All Forum Posts by: Chuck Kramer

The Carls’ are absolutely right, you can easily so it yourself; there are hundreds/thousands that do!

@Chris Watson had not heard of that but nit too surprised. My gut reaction is that more bargain hunters use Vrbo.

I looked those same apartments over before they got to market. They need work and are in an area hit hard by the fires, and not fully recovered. You may find renting them as STR to be difficult for the first year or so.

As LTR, we estimated $1400/mo rent would be market and probably keep occupancy at 100% with a waiting list. Affordable family housing is a real issue in the area and we have always wanted to help with that in some way.

@David R. talk to @Luke Carl here and maybe setup a call. He will explain the virtues of self-management and really knows his stuff. 

If you still don't think that is for you, consider an in-between solution like EVOLVE. We use them as we are also really busy, like you. They handle the posts, questions from guests, reservations and payments. Our cleaner is setup with them to get reservation info as well. It is minimal involvement on our part. Not everyone's cup of tea, but works well for some circumstances.

In the end though, consider that using a PM will likely have a significant negative effect on your returns after giving them 30-40%.

@David R. that is one to avoid, IMHO. Don’t consider these to be personal recommendations as I’m not very fond of property management companies at all. But I do hear other owner say decent things about cabins for you, cabins USA, and patriot getaways. But it’s important to remember that all of these companies also owner at cabins that are in their inventory. So which ones do you think will get filled first? 

As said above, each company has a ‘focus’ and type of cabin they are good at renting.

@Jeff Piscioniere not targeted to me, but there is tremendous growth in the area and 100's of million of dollars still pouring in. LARGE companies have several big projects starting soon, including a HUGE water park in Sevierville, a 700 acre destination/entertainment complex near Dollywood, and another 200+ acre project in Wears Valleys with restaurants and attractions. I know of others but can't share details yet.

These will just serve to bring even more people to the area and boost the year-round appeal. ROI will likely go down, nothing lasts forever, but if it drops from 18-20% to 12%, it still beats almost every other area for investment.

@Jeff Piscioniere across our 4 cabins, AirBNB is only about 10% of bookings, rest are Vrbo. A fellow owner who has 15 cabins just posted her breakdown yesterday and AirBNB was 22% of her total, VRBO 54%, and rest were direct. We have contracts on 3 more and all three are overwhelmingly doing more on VRBO than AirBNB.

I hear similar things from almost all owners I connect with who do not use PMs.

I can only guess that VRBO is stronger amongst the demographic that rents in this area and it has more listings.

@Tara Wright Also, AirBNB and VRBO (king of the hill in this area) both favor the new listings in their search results.

There is also a sizable community of people that quite successfully rent directly on their own websites.

@Nicholas Moran most cabins for rent are out-of-state owners

@Avery Carl Not to mention all the publicity the area is getting for providing great returns.

Topped the new Vacasa list this week and 3 of the top 4 in Forbes a few months back.