All Forum Posts by: Cliff H.

Hi @Christine Stone agree with @John Underwood's advice to filter out the tire-kickers as a first step. Beyond that have you looked into remote showings? I've managed long distance properties for several years and built workflows that allow me to screen applicants, schedule their appointments, and provide both automated remote access and follow-up on their showings from multiple states away. Works great and looking forward to using it even more now that there are real concerns with COVID about interpersonal contact in a confined space. I have college students as well and found they are actually very comfortable with self-service showings as a group since they're already born of the Lyft/AirBnB generation already. One of the recent turnovers I had 58 separate showings in 60 days (slower market) and ended up only meeting the approved tenant after they had already filed out their application, paid first month/security, and moved in. Happy to chat more if you'd like to send me a connection. 

Hi @Joshua Solomon realize this is an oldie-but-goodie question on many landlords/PMs minds of late. Did you end up landing on a solution that works for you? 

Personally, I've transitioned to remote showings over the past few years using some home-grown workflows that allow me to screen prospectives, schedule them for the showing, and automate access and follow-up. While I have an option for folks to call on arrival, most are content in walking through the property on their own, so long as there's signage on site and follow-ups on next steps (which is also automated). 

Have you tested anything like remote showings in your properties? As you mention, driving down to meet potential applicants with effectively no skin in the game is a recipe for no shows and lost time. 

Hi @Dave Meyer thanks for putting this together and reviewing the intent on the recent podcast episode. This sounds like a fascinating resource, hobbled by one broader BP challenge: which of the memberships listed off the current Memberships page is Pro? Assuming that's the top option off the page, but it's not entirely clear until you scroll to the bottom and compare pricing. Any chance BP could return to the basic good/better/best option to make it easier to distinguish the membership tiers and what you get with each level? As a Plus member I'm open to upgrading, but finding it hard to identify the differences in perks across the memberships levels. 

Thanks in advance and keep up the good work on the BPIs. 

Hi @Jeff Piscioniere, thanks for the heads up, however I can assure you, definitely not an issue with this (or any) iOS update. 

PS: received no less than 8 booking requests in a stretch of 6 hours on one booking platform yesterday after I opened availability for May with a very prominent disclaimer that you need to be an essential services provider to qualify to stay at the space. A couple observations:

State-state differences in restrictions is creating mass confusion among both hosts and guests about where and when guests can stay at a motel or STR. The fact that Hilton/Marriott can't figure it out doesn't give me much hope for us on the indie side. I've also had two international travelers reach out in the last few days with (understandably) no idea what's allowed in my STR home state.

Most STR owners do not appear to care or be paying much attention at all to restrictions (and extensions of restrictions) at the state level, which is not terribly surprising given the logistics of whether state agencies could ever be expected to enforce something that requires both initiating booking requests across thousands of listings, but also finding out who the actual owner/entity that controls the STR is.

AirBnB continues to do little to help hosts in clarifying what rules/regulations are in place across different states/regions beyond linking to state-level orders that are (in my case) already superseded by subsequent updates/extensions. 

Does anyone really expect any of this to end well? Seems like state level mandates precluding renting of STR properties are either fundamentally unenforceable at one end or entirely misunderstood at the other.

@Michael Baum I switched my DNS provider so hopefully that provides some relief, but again this is happening on both cellular and cable connections, mobile app and web. No such challenges in with other sites and services, including AirBnB competitors Booking.com and HomeAway. 

Haha, was The Shining filmed in Minnesota @Marcus Johnson? I love Minneapolis and the lakes region, so long as it’s not January. 

Thanks guys. @Luke Carl thanks for that laugh, somehow it does not surprise me one bit after trying to navigate the 10k links to reach a human being that is AirBnB Help. Kinda makes me feel a bit like I’m stuck in a maze in the dead of winter...

Noticing a ton of network errors and inability to load the AirBnB inbox over the last week or so. Tested in different devices and networks with same result. Anyone else seeing failures or slowness in loading your hosting dashboard? Maybe AirBnB’s 25% layoffs included everyone in their server team?

Thanks for clarifying @Mike V. I’m hoping for an automated way I can integrate guests’ email into CRM myself, which for now I suppose I’m OK copy-pasting like you’re doing while I wait for greater integration from the Porter team. 

The legal requirements around the TCPA can be challenging to decipher and I suppose I have always taken the conservative approach myself and emailed guests first letting them know if there are any texts I’ll be sending to allow them a chance to decline or clarify any preference in channels. Reading the letter of the law I should probably have some form of standard opt-in as well, but as you indicate it’s been working OK so far and we’re still a ways out from phones having a default filter on unknown phone numbers (which I’d expect will become defaults in the next year or two). 

In the meantime, the National Apartment Association has some decent recommendations around the laws that are helpful: 

While you do not need written consent to send a resident an informational text, we strongly recommend that you obtain written consent for both informational and marketing texts for several reasons. Informational texts require prior express consent, whereas marketing texts require prior express written consent. The key point is that both require prior express consent, and the only difference is that marketing texts require written consent. If challenged, you bear the burden of proving that a resident consented to receiving informational texts. Written consent leaves no doubt that the resident consented.

Source: https://www.naahq.org/news-pub...