All Forum Posts by: Brooklyn McCarty

I agree. 

I do not think you need to spend endless amount of time or money. OTA's are spending millions of dollars in marketing, let them generate their lead for me.

The only place direct is nice is for repeat guests and even then, it's a small percent. Not sure if the juice is worth the squeeze. 

Do whatever helps you sleep best at night. 

Ultimately, they are given the option to purchase travel insurance at check out. So it's on them that they didn't buy it. If they aren't asking for it, I wouldn't give it back. 

YOU! 

No one is going to care for your property like you are. Self management is very well, manageable especially once you have the right systems in place. Save those PM fees and put them back in your pocket. 

BP has tons of STR resources, STR bootcamp and BP book written by Avery Carl - Short Term Rental Long Term Wealth, just to name a few.

Even if you decide to go with a PM later, it's valuable for you have to self managed for at least a year so you know how to manage your PM 

Brian - are there hosts who have bad experiences on Airbnb? Yes. Are there hosts that have great experiences? Yes. People just tend to complain more when things are going their way vs when they are, which in turn means that we hear about the bad ones more then the good ones. 

There are also hosts that have bad experiences on VRBO. Right now, Airbnb is just what's popular so it's what people talk about. 

Don't let this stop you. Airbnb spends millions of dollars a year of marketing. The best thing you can do is have a clear, concise listing and RA and that will help weed out a lot of rift raft. 

Airbnb has been life changing for me and my husband, we have dealt with some real turds along the way, but overall we have had a really positive experience.  

Dee, don't give up. It can be intimidating when you are starting out. PL has ALL the bells and whistles. You can do as much or as little in there as you want. After 4 years there are still functions that I don't know how to use. 

PL has a really great Youtube channel and they often hosts townhalls or meetings when they put out updates.

The best thing you can do is get in there and stick with it. Work on setting your min/base/max first and then go into the customs for tht property and get your nightly mins etc set. PL in my opinion is def worth the money. Before using it, I use to go in and manually change the prices daily on two properties, when we started using PL we saw instantly higher rates and it took alot off my plate. You got this!  

You might try a market specific FB group 

I wouldn't over think this a whole lot. 

A Leather of faux leather is going to be stain resistant which is nice. However if you are in  a beach or warm market, leather might be not be popular. In that choice if you choose a fabric just know it will need shampooed once a year and spot treated sometimes. 

No wrong choice here, whatever you like best is what I would place. 

Avery Carl always says you don't have to reinvent the wheel here. Provide cute, clean, comfortable places for guests. You don't need a bowling alley in the middle of the home. 

I would invest back into what is already in your portfolio before trying to scale, try out luxury/unique on something you already own/manage and see what it does for numbers. 

 Joe, what's done is done now. 

Hopefully you hit snooze so that if you ever take the property back over you can keep the reviews. 
I would really recommend self managing, Bigger Pockets has so many great resources for this from STR boot camp to the book on STR called Short Term Rental, Long Term Wealth.

If you are already renting one unit as STR then it's just copy and paste systems to convert the rest. In theory - boutique hotels are the next step in growing portfolios for str investors. Think LTR, most people start with a few SFH and then move into apartments.

Tax implications I would be sure to talk to your CPA with about. 
You would of course need to furnish them all which could be expensive up front, but other then that like I said you're just copy and pasting systems.