All Forum Posts by: Dan Thomas

@Jacob Murphy

And I will add. Regardless if you believe in the power or not. If you are buying your first str, DONT SPEND 5K ON A SPREADSHEET!!!

@Jacob Murphy

I certainly believe in the power of data and I can tell you I only base my business decisions off data. I'll admit I probably don't understand airdna type products as much as I could but after spending time inputting my property and interpreting the reports I gave up. It wasn't worth my time for the data it output. I came up with closer adr #s and occupancy targets in 20 minutes looking at competition on vrbo and airdna. I'm sure it's a much more useful tool than I give it credit for but if you are starting out in real estate or the str game (as indicated by the op) my suggestion is that you need to build on the fundamentals of real estae investing and learn your business not learn how to navigate a tool that may or may not provide value to your particular business. In business we say you design a business process and introduce automation to ENHANCE said process. You will set yourself up for failure if you build your business process around automation. No out of the box software can optimize YOUR particular business but when you understand YOUR business you can pick the one that fits the best.

@Jacob Murphy

Based on my experience new investors should stay away from airdna and like products. 5k is big money for someone just starting their business and from my experience the data is flat out wrong. I know it will be much more accurate in other markets but for example my str rents with an occupancy of 87% and an adr of $180. Airdna projected occupancy at 57% and adr $102. Not the kind of product I reccomend people use to make business decisions. ESPECIALLY for $5k. If you want a successful business put in the work don't overpay for bad data.

@Bruce Woodruff

It doesn't sound right that it came back at all. I have never seen a ricochet from wood in my life and I have done ALOT of shooting. This is either fiction or he hit something other than a 4x4. Unless the 4x4 was metal? I guess I am assuming it was wood without re-reading the post. Either way seems odd.

@Matt I.

I suspect that if you are not getting bookings (airbnb or off platform) his other clients are not either. I don't know your market but from what you have described it is alot like mine. Atv Riders and fishermen are my clients. For perspective as of this last week I am 100% occupied memorial day through labor day. If you are not, I would fire this clown and fix this on my own. STRs are not hard. Everything you need to quickly run a successful business are in these forums. I manage mine from 3.5 hours away.

@Matt I.

I find it interesting that your professional manager has 27 properties and only 5 of them have more than 10 reviews. I am not a professional and have been doing this since Oct and have over 20 reviews on my property. That doesn't smell right to me. Is this guy really a professional? Several of his listings have no reviews yet. May be nothing, but may be a que you can do this better on your own.

@Isaac S.

What exactly makes this a dangerous service? Millions of Americans shoot safety every year. Any activity (driving a car, using power tools, riding horses, ice fishing) can be dangerous and education is crucial in the safety of all of these activities. Personally I see no difference taking a guest shooting or taking a friend shooting. I'm no lawyer but your gun, your property, your liability.... guest or friend. That doesn't stop alot of people from teaching others to shoot each and every day.

@Alicia Marks

What @Jerryll Noorden is describing is called VOC (voice of the customer) everything he said is spot on but more importantly you should get VOC data on what to change, not only how to change it.

@Kyle Zuleger

Learn your business processes before you automate or enhance through technology. You want to set up rock solid processes that are enhanced by software you don't want software to set up your processes. I see too many people write about all the software they buy to run their business when quite frankly excel and email will take care of most of it, especially when first staring out.

@Joe S.

When I posted my rental I felt exactly like you are describing. I felt the added fees were deceptive. I couldn't imagine charging a $100 cleaning fee on top of my nightly rate (100% pass through cost). It doesn't seem to matter though. Airbnb / VRBO guests expect it but will certainly weed through properties with over inflated / greedy extra costs. I personally will adjust my nightly rate if I want to make more money and will leave my fees as just pass through costs. This approach has worked well for me so far.