All Forum Posts by: Christian Jimenez

MTR in SA is great as long as you keep STR as a possibility. It is easy to pick up a traveling nurse for 1-3 months, but not easy to keep that going for 12 months. Keeping the property as an STR is a good hedge for the slow MTR months. I'm a marketing manager for an STR management company in S. Texas, MTR vs STR is a popular daily topic within the company.

Hey Jorge,

We have an STR management company here and currently have a couple of properties in the med center including my personal home. It is a great area for many of the reasons mentioned above. We have had situations where tenants ended up staying for a couple of months so we end up discounting their stay to make it easier on them especially when it is related to a medical reason. We don't have to deal with many party rentals here except a few UTSA students every now and then (depending on the size of the home). As far as AirDNA, we have been in business for 6 years and have not needed it yet but I admit it would make life easier every now and then.

 I have to admit that is something that has never crossed my mind. Do you just have a working desk or do you leave a whole computer with maybe a printer? Thank you for your response.

Interested in hearing what outside-the-box marketing techniques you use to increase bookings. Also if you do anything extra for guests that may keep them coming back. It seems like we all do the basics but I've been looking for extra small things to do that may give my properties a slight edge.

Sent you a message.

I agree and believe that is also our edge. We are very hands-on with our properties but most importantly we are there to give guests that mom and pops customer service when the owners are not able to do so themselves. Something the bigger companies can never do.

 I did not know. I usually just hang out in the San Antonio/Austin area. I'll check it out.

So I've been the marketing manager for a short-term rental management company for four months now. I can definitely say it has been fun and I have learned a lot. Here are some early thoughts coming from a marketing expert that had never worked in this field and as a property investor myself.

The first thing I realized is that it is a market ran by a few national companies. These companies manage a huge percentage of short-term rentals in South Texas and continue building by having a massive digital marketing budget. That is of course not a problem and more power to them. What concerns me there is that they charge a significant fee and are treating properties as numbers. This has created two common scenarios for me when I'm speaking to potential clients:

The first one is the upset customer. I'm encountering many property owners that have had horrible experiences with national companies leading them to never want a management company again. When I have asked why they no longer want a management company the most frequent answers have been "they were taking a high percentage but were never there for tenants leading to bad reviews" and "they found issues with the property but kept allowing tenants to book without fixing or telling the owner about the issues". You would be amazed at how many times I have heard the same things. In other words these companies just worried about booking booking booking and never having any concern for the property owner or reviews on the property.

The second is the unaware customer. This one I believe is the most common especially among the older (age) property owners and new inexperienced property investors. They get their property ready and start looking for a management company. They go to the first one they find online (biggest digital marketing budget) and somewhere in there they are convinced there is a reasonable reason why the fee is so high and go with it. A year goes by of mediocre customer service and high fees but they don't know any better. When I come in offering our fees and services they honestly believe it is too good to be true and I understand it. You've been told one thing for who knows how long but it of course becomes a new problem for us.

I have absolutely no issues with national management companies and I love the challenge to market smarter than them. It does sadden me that I have had to focus on trust building campaigns because of the damage they cause. I'm sure some are better than others.

In conclusion, stick to a local management company where you can personally speak to the owners. There are only so many ways a company can market your property so do not worry so much about property exposure and worry more about property protection and customer service. Also shop around for fees, it should never be 40%.

There is a company in Mexico City that started doing this using Tezos. Always thought it was a great idea. They are Mountx.io

I admit that some of our managed short-term rentals in the south perform far below than the north ones but they are not all the same. You can PM me the address and I can give you a better idea based on our performance history.