All Forum Posts by: Alex Scattareggia

Have you ever used an outside web developer or always done the work yourself?  I have had some chats with guys on Fiver but have never pulled the trigger on it. I know Squarespace is supposed to be more user friendly, but I struggled a bit playing around with it and wasn´t that thrilled with the look of what I produced.  

Solid advice. 

One thing I might add, just because you are waiting to see how the first investment pans out doesn´t mean you should bury your head in the sand while waiting.  Even if I am not actively looking to invest in the moment, I still like to run numbers on deals and feel like I am in the game a bit.  

This is even more important now because if there really is a pull back in the STR market, there will be some owners (especially newer owners) who are hurting and looking for an exit. Unfortunately for them, this will create opportunity for investors who are aware of their market and can spot the value because they´ve been in the weeds for the last year.

I don´t wish pain on anyone in this business, but I think the writing is one the wall for people who bought with 2021 revenue in mind and are finding the streets a little bloodier than they thought.  With some experience under your belt and a really strong understanding of the pricing/value in your market you will be ready to act when those bloodier deals start coming up. 

Cheers and good luck!

 Yup. This.  I would also ask for references, if they take that poorly it is probably not a great sign.  

I have been on both sides of the coin and the best question I ever got when bidding a property was something to the effect of this...

¨If xyz bad scenario happened at my place can you walk me through what that would look like on your end and how you would handle it? ¨ The speed of response and hearing how they would react to whatever scenario you throw at them will be pretty insightful. 

One more helpful thing for both you and the PM, when you finally do settle on someone.  If you really want to be hands off, set a dollar amount where if the item/repair/ refund etc. is below that amount they just use their best judgement without having to text you.  If it is over that amount, they can send a text and wait for your response. It is incredible how much time this will save you (especially if your portfolio grows). If you trust the judgement of your PM, the results are there, and the books look good, you can increase this limit as time goes on and really get to the point where you check in once a month to see how much $ you made.  The 20-25% starts to feel a lot more worth it the less work you are putting into the business on a day-by-day basis.  Good luck, you´ve got some good insights in this thread already. 

For what it´s worth, I would always rather rent like normal but earmark that revenue for a trip of my own where I can pick whatever place I like.  But I do think it is a fun idea.

I have a PM client that uses a service called ThirdHome.  It is exclusively for high end properties and I think some hotels, but he seems to love it.  Instead of a direct swap it is essentially a marketplace where you deposit weeks, when they get rented you have access to the other deposited weeks.  Essentially a closed market, high end Airbnb but the currency is your home.  I played around on it a bit and it seems like a fun way to leverage a few weeks a year of your rental into something else.  

Definitely not shilling for this company because I have never personally used them and I don´t know the fee structure. But it seems to solve a problem for people who want to leverage their home and don't mind losing a few weeks of revenue. 

What is the financial institution in question here? 

Unfortunately, this is the cost of doing business with the OTA´s.  I know delisting is the gut reaction.  But I would look at a few things first. 

1. How much business are you doing through VRBO as a percentage of your total revenue?

2. If you lost all of that revenue tomorrow how easily could you replace it? Are you getting a different demographic from VRBO vs. Airbnb etc. 

3. What percentage of VRBO bookings have you lost to cancelation (either full refund or partial in line with your cancelation policy)

With those three numbers you can really calculate how big of a risk you are taking with your business continuing to list there and determine if its worth it. 

Quick anecdote. We do a substantial amount of our business through Booking.com which is even worse as far as host protection and we have also had some pretty rough cancelations.  But when we did that analysis above, we realized that we were keeping about 88% of our booking income after factoring in charge backs.  We also realized that the business we were getting there was unique compared to the rest of our lead sources (lots of Europeans and South Americans in our case) and that it would be difficult to replace that business.  So instead of de listing ourselves we simply increased our prices on that platform in line with the cancelations and felt a lot better making sure that it was still ¨worth it¨ for us to be listed there.  For some people they don´t mind losing the business just for the peace of mind.  

Sometimes things warrant changing the business model, and sometimes they are just the cost of doing business.  It really is a case by case choice.  

Sorry to hear about the chargeback, that always sucks. Good luck!

This is actually really impressive that you are handling 8 properties with no PMS. Are you listed across multiple platforms or just Airbnb?  

In my opinion, PMS really only becomes necessary if listing across a few platforms.  It will keep everything uniform for the guest and keep you on top of the check ins.  

For what it´s worth if I only had sub $100/ month to spend on software I think I would go with Hospitable as a couple of other posters have mentioned above.  It doesn´t take forever to figure out and is pretty intuitive.  Good luck and congrats on your success so far.

I am familiar with the person you are talking about and as far as I know he doesn´t do syndication deals or take outside money from people in his coaching group.  You simply pay a flat fee for his course. 

Based on what you are saying I think the scam is the person who is contacting you on IG.  Check the profile closely to make sure that it is not a fake version of the real person. The reason I say that is most of these guys are selling courses and not looking for direct investments. I get these similar requests on Instagram weekly and almost always it's not the real person.  If they ask for an investment in a ¨fund¨ or anything to do with crypto it is an immediate red flag. 

Hypothetically assume there is a reasonable market for both STR and LTR. You will make more money doing short term. The question becomes how you value your time?

An example: If option A (LTR) nets $150 a month and requires 2 hours/month of your time, then how much does option B (STR) have to make to make it worth the 20 hours/month you´ll spend on it?

Again this is hypothetical and with some analysis you´ll figure out what option is the best on paper but it really cannot be overstated how much more work intensive running a STR is. Good luck!