All Forum Posts by: Cliff H.

They sure do send a lot of letters don’t they?

I cannot count the number of mistakes I’ve made and I’m not sure there is one that is bigger than another so I’ll just list a few that are particularly salient: 

• Cleaners are the lifeblood of your business. Know that you’ll struggle through a few that bad ones before landing on one that’s great. Once you find her/him, treat them like the partner in your business they are… or just outsource to someone else that does. 
• Ask for reviews and when you do offer an alternative channel for negative feedback. Don’t assume guests know the differences between AirBnB’s private vs public review feedback, educate them. 
• Ratings are everything in your first few few weeks/months. Plan on renting out at 50-60% of your ADR until you’ve established credibility by accumulated at least a half dozen 5 star reviews. 
  
• Never auto-review. I know this is a part of the “automate everything” religion and it is also a part of the what makes AirBnB suck more than it should by rating awful guests great. It makes you part of a big problem and ultimately cripples your ability to protect your property from the downside risk of ReallyBadGuests®. 
• Don’t wait for guests to tell you your check-in/towels/kitchen supplies suck. Invest the time understanding what really great hospitality XPs look and feel like before you begin. If you’re a Holiday Inner, book a Westin. If you normally self-check-in, have a chat with a hotel concierge. Understand what great hospitality looks like before assuming you know. Save photos of places and spaces you’ve traveled where those guest XPs really kicked ***. Remember those XPs when designing your own spaces as well. 
• Most importantly: never, ever, ever use base line Scott TP that's so thin you can see through it and falls apart in guests' hands at exactly the moment in their life when they need a soft, strong wall of anything because it's $.50/roll cheaper than AngelSoft for you. You may think you're an P&L rockstar for saving $53/year on your STR op-ex. Guests will just think you're a cheap-*** and roll out 4x more TP than than Rapunzel on a skyscraper, then rate the value of your rental down anyway.

I could write a book on mistakes like these (and probably will someday), but for now I just hope this helps owners navigate some of the more common assumptions that catch new STR owners by surprise thinking they are doing the right thing. What works in LTRs does not always translate to STRs.

@Adam Pippert I absolutely have implemented Alexa at scale in my higher end properties. However, in investigating Alexa for hospitality I have yet to figure out how to actually get enrolled and have devices configured through it. Love to hear your experience here if you did end up going down this route, or any others who looked into it.

What I will say is that guests greatly appreciate the ability to play their own music, turn lights and temperature on/off, and a variety of other custom features that I have built into the property for their convenience. I’ve also implemented custom signage to allow folks a short list of things that they can ask Alexa to do, which is critically important to clarify understanding and usage.

@Alan Faitel this:

https://www.consumerreports.org/cro/wireless-routers/buying-guide/index.htm

Big house: go mesh/multiple.

Small apartment: single router.

There’s a lot of talk about Wi-Fi standards on this sector and a focus on the bleeding edge. Truth is most TVs and even guest phones won’t support those for years to come. Focus on reliability, remote management, and automatic updates to help you set and forget it. I also like one with a separate guest network so I can keep my smart home devices segregated.

The CR top recommendation (in 2021) for the Synology 2600 is not wrong: it’s rock solid, auto-updates, and remote manages, but it’s on the pricier end and has more bells and whistles than most owners will ever need.

For larger properties I’d recommend Ubiquiti mesh at the high end or Eero at the middle.

Given that most homeowners don’t have spectrum analyzers or a certification in Wi-Fi design the most important factor to performance is not features or the latest standard, but rather ability to properly configure out of the box.

HTH

Any other YourPorter users seeing significantly more bugs than a few months back? Having endless problems within the last couple months with availability windows not updating in the defined availability windows and YP pricing overriding the rates set in smart pricing tools, which is a huge problem as busy ski seasons are coming up.  

@Ladd Gasparovic more info of this thread: https://www.biggerpockets.com/...

Here's one of dozens of topics on this we've been discussing over the past few years: 

https://www.biggerpockets.com/...

And here's the comparison matrix I put together for my own needs before landing on YourPorter: 

https://docs.google.com/spread...

@Reese Newell I’ve used TurnoverBnB.com for years. Bit of a love hate relationship given it’s a poorly coded app and half the functions kick you over to the web anyway, but it has customizable checklist with photo upload and recently added inventory capability as well. I looked around at a lot of the different solutions out there and found them either more expensive or with an overhead like that I simply did not want to maintain (ex: Properly requiring photos anytime I wanted to change a checklist). It’s currently free for your first property so it doesn’t hurt to check it out and see if it would work for you.
As I’ve posted elsewhere, I also use yourporter.com for short term rental management, which also includes a cleaning portal that can be used if you are only managing one cleaner per property. I have increasingly been testing that capability out after stabilizing my cleaner team, even though I can’t do some of the more convenient features like add or remove checklist items on the fly.

Hope this helps!

You mentioned "recently purchased:" how long have you been self-managing? How many tenant calls are you getting each week? Two rental properties are more than capable of being self-managed, understanding that 80% of your calls come in the first 3 months of renting a place out. 

PMs are great if you're running a larger (5+ doors) portfolio, in a similar area, and have "lived" self-management long enough that you know you're no good at creating standard operating procedures or farming out the work directly. They're also critical if you're managing in C or D class properties where self-management may be a risk to your life and safety or severely restricting time you would otherwise be using for expanding your portfolio because you have money to burn and a portfolio size you're chasing. 

Apps/systems are great if you're somewhere in the middle, don't have the margin to cover the 8-10% of gross income + 1 month leasing fee, are a control freak that wants 100% visibility/control over your investments, or are a "systems" type investor who relishes operational efficiencies. If you are going that route, I would definitely recommend expanding your search beyond the solutions mentioned above, both of which are extremely "green" and still building out their capabilities as of 2021. 

Whatever direction you choose understand that in any situations you're still "managing" something/someone: 

• With PM you're managing the manager
• With apps/solutions you're managing the system
• With self-management you're managing the tenants

No universally right answer, your needs and short/long term plan drive the bus. 

Yes. Anytime you subdivide in order to increase profitability as an investor, prices increase for those who are not investors and not subdividing. This is particularly true of STRs because GROSS profits look so much higher than with a standard rental, further driving prices beyond what a LTR investor would reasonably spend, which is closer in line to what an owner occupied buyer can afford. If enough investors are competing with regular owner-occupied buyers competition rises and supply demand gets out of whack.