All Forum Posts by: Eddie Gonnella

@Leslie Anne Morris if you could do it again, would you set it up in the same way (your Airbnb Hosting structure)? What I like about the set up you seem to have is that it feels personalized. Josh's Cabins and you speak with Josh. Gives off good vibes. What I fear about that set is what happens when Josh wants to get a new job? Or you want to leave the STR industry? This isn't something I want to do forever, so I want to build it in a way that I can exit, and my employees/operators come and go, that has as little impact on the business operations as possible. Right now, I've built it where my listings are hosted by Eddie. Which is great, personal, good touch. Except that I don't want to manage STRs for much longer, then what happens to my listings? I'm curious how people have navigated that transition.

 So if that employee ever left your company, what would become of all the listings? Could you change the employee name? Is the primary host the employee as an Airbnb account or is it a branded account and then explains that it is John Doe who is running it? 

I'm with you on the focus, right now I'm just trying to figure out one piece of it right now which is the host/account ownership within the OTAs. And I couldn't find much discussion of this in FB groups, BP, or online, so thought I'd try to get a thread going to see how everyone is setting up their accounts and the pros and cons. I'm very curious to learn more about your set up!

Here's one answer from Airbnb Superhost Support. This is just some random Airbnb customer service person, so I wouldn't take this to court, but it seems fairly clear that what is being suggested is possible. 1. Set up an Airbnb account with the name of your brand/business. 2. From there, you add "team members" to the Airbnb account.  3. You can add and delete team members. 4. Upon a sale, I don't see what is stopping you from adding the new buyers as team members and deleting all of the old team members. 

I assume this is also what happens if someone sells a property that is currently managed by a property management account on Airbnb. If I own a STR and it is operated by Vacasa, then I sell the property to someone else who still wants Vacasa to manage the property, this wouldn't require Vacasa to take down the listing and make a new account/listing.

So I think the possibility is still there? Any thoughts on the pros or cons of the different strategies though? It seems like most people are suggesting the brand based account is the way to go, pending the legal clarification of whether it is actually possible to keep a listing active through a sale via a property management account. 

@Michael Baum @Drew Sygit I think you raise great legal questions. I'm going to follow-up with Airbnb and see what they say. But there is precedent for what I'm suggesting (as you are seeing from other commentors and from very large brands like Vacasa and Evolve) so presumably this is possible. I agree that in the instance of a few single family homes, you're probably going to sell them for more by just listing them individually. But I think you are overemphasizing what I mean by brand and brand value. It would be less that someone would pay for a brand and the perceived value of that brand and more that they would be paying for the systems, processes, listings, reviews, etc that would be associated with the properties being purchases. Especially if it is more of a boutique hotel or a cabin resort type property. These 10 cabins I am buying have been very poorly operated, so I am buying them almost strictly at property value. I'm going to take them and turn them into a nearly passive fully operational business including direct booking website, OTA listings, PMS, integrated service providers, etc. One piece of that is how to set the primary host on the OTAs, which is what I'm discussing here. There is absolutely no doubt that the business and all the business integration/goodwill of those operations are worth significantly more than just the 10 cabins on 2 acres of land.  So how would you approach the OTA listings from the beginning knowing you planned to sell or transfer management to an operator at some point? 

 Great points, Ryan! Especially related to Vacasa, Evolve, some of the other big name managers. They are definitely not losing their account when they change PMs. So when you set yours up, you just used your name? Is it separate from your personal Airbnb account or do you mean you just ended up using your personal Airbnb account? 

@Leslie Anne Morris @Chase Hoover

Thank you both. Super helpful! Do either of you mind sharing your public Airbnb profile pages with the branded accounts? I think it would be very helpful for the conversation. Chase, it sounds like you approached this more in the built to sell / goodwill aspect of it. Did you feel you had any difficulty getting started with the listings compared with if you had started them with your personal account that would have been more reputable at first? I'm curious since some others are so spooked about the legalities, did you discuss with Airbnb at all before doing this or did you just create logins that are brand names with business EINs? 

Leslie, sounds like you approached it more from a management perspective or returning guest. Can you share more about how having that account set up with the property management has been helpful on the management side? So when you manage other people's properties you set your branded Airbnb account as the primary host?

