All Forum Posts by: Ariel Smith

Jake Knight yes, I do. However, this post was for personal reasons as I'm looking to get into the furnished rental market myself. I'm not trying to solicit anyone nor do I make commission off of landlords joining. I recently posted that I worked there and was flagged, so avoided it this time. I get to see firsthand how different landlords run their business and I know many in my network rely on Airbnb as their main source of revenue (or at least filling gaps if they do more long-term) so I see this having huge affects over time.

@Chris Mason yeah maybe their most expensive one or even the one that gets the most traffic. I imagine a lot will manipulate their calendars to get inquiries then pivot them to their open properties. I've already seen landlords doing this through Airbnb to move off of the platform and undercut the fees. 

@Charles Ma yes we did speak via email! I believe you met David at the J Martin summit. Photos are huge when marketing your property as a short-term rental. Most tenants won't be able to view the property prior to leasing (either due to a tenant occupying it, being located out of town, etc.) so the photos are a huge driver of your marketing. Great photos also set your unit apart from other listings.

Amenities are also very important. Make sure every comfort of home is included in your property at that price. Spend time researching other rentals at that price point and look at what they offer. If you want top dollar, you have to provide a top quality product. 

Best of luck and feel free to reach out directly with any questions!

Welcome @Ryan Markiet! BP is great and has a lot of information for anyone looking to get into many aspects of real estate. Do you have your own property management company or do you work for one?

@Michael Medinger I'll have to check that out!

@Jeff B. Absolutely. HomeSuite (30 day minimums), VRBO, HomeAway, FlipKey are all options, but the fact is that in SF Airbnb drives the most demand for landlords. I think this will be a huge hit on their marketing.

@Charles Worth Yes, that's what I was thinking too. I figure hosts will be able to create additional accounts as workarounds or have "shell" listings but that would still limit their reach. Also, they will lose their valuable reviews if they are forced to create new profiles and start over. 

I'm really interested to see how this plays out in my market in SF. I know a lot of people that have 15+ listings operating through Airbnb so having an account for each listing isn't feasible. I suspect some of those landlords who aren't already listing with services like Homesuite, will move there as a way to supplement lost business.

Has anyone read this article that is currently hosting multiple units on Airbnb in either San Francisco or New York City? Even LA or the greater Los Angeles area as it might happen there next.

http://sf.curbed.com/2016/10/19/13331802/airbnb-pu...

I'm interested to see how this will affect hosts who depend on Airbnb to drive traffic to their multiple listings.

@Aaron Cooper congrats on your first vacation rental! Squarespace is great for website design and I love the sleek look of their templates. There are also many other website template creators out there that are easy to use and you can customize to make your own for low cost.

In regards to security deposits, I find that vacation rental guests are deterred by large security deposits and the back and forth of returning them can be a nightmare for bookkeeping. I know of some landlords that require the tenant to pay a non-refundable fee that covers an insurance policy to protect the property from damage. This seems to work well for both the landlord and tenant and can be relatively low cost - around $49 for a stay of 30 days +.

@James Carlson Airbnb is banning hosts with multiple listings in SF starting Nov 1 and NYC shortly after. 

http://sf.curbed.com/2016/10/19/13331802/airbnb-pu...

I believe their goal is to put out an olive branch to the cities that are fighting them the hardest, but it will be interesting to see how this affects hosts.

@Charles Ma I work for HomeSuite and we don't have as much demand for 3+ bedroom properties, simply because we usually lease to corporate tenants who are looking for studios, 1 and 2 bedrooms. However, we do get inquiries for larger properties and depending on the amenities and the way you market the property, I think you can get the rates you are looking for.