All Forum Posts by: Tim Schroeder

@Chase Cline

Meaning if we broke even with $0 profit but paid $10k in mortgage payments, we are taxed on $10k net income as if the mortgage payments weren't expenses

What you're missing is that mortgage payments are two things (four if your insurance and taxes are escrowed). 1) Principal: You're paying back the bank loan and adding equity, 2) Interest: An expense incurred in obtaining the loan, 3) Insurance: An expense incurred in holding a valuable property that you want protected, 4) Taxes: An expense incurred in property ownership.

Remember that the principal payments add to your equity. You'll get that money back someday when you sell it. Therefore, you can't claim it as an expense.

Zoning? Are you saying you rented it in your driveway or in the street or something? No wonder you got shut down. If so, that's a good thing. Sorry if I am misunderstanding you.

I live near Denver and rent my 29' family RV out on rvshare.com. Last summer I made about $7100 in 6 months (I don't rent it in the winter). The RV is 14 years old and is worth about 15,000. Expenses are zero because insurance is included. So it's not bad free money when you already own one, and I still get to take the family on vacations. You could totally make a small business out of it if you bought 5-6 of them, and you have the time to deal with it. But, the pickup/dropoff procedure can be a pain. I work full time. Usually people want to pickup or dropoff at times that are inconvenient to me. I get tired of explaining how the toilet works to newbies. I worry they're going to crash it and kill people. It adds miles to the RV. They call me when they run the battery down, or they get a flat tire. (Of course I get a lot of that with my STR cabin rentals too). If I didn't work full time I might buy a few and make a small biz out of it.

You also should ask yourself if north texas is a popular place for RV'ers. Most people want the mountains, coasts, and national parks. You're smack in the middle of the country. Also, those 21' travel trailers that you pull behind a truck are a dime a dozen. Your renters need a big truck to pull it. I think self-contained RV's like mine are more popular. Dad drives up front, the kids play in the back, and Mom makes sandwiches in the kitchen. Even the journey is a LOT of fun. With a travel trailer it's just a long road trip stuck in the truck.

 Be nice. There are lots of ways to make money. Yours is not the only way.

Ohhhh please tell me more about the Schlage locks. I bought them and SmartThings hubs for both my properties planning to do just what you said, but I just haven't had the time. I thought at the time that I could at least use their app to change codes manually but that does not work when you are not close to the lock. I can't wait to implement something automated like this.

Also.... I bought SmartThings-compatible EcoBee thermostats and Zwave motion sensors. My holy grail is to set it up so on checkout day once the sensor says no-one has moved for an hour or so, to turn the thermostat way down. Then on check in day, turn it back up an hour before arrival. Might even adjust the A/C when there is no movement during the day (knowing guests have gone out for the day). Have to be careful of this though, so as to not piss people off when they come home and it's 90 degrees inside.

Yeah the interface is not the best and it's not intuitive but it works well and the support is great. They just added price push capability for AirBNB and VRBO which I haven't tried but am excited about!  I like to tweak prices a lot based on demand, and doing it in multiple places for each property was just unscalable. Now you can set pricing on OR then push to ABB/VRBO (plus a bunch more that I don't currently use). OR also synchronizes all iCal calendars & even pulls the ABB/VRBO reviews for cross-posting on your own site. They also do payment processing for the standard 3% fee. So I set up a website for direct bookings (www.lazybearcabins.biz) using Wix which uses a widget from OR for payments. Direct bookings avoid the guest and host fees but are still processed by OR, and these direct bookings update the master OR calendar, which is exported to AirBNB and VRBO. Actually, any website can use OR for payments.

Other nice things... the shared ribbon calendar is really nice. All your properties and all listing sites on a single configurable calendar, plus occupancy tax reports, automated rental agreement creation/mailing/archiving, travel and damage insurance for guests, quickbooks integration, door lock integration (not mine, unfortunately), email autoresponders, and more. Most of this for $20 bucks. Some things cost an extra $10 like the QB integration. Cheap for what you get.

Well then that sounds like a great compromise, especially in the beginning when you're getting your feet wet. Do it for a while then wean yourself off and go solo and raise your profit. OwnerRez is worth the $20 even for one property. The email automation alone is well worth it.

I understand your desire to have someone to "Take care of things". But are you willing to give away 30-40% of gross income for that peace of mind?  I manage two properties from 1500 miles away. Many people around here manage 5 or more.

On Monday a guest texted me and said the gas fireplace wouldn't work. (It's been getting worse for months and so this came as no surprise). I texted the maintenance guy, he swung by and looked at it and sent me pics (it's trashed -- controls and valves are melted beyond repair). Guest was pleased and impressed at the fast response. I went on the local Facebook cabin owners group and searched for "fireplace repair". Called the guy everyone raved about. Gave him a unique electronic door code, which I deleted the following day. Two days later I have a new gas fireplace that I haven't seen. With luck, I will never see it. Well, actually I watched him bring it in on my security cam but you get the idea. He emailed me the bill, which I paid through Paypal, then copied the receipt to Dropbox which I'll give it to my accountant next year.

All on my Smartphone: Three texts, a Facebook search, a door code app, security cam app, Paypal app, Dropbox app. I did it all from my desk at my day job. 

This property grossed about $110,000 the first year. Am I going to pay a PM $44,000 to do that for me?  No. Freaking. Way.

To be fair, it's sometimes a PITA. People call with stupid questions. They complain about stupid things, like leaves on the porch or how I should provide instructions for the remote controls. Sometimes you want to scream IT'S A CABIN IN THE MOUNTAINS YOU IDIOT -- LEAVES ARE PART OF THE DEAL!!  One guest complained that I didn't have an egg slicer. An egg slicer!?!?!  I had to google it to see what it was. I get about one "issue" a month. 

But for an extra $44,000 I can put up with a lot of dumb questions.

40*8=320+250=570 upfront.

190/mo for cable drops to 50/mo for just internet. That's 140 savings.

570/140 = 4.07 months breakeven.

After breakeven, annual savings is 1680. Call it two round-trip flights to Hawaii plus beer money.

Now you're a Ninja!