All Forum Posts by: Allen Duan

Hi Joel! 

We have a few MTR arbitrage properties in Los Angeles. I got my start doing STR arbitrage and comparing the two, its definitely harder to make MTR arbitrage work. The right property can be worthwhile though. We moved out of a handful the past 6 months and kept just the best performing ones. In my market, the 1 bedroom apartments and 3 bedroom homes were the most worthwhile for us to keep. We moved out of our 2 bedroom and studio units.

Like any strategy, you have to do your research, get some numbers, and do your analysis to see what's worth going for. Ultimately you'll never know till you try and have real data to work with. STR saturation is market specific so you could look for a market that has STR potential and do RA there. In LA, I'm doing MTR because of STR regulations.

Let me know if you have any further questions. Good luck!

 Hi Stephen, I'll send you a DM. Thanks for reaching out!

 Happy to connect and share! Send me a DM

Furnished Finder and Airbnb are out top listings sites. Zillow is the third one that you should list on. We also get a lot of our bookings through the various relationships we have with relocation companies and our MTR networks.

We're currently setting up our new OpenPhone account. We will use this for SMS and our main business line, in addition to messaging in our PMS Hostfully. 

I have the same reasons as you Holly, for setting up a separate number. I want my team to have access so they can help with communications, especially for direct bookings. We also need to communicate with our property management clients and service providers to schedule cleaners and handymen. 

I'm at the stage in my company's growth that I'm handing off and delegating tasks that I've been doing myself for years. I believe this phone app will be a integral part to this.

Evolve is a property management company. The main complaints I've heard is the undersell your property to get it rented out so they can collect their fees. If you want to trade your money for time by hiring a PM, I recommend going with a local PM who knows the market well. 

Hi Vishal, I'm based on Los Angeles and know some MTR/STR owners in Riverside county. Send me a DM and I'll make the connection :)

I'll throw in my 2 cents. I have experience managing 13 STRs in the past and 26 MTRs today. 

The main difference I've learned is that MTRs take more work on the marketing side to get bookings, but less work on the operations side with less turnovers. 

So if you have 1 MTR, you'll spend most of your time securing a booking. Then they move in and there's not much to do. A month or so before the move out date, you'll jump back into marketing to get the next booking. Repeat.

We have a 4 bedroom home we're managing that rented by the room to university students. It's been less than a year so I don't have much data, but so far it seems the home may earn just as much renting as a whole home vs by the room. 

The strategy that works best for any given property really depends on local factors. In a different market, there may be lots of demand for individual rooms and little demand for the whole home, making rent by room the better option. You just have to research your area and compare the different strategies.

 A background check should not turn away good tenants, only bad tenants. We manage many MTRs in SoCal and rarely, if ever, have a tenant complain about doing a BG check.