All Forum Posts by: Brian Barch

We are in Clayton. We pay the following on a small 3/2 with a hot tub. 80% occupancy:

hot tub: $160

Lawn: $0

Elec: $150

Internet: $70

Water: $40

Consumables: $50

Cleaning: $90 (we have a great cleaner. Many quotes were $150-180)

My gut tells me a COVID fad.

There is also risk, depending how all in you plan on going, that the property doesn’t hold equity for any use case outside of a glamping business. Meaning you can’t sell it as a home, or use as a long term rental. 

I’m making an assumption when you say flaming you are referring to something along the lines of a premium tent, yurt, dome, etc. I think the challenge here is there’s not a large market for it in the sense that most people either want all out roughing it, or they want a Mountain View cabin, some of which can rent for pretty cheap.

When I personally think about glamping, suddenly my brain just wants a full fledged cabin without the bugs and hassles of a tent. 

Even if it’s a fad for another 5 years, you could ultimately be left holding the bag on something with no equity save for the land value? 

Occupancy is fairly all encompassing 

Occupancy is fairly all encompassing 

Purely anecdotal here…

With the rise of YouTube influencers hawking “passive” income through STRs, a lot of people got into the business, either naive to the work involved, or disinterested solely thinking it was a quick way to make money.

Money can be made, however real estate has traditionally been a long play.

What’s crazy to me, is at the interest rates and price paid, there’s no way THOSE particular people weren’t making money.

Lastly, many areas have adopted reasonable regulations that otherwise scared some people not wanting to deal with the paperwork.

20-30% for traditional ones

10-15% for some of the more modern ones, some of which outsource communication to VAs

We use awning.

I’m going to be honest. We had a VERY rocky start with them. They botched a lot of otherwise basic things in our first two months. Without getting into details, we had to call a meeting with their CEO and threaten to pull our business.

They got the message, made some key changes, and have been amazing ever since that time. I think we were an early customer and thus they had some kinks to work out. Have been great since, no complaints. Our property has a higher occupancy than our peers in market by 15 basis pts. 

We have a goal to stay in ours monthly. It’s a mountain cabin about 2hrs away. So far we have hit that goal

As a general rule, no, I’m not in favor of a cleaning fee, AND a checkout laundry list.

I think some one off things can be location specific, like trash removal on a steep mountain road in bear country as one such instance where it may be appropriate to ask of the guest. 
but by and large, guests are paying to NOT have to work on vacation, and my role is to be as hospitable as possible