All Forum Posts by: Cliff H.

@Ryan Detzel suppose this depends a bit on your target market, but for most STRs focused on vacation rentals you’re going to have a cleaner come in anyway so why not have dual set of sheets, towels, face cloths, etc that can be swapped in/out on turnover? That also allows your cleaner to wash at home if they find it more convenient (though some will charge more given the electricity involved).

Most importantly though, it’s about setting a great first impression, which is a bit hard to do when the beds aren’t made or someone’s got to sheet a bed after driving 4h to get to your place and just wants to go to bed.

I’ve also standardized on white sheets/towels that are washed with Carbona Super White to keep them fresh across stays versus standard bleach that can be disastrous depending on application. Grey facecloths because as super as Carbona is, it’s no match for make up.

HTH!

@Syed Lateef any of the VOIP services like Skype or Google Voice would be an easy and affordable way for someone in Philippines to make calls into USA. A few links on those below.

https://www.skype.com/en/calling-rates

https://support.google.com/voice/answer/7491761?hl=en

As mentioned above, you could certainly setup a Twilio integration that allows a customer workflow integration, but that may be beyond most people’s expertise out of the gate.

https://support.twilio.com/hc/en-us/articles/223179948-Does-Twilio-Support-Dialing-International-Phone-Numbers-

@Dallin Andrus definitely. There’s a variety of 3rd party services that offer to sync across platforms like AirBnB and HomeAway, but of course that capability is already built into each if the major sites anyway so don’t pay for that. AirBnB also can now have related listings (say rooms in house) where booking one listing blocks another.

The private branded options work the same: using the standard ICS calendar feed to block off availability. Options here are many and there’s not a one size fits all.

Here’s a few links to get started:

https://motopress.com/blog/best-wordpress-availability-calendar-plugins/

https://www.airbnb.com/help

@Joseph Alves really depends on your use case. I’ve used Samsung, D-Link, Blink, and some specialized models for situations where all I have is a lift bulb socket. After messing around with placement due to power availability I’ll probably now stick with Blink for my rental turnovers since they’re super easy to setup, I don’t have to worry about power, and since I fully automate the showings and need a way to keep an eye on the place when folks walk in.

For more permanent security cameras I’m sure there are better options out there like the hardwired systems others have called our below.

The idea of jumping off one site simply to jump on board another seems strange. Any time you're hitching your wagon to an intermediary like AirBnB, HomeAway, Booking you're not really marketing a rental property, as much as you are getting your product on someone else's shelf. I realize branding and website design are not everyone's forte, but considering the intermediaries feel completely justified taking a 10-20% cut to host a one page property profile and send in a tax form for you, it seems logical for many STR owners to try and redirect repeat guests to a site you own and control directly. Bypass the middleman, save your guests the margin, and keep those guests from comparison shopping 50 other listings whenever they log back in and have to scroll past dozens of other choices on the way to clicking book on yours.

@Dana Whicker actually it was CoStar, behind apartments.com: https://cozy.co/blog/great-news-cozy-joins-costar/#

@Ramy Man longtime customer from back in their beta days. It’s good, but limited, just sold out to VCs, and have been slow to add features.

Note that Zillow has now entered their game as well, offering free rent collection, rental listings, etc through their Zillow Rental Manager app https://www.zillow.com/marketing/rental-manager/collect-rent-online.

While I still use Cozy for rent, it remains to be seen how they will differentiate themselves in the light of the 800 LB gorilla of Zillow entering their space.

@Richie Choy given the responses, it may be helpful to link out to a few past projects or overviews around machine learning.

While automation tends to be something many understand, most still do not appear to grasp ML as a algorithm that gets smarter over time. I mean IBM Watson can start processing image recognition based off a handful of photos. The opportunity to enable property managers to estimate repairs, contractors to diagnose repairs, or realtors to estimate pricing or rent based on photos and geo-location alone is likely not far off.

That said, it is totally true that real estate is handicapped more by culture than possibility. It’s an industry generally terrible about adopting innovation because many working that industry are still seeing it as a competition to their day-day versus replacing low skill tasks and personnel to focus in higher value activities critical in the people era.

Hey folks. Any one else dealing with smaller contractors requesting payment to payment systems like Venmo clearly linked to individual/personal accounts on invoices from their business (and requisite business taxes added)?

This makes me concerned that things like business liability insurance and accountability may be harder to trace back.

Basically beyond the “grow up and get a biz banking/invoicing system with Net30 terms” are there other gotchas to be concerned about here?

Sounds like you have put a lot of thought into the setup Ken! I can understand the live sports thing depending on the region, but also think we're pretty close on that to a usable streaming solution. I've certainly seen plenty of mods for FireTV like Crackle or others, but have no idea on the legality of any of these services.