All Forum Posts by: Alice Horn

@Olusayo Lawal it was great to connect with you. As I mentioned, your property is not in a legally zoned area for short term rentals and is therefore best suited for long term. Hope my recommendation helps. Good luck with your property!

@John Ballard as you know, many of the most successful entrepreneurs share similar stories. The first step is having the tolerance for risk, and then learning from your mistakes. It appears you are researching and learning now before taking the next plunge.

If you are interested on the Disney/Orlando market we are happy to help you with the research. We can provide a map of recommended communities, revenue/occupancy reports and all kinds of helpful tips and information to help with your search.

We are actually property managers but happy to refer you to the right realtor here in Orlando!

hi Kim, we’re property managers here in the Disney/Orlando market. If your home is priced correctly and nicely themed, you will experience significantly over 50% occupancy, right now we are seeing around 80% or more. Happy to share revenue/occupancy reports for various home types in Windsor Hills and other communities. A pool is a must, so you may want to explore increasing your budget. Let us know how we can help!

Hey @Eric Garcia (and @Phillip Stevens) my advice is to do a bit of research first, and once you are confident about what community, home type etc. is right for you and will perform well...yes, act fast. Happy to share our map of recommended communities as well as up to date revenue/occupancy reports on various types of homes depending on your budget. We are vacation rental managers with 100+ listings and we are seeing the market coming back strong, both with occupancy and with revenue. While home prices have definitely spiked in Orlando and in other markets nationally, we are also seeing higher rates and occupancy. Hope this helps! 

If you are self managing or have a smaller number of units, Safely is a good option to cover guest damages. Your homeowners insurance would cover major losses. In addition to those mentioned here, Fudge is a well known insurance provider with STRs in Orlando.

@Cameron Baird it's always interesting to see the different approaches people take to calculate rates and revenue for STRs. We use a 3d party revenue management software which pulls actual booked rates from participating property managers' software. 

It also means we can quickly and easily pull reports on various homes in different communities. We will also sometimes share (redacted) actual owners' reports for homes already in our portfolio for Championsgate and other communities. We do that to help in the preliminary research phase, i.e. "I'm considering this listing for a 6 B/R in Storey Lake vs. this one for a 7 B/R in Championsgate!" 

Then when an investor is ready to pull the trigger and make an offer, we will do a full blown set of projections. For homes we are actually managing, one of my favorite tools to share with owners is benchmarking. This allows us to compare performance on one home (say that 7 bedroom in Championsgate with same size homes in the same community.) That can really give us confidence that home is outperforming the market, or help us see whether some additional theming etc. would help the home perform even better. 

The tools we have at our disposal are getting more sophisticated every day, as revenue management for STR's catches up with the approach the hotel industry has been using a long time. Feel free to reach out if you need any help ;)

 Sure! There are many designers in Orlando who specialize in this. Keep in mind a lot will also have to do with timing. Let’s say the home becomes available right before a busy booking season, i. e. Spring Break. If a home is nicely decorated, but it could use some additional theming and touches to put it over the top — we might recommend a Phase 1 and Phase 2. Book it a few months, generate some cash flow, then block the calendar in a slower month like May to redecorate further. It adds a layer of complexity but you’ll need to weigh the lost revenue from having the home completely out of commission during the top revenue generating months. Always happy to brainstorm design ideas and scheduling!