider. The worse is late night issues especially late night noise complaints. Because so many items are high priority, it would impact my life in a way that I would find unacceptable. In addition, managing issues when things go wrong is more complex for STRs. One of our units is being treated for bed bugs. Apparently bed bug treatment takes quite awhile (you can tent an entire property for termites faster than treating for bed bugs). It was fully reserved for this period of time. I was very glad to have a PM with many STR units deal with this issue.
I am unsatisfied with my current STR manager, but very happy to have the STRs managed by someone else (even if it is not going to be my current managers). A good STR manager is worth their fees.
We self managed our LTRs. I do not claim they are as passive as some of these posts make the STRs seem. There is always shortage of contractors. You find a good one and eventually they are too busy or transition to something else. Maintaining a team requires effort. With enough units something seems to always need repair. In addition there are the occasional tenant items and tenant turnover. Maybe it is my market or that my processes need improvement but I never claim LTR is close to passive. All the items add up and consume time.
With LTRs, unless water is leaking or overflowing, heat is out in winter or some pressing issue arises, you can pretty much leave it for the next day if the call comes in late.
STR is 24/7 - you're running a hospitality business. Your guests expect immediate response in many cases.
I bought my first STR in November, 2021. I first went through the phase of managing it myself, wanting to see how much work was involved before putting a team in place. Managing the rental myself was very time consuming. I spent 1-2 hours per day on average, between cleaning, booking, dealing with maintenance, and buying supplies. It doesn't sound like much, but that is EVERY day, including weekends; and sometimes the calls come at the worst time....
Then I went to work setting up my team; my WHO. Now, between my channel manager, cleaning team, and maintenance team, the process is nearly fully automated. I spend maximum 1-2 hours per week. Now, i have that kind of time to spend, but if you have multiple units, at some point it will be worth it to pay a PM; but that's the balance you'll have to find on your own.
The process of learning the world of STR has been thoroughly enjoyable. The financial upside is much greater, as most here have mentioned. But you also get the pleasure of meeting so many interesting people. My guests have been nearly universally awesome, and none have been terrible.
I'm on the lookout for my next STR investment. The next unit i purchase will be easier to streamline, and setting up my team will be much faster. You will begin to treat your portfolio and acquisitions like a franchise, where your systems work for you, while you focus on finding new opportunities for improved efficiency, and, in our case, customer service, because ratings are everything.
I agree with @Dan Heuschele. I have two STRs. Management of STR is generally pretty easy when all goes well, once you have your team in place. But when things are not going well, it is usually pretty disruptive (Im also managing a couple hours away…if it's in your primary's ADU, that's a different story). A relatively small issue, when brought up by a STR guest becomes your big issue, because you now need to try to solve it, or receive a bad review. And reviews are all important, as they determine where you place on search results, and thus affect your cashflow.
Maybe if you don't care too much about reviews, and accept lower cashflow it can be less stressful. But if you're trying to offer good service and maximize your results, STR is not that easy IMO…but I'm doing it because it's worth it $$ wise.
I tried having a STR PM, and I took over after a few weeks. The amount of money it cost vs the quality of service…nobody will care more about it than yourself.
A long term rental is a rental you manage. A long term rental has tenants.
A short term rental is a business you manage .A short term rental has customers.
If you don't understand that, you're gonna fail. Most people are about to have a rude awakening when this bubble pops. You're already seeing a decline in the average ARPU across homeowners and people can't afford to drive to your house or even afford to eat there once they arrive. Long term rentals are far more stable. Oh how quickly we forget 2008, and even how much more quickly we forgot the ridiculous shut down just two years ago where a lot of investors got wiped out.
How much time do you spend self-managing your short-term rental? Weighing the pros and cons of LTR vs STR in my market. Yes, STRs appear to have better cashflow, but unsure of the time commitment needed. My wife and I have five teenagers at home.
LTR's are obviously easier and less moving parts and time required. However, aside from the initial setup on STR's, many landlords self-managing use software that automates almost everything, so they tend to require only 1-3 hours per week per property of active time involvement, unless something goes wrong that requires handholding- which also goes for LTR's.