All Forum Posts by: Cliff H.

@Neil G.kudos for putting it all out there, your financial breakout and listing is refreshing and helpful us all in understanding what might be going on. 

A few quick + honest/direct observations with the disclaimer that we've all been in your shoes at some point so take everything here as simply ideas:

* Dump Vacassa + find a co-host or VA that will manage your rental under your name so you "own" the reviews + pay less overhead. Mark Miles wrote a solid post on this a few years back. Where I'm at (New England) Vacassa-managed properties rent at 1/10 the rate of homes with a real name/person attached to them. YMMV. 

* Your review count's crazy low, meaning your platform rank's likely low. That's not helping you show up in search results. Since I suspect you rented out more than 4x in 2022 Vacassa's not likely asking your guests for a review or doing enough on their part to encourage those reviews. Consider doubling down on guest XP to drive higher returns on review quantity/quality. 

* Swap out your cover shot for one of the whole house so guests understand what you're renting before clicking into your listing. Your current title photo's a grill... unless you're running a Texas BBQ where that grill's the top reason someone's booking your place it's not helping you drive conversion. My guess is you could grab a sweet sunset shot with that big porch + lights that would really pop. The problem with a bad cover shot? Poor conversions. Check the listing's AirBnB Insights dashboard: my guess is that its conversion rate is really low (ie: you're showing up in results, but no one's click into the listing because the only photo they see's just not catching their eye). 

* Reconsider your beds. For a 3BR house your current 1K, 1Q, 2T setup's extremely limiting in what types of groups (personas) can rent your place. I'm a big fan of bunk beds in at least one room since it offers larger families or two couples with kids flexible sleeping arrangements. 

* Circle your house in those last overhead/drone photos so I know which house it is w/out having to click back and forth and play matching games. Consider a photo of a map that shows time/proximity to popular destinations guests want to visit while staying here. 

* Consider renting seasonal rentals where you can reduce that 18% overhead if that's all too much trouble. ADRs pretty low for a 3BR house and without increasing your occupancy rate you're captaining a leaky boat. 

Hope that helps and good luck in the next step. Knowing your numbers and asking for input/ideas back here puts you ahead of 99% of most investors! 

The best defense against guests who come to party and trash your place is never accepting or making the place appealing to them in the first place.

Same rules as long term rental screening apply: outline in detail what your target customer persona would care about in a rental, then invest your time building and speaking to that. 

Never mind telling the bad apples what you’ll do, that just tells the good ones you’re bitter and burned. 

@Luke Carl I don't disagree on the likely down rank in platform algorithms and while rare on my end as well the cost of being wrong and/or the language around host concerns having to "prove" a guest will violate house rules is what causes me pause here, since anyone that's ever tried to seek reimbursement for "proven" guest damages or other items knows well where this ends up. From the page:

If you’re canceling because you believe a guest will have a party or break house rules, you’ll be asked to submit evidence to Community Support. This may include message threads and texts with your guest or other documentation...

Please remember that suspicions about guests having parties aren’t always accurate...

Any other AirBnB hosts catch the latest AirBnB host cancellation policy update? 

While it's rare I have to cancel on guests for any of my rentals, it's certainly happened where an Instant Book rolls up where comms look something like this: "coming up for a bachelor/bachelorette party, really excited!" on a listing clearly marked as no parties, followed up by a guest who can't or won't accurately answer basic check-in form questions before arrival. 

Failing to cancel soon after such guests booking = bad things ensuing. 

While I can appreciate AirBnB feeling like host cancellations make them "look bad," viewed side-by-side by their push over the last couple years for Flex/Moderate guest cancellation policies guaranteeing full guest refund up to 5 days before check-in this certainly feels like further eroding of host positions on AirBnB.  

If this is of concern, I'd recommend deactivating Instant Booking on AirBnB on/before 8/22/22 to continue your allowance for penalty-free screening or cancellation of guest bookings that don't work for your needs.

Current policy: 
$50 USD for cancellations of reservations > 7d before check-in 
$100 USD for cancellations < 7 days before check-in

New Policy (as of 8/22/22): $50 - $1,000
> 30d out: 10% of reservation 
48h - 30d out: 25% of reservation
< 48h of check-in 50% of reservation)

A simple example in actual dollars is helpful to illustrate potential host impact here:

Take a $500/night, weeklong rental ($3,500 - not including 17% AirBnB fees of $595) cancelled by a host on AirBnb. After 8/22/22 that looks like this:

> 30 days out: $350 host fee
48h - 30d out: $875 host fee
< 48h out: $1750 host fee

Anyone else see this? 
Thoughts/reaction?

