All Forum Posts by: Cody Woods

@Joey Morea - How did you cancel all of the previous bookings without getting in trouble with Airbnb?  I am purchasing a home with $50K in bookings and Airbnb said he would be banned from the platform if he cancels more than 2 a year!  The seller and I both want to do a clean break but Airbnb is making it impossible.  Thanks for any help!

Price is right! I'll check it out, thanks!

Edit: Just did a quick check and they support importing from Airbnb exports. They also have categories specifically for STR. Looking promising!

https://support.stessa.com/en/...

I’m picking up my third property in the next two weeks and I also just finished doing my taxes. From that lovely experience I’ve realized that I need to do a better job of accounting with my properties and I want to do it in an automated way.

First is there a product or website that will import my AirBnB and Vrbo transactions for each of my properties and give me reporting from that? I’d also like to import in my credit card and bank and Venmo accounts and get that accounted in.

What is everyone doing for this? Excel? Quick books? Pay an accountant?

Also, do you keep separate books for each and every property? I haven’t been and many costs are shared across all of them. I’ve been considering just adding up the shared costs and dividing by three to keep it easy.

Would love to hear what you’re doing that works well and is as automated as possible! Thanks!

I've been thinking of doing something like Robuilt is doing but maybe on the smaller scale to begin with.  Thanks for starting the thread.  Cheers!

@Jenessa NeSmith

How have things gone for you and your business? I run two of my own STR's and have great systems in place whereby I spend very little time actually doing much active management. Answer a few questions is about the extent of it, or message the housekeeper to check on something the guest commented on. I have thought that since I already have my systems in place picking up other rentals at a 25% fee could be a great option. Additionally, while searching for those customers I would be looking to try to purchase a few homes along the way from someone that wants out entirely.

Anyway, I'm interested in how you've faired in the last few years.  Thanks!

@Matt Silverstone I agree that AirDNA's numbers are suspect.  I have two STRs and their estimates for my homes are so far off (i.e. 50% lower than what actually make) I don't know what to trust on their site.  

I agree with John.  I would also say look into financing it as a vacation home/second home if you have plans to vacation there at least part of the year.  Interest rates and down payments will be lower.  However some lenders have guidelines on how much of the year you have to stay in it.  

Congrats @Meghan Reed!  Just a couple of things from my experience...

I agree to go on multiple platforms.  I tried Airbnb, Vrbo and Booking and found Booking to be a pain and not used in my area so I dropped it.  I get about 90% from Airbnb and 10% from Vrbo.  

I'm not sure why people talk about the turnover costs... I actually prefer to have people stay shorter times because they damage less, use less, and have less time to nitpick at anything they might find.  They are paying for the cleaning (I charge $105 and the housekeeper charges me $85, the rest goes towards their consumables).  Just a different perspective.  

I use Smartbnb to automate my messaging.  The templates they have are a good start.  I just have 5 standard messages: Initial welcome, check in instructions a week before they arrive, a quick check-in the morning after they arrive and check out instructions the night before they leave.

I use Pricelabs to automate my pricing (although Vrbo isn't fully automated yet).  

I use Turnoverbnb (free version) to automatically let my housekeeper know when a new booking comes in.  

Best of luck!

I have Proper and it is 2.5x more expensive than my homeowners was on one home and 5 times as expensive on my new build. I am in talks with my Liberty Mutual agent that says Liberty now has a STR add-on. Should be just a bit more expensive than my original homeowners. Proper keeps going up and I'm not sure I need all that they offer. But I may look at Foremost before I pull the trigger on Liberty.

Thanks, Nathan.  Good thoughts.  You may be right that he'll take full price in 9 months after the build is complete and you're right that there aren't many other options for me other than buying used.  The incentive for him I'm wondering about is receiving a large down payment now before the build has begun and 9 months before the build is complete in order to help with cash flow and his initial outlay now.  I'm not familiar with how most builders structure their financing to know if that is of benefit to them.  In the case of my builder friend he will usually start 5-6 homes at a slightly staggered timeframe and I'm assuming that would be to minimize how much capital he has out at the same time so that home #1 profit helps pay for homes 4, 5 or 6 to get built.