My goals are fairly straight forward. I've been an STR host for 2 years for my 2 STRs, I want to do this for 2 or 3 more years and build up as many cabin clusters (starting with the 10 I'll own this spring) and maybe additional SFH, as much of a direct booking presence as possible and as much goodwill in the OTA listings, then either sell it all to someone or hire someone to operate the entirety. I want it to be as easy/valuable to sell at the end as possible, or as seamless to transition to an operator as possible at the end of the 2 or 3 additional years of building the portfolio.

Thank you both for adding to this discussion!

@Michael Baum Thanks for your additional thoughts! I've now reviewed the Airbnb terms of service. It is somewhat vague, so I will have to clarify with them, but it does appear that you can't transfer accounts. I'm not sure if that applies to business accounts, which I will check with them. The word transfer is a little bit interesting, because with a business account, you're not really "transferring" it to a different person. I'll see what they say and report back. 

If it isn't possible, I'm curious why some still create a brand/business based account - such as the example I've provided? Any thoughts there? https://www.airbnb.com/users/s...

Let's remove the sale/transfer aspect of it and still consider the same question, or assume that as it is likely, not possible to sell the listings themselves. A personalized Airbnb account or a brand/business based account. Pros and cons of each option even if you can't sell the branded one eventually? For example,  a pro may be that you could still provide host-team access to a property manager/operator of your branded account and not have the guest confused why someone else is messaging them from Eddie Gonnella's host account. 

Regarding how properties are sold, listed, comp'd, appraised, etc, I'm very familiar(I own 2 STRs and 23 LTRs). I'm not asking how properties/businesses are valued necessarily, though I appreciate the efforts to educate others. I do think brand can play a very important role in the long term of something like this. Consider these two examples: https://www.undercanvas.com/ and https://getaway.house/?utm_sou.... They've built brands/businesses and not just properties. Those are the types of places I am trying to emulate. Direct booking is obviously the number one goal, but for now OTAs will play a role. 

So, specifically I am still curious how someone would change their approach to branding/hosting from 2 STRs that are SFHs to a 10 cabin property. Would you continue to use your personal account to host the properties? Create a brand account to host them?  Sounds like for now the idea of eventually selling the branded account is a no-go, but there still remains pros/cons on each option and I'd love to hear what others have considered or their experience in adding more STRs/boutique hotel type properties to their portfolios. I close on the 10 unit property April 28th. How would people recommend approaching the initial set up of that property with an eventual exit (via sale or hand-off to PM/operator) in mind? 

Love it! I checked out your site and signed up for your emails. Site looks really good, branding is awesome. Seems like we're in really similar spots in terms of what we currently manage and where we want to go. Would love to connect more and share some ideas/resources. I'm not sure if BP allows me to post my email but it is  (...I'm scarred from Airbnb link blocking...andddd BP does not allow it haha). Hopefully some folks chime in with their thoughts or even better, experience. I have been trying to dig a little deeper into John's concerns and waiting to hear back from Airbnb on them. Because they claim that every host is verified with photo ID as well as an SSN - those might complicate a "transfer". But I think there are reasons to consider the 'brand' approach even beyond using it as an business asset at an eventual sale. I'm also considering placing myself as the primary host and then having a 'brand' account as the co-host on all of them. 

Airbnb has a whole marketing push to get boutique hotels on their site. My assumption is that these hotels are listing as brands/businesses and not as the owner or GM of the hotel. The application to get one of these accounts seems to align with this assumption, but I'm not certain. I will fill out the form to get more info from them. https://www.airbnb.com/d/hotel...

 John, understood on selling an individual single family home via a conventional sale and a conventional bank loan. I'm very familiar. That's not what I am referring to. Let's ignore the package of or individual SFHs for the moment though, since that is a little more complicated and seems to have been a distraction. The cabin campground is ten lakefront cabins on 2 acres. It is absolutely a commercial. Selling a hospitality property like this is a lot more valuable if you have a booking website, leads generated, upcoming bookings, etc. You can sell the customer base, the website, and more as business assets.  

What is stopping someone from providing the login to a brand based Airbnb account at a sale? Here is the example I've been referencing. https://www.airbnb.com/users/s.... Is there a reason that they could not sell their login/password with the sale of the nature retreat that they have built? Is this something within the Airbnb account like the ID verification or?