@Shibu Thomas where did you end up landing on this? 

Similar situation with one of my college/all-utilities included SFHs running on force-hot air oil furnace now, but with propane on-site for the stove/hot water that I could extend to the furnace. Just under $4k/year for oil. Foolishly installed a smart oil gauge to track oil usage and predict spikes due to windows open or other tenant bad behavior... before realizing I don't control their WiFi and don't have cell coverage in basement to link to a cellular hotspot (oops). 

Just recently self-installed a 30k mini-split system in another property, but that was a STR with a former pellet stove that might as well have been a nuclear plant power plant based on how guests responded to it when they walked in.

I don't have costs of conversion yet (next step), but would advise addressing what any energy consultant would advise concerning heating in colder climates (where I am as well): 

1. Start with sealing things up first
Spray foam, new doors/seals, windows, etc. 97% efficiency won't matter if all that efficient heat' just flowing out your roof.

2. Utilities included or renter-paid?
Goes without saying that's a huge factor in understanding where to invest limited capital. If investing in tenant-paid infrastructure, consider linking a seasonal rent increase with the system that's going to save them more over the long term. Do the math and show them if they're great tenants you want to stay. 

3. Optimize HVAC for the Space
Migrating one's STR's pellet stove + electric baseboard heating to a $5k 28k DIY mini-split + baseboard dropped my electric bill 50% in a New England STR, but that's with extensive automation of heating cycles, retrofitting of electric heaters w/smart thermostats, and understanding that splits / heat pumps do lose effectiveness in their ability to extract heat from very cold air. That means you'll still need some other form of heating if you're anywhere like the northeast where negative winter temperatures are the norm. Designing a system that can automatically compensate (or help renters/guests easily self-regulate) is essential in ensuring each system's working together and may not be a fit for your property's unique situation. Talk to the experts to understand how things work and what's best for your environment.

Hope this helps!

Six Minute Abs for Seasonal Rentals
(which at least you already know will SEO rank)

Hey folks, not sure how many other Guesty for Hosts (formerly known as YourPorter) users are out there, but subsequent to the buyout by Guests I'm seeing increasing, basic failures in the product, worsening customer support, and a stagnation in new features (other than those that increase revenue like hawking STR damage protection policies). Example: page load errors, mobile app freezes mandating a force-quit and relaunch, and increasingly templated customer support responses about putting feature requests or basic service issues on an indefinite development timeline. Granted, the website was always secondary to their mobile-first webframe-in-an-app approach, but load issues continue to mount, compromising my ability to perform basic functions within the site/app.

As long time and loyal YourPorter / GFH user I'm going to start hunting around for alternative solutions and welcome any other folks that have been using alternative channel managers that continue to work or haven't been bought out by a company (Guesty) that's more interested in making a buck than investing in their solutions and existing customers. 

Plus cost of installation/charger - local incentives. I fully suspect you guys out west are dealing with different demographics and tax/offset incentives around EVs than many of us out east, where I'm paying an average of around $.18/kWh and anecdotedly have yet to see any EV-driven guests. Whether that's a chicken and egg situations I have no idea, but given past experiences with $600/mo electric bills the first year of operating one property I'm steering clear of anything in the short term that's increasing electrical rates, particularly since I'm not offering free gasoline presently either. :-)

The original poster had it right: looking at the demographics of Tahoe, seeing a correlation with EV car purchasing/incentives in CA, acknowledging Tahoe's that state's playground, and aligning an amenity to that state/region's existing tendencies. 

That's simply not the case everywhere else and I can think of a lot of better ways to invest several thousand dollars into my rental than catering to 1% of my renters and/or locking infrastructure upgrades into a company like Tesla who many not be around 10 years from now. 

We can all agree electric cars may be the next generation's Chevy without applying one region's high income demographics to everywhere else in the country/world. 

Can’t speak to Tahoe, but here in rural New England, no. I track electrical usage separately and it’s already one of the highest per stay costs. Zero interest in quadrupling that due to someone’s car selection.