All Forum Posts by: Alex Scattareggia

Quote from @Michael Lynch:

Any other info that you care to share will be great! .... YouTube is full of videos about STR's, but the more you watch, the more confusing it gets. ..... We have no idea what we are doing, but need to learn as much as we can in the next few months

People like to make it seem more complex than it actually is.  Especially in the beginning, just keep it simple. 

You absolutely do not need to buy management software starting out.  In fact, I would argue the more hands-on you can make your first project the better.  Yes, eventually you would like to automate as much as possible, but I think its valuable to know how everything works in the beginning.  

Quote from @Amy Greenwood:

So, we created a separate listing for a one-bedroom rental, locking the extra 2 bedrooms (sharing calendars, but no one shares the actual house.) That decision really saved us and kept us relatively busy all year. 

 @Amy Greenwood first off congratulations on your success. I have a similar property where we created multiple listings for the same property. We made 1/ 2 and 3 bedroom listings for the same property and would lock off parts accordingly.  It´s really a nice way to maximize the space.   Do you completely snooze the 1 bedroom listing in the summer to keep it from taking away nights from the 3?

If you decide to keep going with the STR, one little trick we have used that paid dividends was to reach out to everyone who booked the smaller listings and left a good review. We reached out, thanked them for their business and let them know that if they would like to come back and invite friends and family we have a 3 bedroom at the same location and because you are repeat guests we would like to offer you a return client discount etc. etc.

It sounds like you´ve got a good thing going with the short-term model and have created quite a bit of flexibility with the multiple listings. Perhaps you can find a few areas to boost revenue before completely reinventing the model.  Cheers and good luck!

@Michael Baum I only recommend it if someone is looking to fill holes in their calendar.  We price Booking significantly higher than the other OTA´s to account for the hassle associated with the site and because we would prefer to do more business through the others.  

Cancelation policy is 100% refund outside of 30 days with no exceptions. But I have never had any issue with payment across over 200 bookings.  They make you jump through some obnoxious hoops with their fee payment but once you do it a few times it´s not so bad. 

Quote from @Brooklyn McCarty:

I would just be wary. Booking still has some bugs to work out, but if you already use it then you’re one step farther than me 

 Definitely true.  The cancelation policies and customer support are abysmal.  But we do generate about 20% of our revenue from Booking and its almost always a guest profile that we don´t reach on the other OTAs.  

They also have some really cool features on the site as far as lead generation and targeting certain markets (couples, family, certain countries, mobile bookings etc). I would definitely give it a look if you have any gaps in your calendar. 

@JD Martin Booking has a couple of ¨partner¨ programs on the host side and the guest side, its comparable to Superhost on Airbnb.  

The guest program is called Genuis, these are basically guests who have completed a certain amount of stays and have been model guests. As the host you can choose to accept what is called Genuis bookings. Essentially you get access to this pool of renters and in exchange you are required to offer them a discounted stay. I was very skeptical but I talked to a friend who runs a huge portfolio with STR and boutique hotel and he it leads to a big uptick in bookings. We raised our prices a bit and began accepting Genuis bookings and saw about 150% more traffic and bookings. So I am a believer in that program and as hosts we can obviously offset the discounts by just raising our prices congruently.

The one I´m asking about (Preferred Partner) is the host side.  Similar to Superhost you have to hit certain revenue and review targets to qualify.  The difference is that you are required to give up an undisclosed amount more in fees.  I think the verbiage is ¨a slightly higher commission¨ but they promise 30% more bookings.  I have a few emails to their support but haven't heard anything back yet so I was curious if anyone had experience with it or knew the fee structure and if it pencils out. 

Quote from @Sarah Kensinger:

 Your mortgages look good, in some ways it would be too bad to jump from a 3% interest rate up to 7%-8% 

DM me, I would love to get a closer look at your properties and see if you could try a few things yet before deciding to cut your losses and sell.

I think this is the key point.  You have great mortgages in place and even if you don´t take too big of a bath at closing, what asset is that money going to go into next? 

Post the listings here or DM and I think there has to be some improvements that you can do to boost revenue. There are a lot of people here who might be willing and able to help!

The reason I asked about the payment structure is because I imagine you will be charging closer to LTR rates but depending on how you collect rent there will be a non zero % eaten up by fees.  

It is definitely an intriguing model.  Good luck

Local meetups, BP, there are even some great Facebook groups. 

The difference between what you can get for free and what you would be paying for is not anywhere near big enough to justify the spend IMO.  

Good luck.

Quote from @Jared Boundy:

 Whereas, if I just rent it for essentially 4 days at a time, no tenant rights (ie-I can stop and change the locks anytime without dealing with warnings and any eviction process)

Without a lease in place how would you go about the collecting rent in this case? Would the semi long term tenant be essentially re booking with you every week? 

I laughed a bit at the idea of your long term tenant handling the cleaning from your weekend guests.  But putting that fantasy aside I think the business model is actually kind of interesting in certain markets.  Did the renter propose it to you or did you think of this?

Hi @Trevor Schmitt 

1. If it ain´t broke don´t fix it.  If you´re having a lot of success and are content with the profitability, I wouldn´t worry too much about it. However, without knowing your market, your cleaning fees do seem quite low. 

Across our portfolio we treat the cleaning cost as a pass through cost to the client and don´t profit off of it.  The guest pays what we pay our cleaners.  

You are going to get some strong opinions on this, but in my personal opinion the total cost per night with fees included is going to matter more than the individual cleaning fee.  Look at your competitors nightly rate + cleaning fee and see what that number looks like.  Airbnb has the option of looking at a all in total number for the guests that is inclusive of fees so that they don´t get suprised at the end and I think this will start to become the industry norm vs. nightly rate + fees tacked on at the end. 

I have seen no definitive data that raising/reducing/eliminating cleaning fee has a substantial impact on bookings. 

Your average length of stay also factors into this.  2 night bookings are going to be more adversely affected by a high cleaning fee than 2 week bookings as an example.  Hope this helps, good luck.