All Forum Posts by: Blake Lawrence

I spoke with some folks at VRBO and there is sort of a way to reject requests without being penalized.  In this instance, if you have Jan 1-9 and 17-20 book and someone requests Jan 10-16, you end up with an open day on each end.  You can edit their request (obviously you send them an explanation and explain the situation, while offering a discounts on an extra day) by moving the dates requested from Jan 10-16 to Jan 9-15 or the other way around. That puts in in a tentative state and if they decide those dates wont work, you can then cancel without harm to metrics.  Its definitely a clumsy way of doing it and just typing the words "change the date on request" seems shady but that is the only way.  I find it odd that VRBO doesn't have a function that would auto reject a request that would create a 1 day gap if you have enabled it.

@Loren Clive I am thoroughly surprised your able to get that many 1 night stays.  The cleaning fee at our place is just the same as the nightly rate (sometimes higher) so it really doesn't make a whole lot of sense for people to stay at ours for one night.  Perhaps yours is set up differently, but we've struggled to get any sort of 1 night stay.

Thank you for the help, I appreciate it

@Michael Baum yes the only real way to deal with it now would be to do the one night stay for those gaps but like you said, it really doesn't make sense for renters when you add in the cleaning.    I guess  I need to contact VRBO and AIRBNB and ask them to explain how the metrics will be affected with rejecting these stays.  One would think there would be a fix for this as I am sure several others have this issue but it appears I either need to eat two days of the best month of the year or take the penalty from rejecting requests to stay

I should have said in the first post, with Maui getting a one night rental is almost impossible. Most people are flying in and staying for several days.  Rarely do we get a 2 night, so getting a few single nights would be tough.  Definitely can try that option and I appreciate the idea as I can see how that would work in most major cities, however I am really trying to see if there is a way to either not allow requests that leave one day gaps or if there is a way to reject them without any sort of penalty

I have co-owned a property in Maui, while my partners did the management aspect. I am taking over the management and buying out their half.  In the past, when a vacationer has requested a stay and left a 1 or 2 day gap, my partner offered the additional day at half price but no one has ever taken that.  In some spots, I can afford it but January is a higher priced, very easily rented out time period and this person has requested a stay that leaves a single day on both sides empty.  My question with VRBO and AIRBNB is there a way to set it so they cannot leave a gap like this?   If not, what is the damage of rejecting their request? It is my understanding there is some metric that is determined by your acceptance rate and it may push your listing further down if you do not accept.

Pardon the newbish post, my financial strategy needs reworking and I am hoping for some feedback here to help.

I am in the process of my buying my partners stake in our  short rental in Maui.  We split the down payment (55k ea) with a 366k purchase price. The market has gone up a good amount and the current value is around 480-490.  For this example lets use $480k. My payment to my partner will be (480 x 0.93 - current loan balance) /2. Basically as if we are selling it today. 

I am going to refinance the place and have been offered two options. Note - Both rates may go down 0.5% depending on the underwriters view of a second home

Option 1 -

Pay off the current loan and receive no cash out. 
Loan - 250k @4.25% with 0.4 Points. Monthly payment at 1229

Option 2 -

Value at 480, 75% cash down, 110k cash back to me at close.

Loan - 360k @4.5% with 0.5 points. Monthly payment at 1824

I do not need the cash to close.  And at the moment I am not terrible active in finding other properties. My main business does require a decent amount of cash (outside of REI) but I don't have any issues there at the moment.  Lazily, I would probably give the 110K to my FA and have him invest it for now until I locate a property that I would like to buy perhaps in 2020. Aside from the home I live in, I own one rental property with roughly 300k in equity in it and another that was just refinanced, not included this one I am mentioning here.  I've gone back and forth.. the higher payment does offer some tax relief (roughly $230 more than option 1) and in order to grow it seems backwards to have two properties with a lot of equity in them.  On the other side, I don't need it to close and haven't identified a property to use it on right now either so why bring on the higher debt.

Any thoughts on this situation or just a general practice in regards to keeping equity in a place.  I know this is a bit unique as its not a full cash out and I am having to do a loan regardless.

As I am not in charge of the finances right now, I was completely unaware that payments from vrbo and airbnb were held for 24 hrs after check in.  I guess that would take one complicated step out of it.

Yes, that would have been a fantastic get.  The 2 and 1 I referenced just closed at 495

@Mark Waite that is a good idea. I am probably refinancing it at the same purchase price (my broker said refinancing at market would result in a higher fee/rate) but getting an appraisal is wise none the less

@Greg Gaudet the property is Aina Nalu in Lahaina

Appreciate the help, I am a bit green still but would an agent do a CMA for a fee? Obviously we aren't using an agent to sell/buy the place, just transferring ownership of LLC.