All Forum Posts by: Jared Higginbotham

@Andrew Wong 

For some people, they disconnect from a property by hiring a property manager to do all of the guest interaction. They only watch their bank statements and lose that sense of emotional connection. 

For others, they just don't allow themselves to get beat up over tiny guest interactions because they only see it as a business.

True story:

Just yesterday, I woke up to a guest wanting a refund for the last day of her stay because of issues not even pertaining to my listing. I gave her a refund for that day, my housekeeping crew turned the property and at 3PM I had gotten an Instant Booking from a new guest. I still ended up making the same commission on the nightly rental plus I was able to get a second cleaning fee. Oh and the guest that checked out early... gave me an INCREDIBLE review. Had I gone back and forth with her and poisoned the relationship, I likely wouldn't have ended up on top like I did.

It is important to disconnect from the property itself. I manage a ton of properties here in Tampa for other owners. If they only knew the kinds of things we've cleaned up or fixed they would be devastated. The point here is, expect things to go wrong. Be prepared for when they do. Emotionally detach from the property. It's just a big game of money coming in and money going out.

For the first month I set my listings to Instant Book anyone with a valid ID. After that we slowly start to tighten up restrictions once we get reviews and traction. 

I do EXACTLY this... Works like a charm... If you know a certain sports team is coming to play in your town, spend $20 and advertise there. Works like a champ!

This is a discussion I have seen get blown way out of control. You need to have a normally operating listing (not brand new or out of season) and you need to try each one for a month or two in your area. The algorithms that they run on operate fundamentally differently based on their perspective when they created them. This matters a lot when you account for where your listing is geographically. 

For instance, Beyond Pricing does not really bump the needle as it should when accounting for things like the NHL all star game and Gasparilla that are both happening here in Tampa on the 28th of Jan. These are both huge events for us and looking ahead, the prices haven't really budged.

In the end, no one will know this better than you. These services really only help me price for seasonality. Not events.

Hope that helps brother!

Hi Lynn,

My business only services Tampa but I wanted to reach out and let you know about us anyways. Had your property been in Tampa I would be exactly what you are looking for. If you ever find yourself looking for an investment property in my area or maybe just advice on managing a STR in Florida, feel free to reach out! Best of luck down there!

V/r

Jared Higginbotham

CEO & Co-Founder

Teal Door Hosting

I completely agree with @Jen Faulkner. The hotel industry literally did this research for us. Buy white linens! Don't reinvent the wheel here.

Most important thing you can do is to ensure that you are tracking the right data from your guests. Airbnb and most every other rental network out there hides the true email of the guest. They do this for a reason. That email address is more than likely tied to a facebook account and for only about $20 a month I can leverage my previous guests email addresses into hundreds of thousands of leads.

I use my guestbook as a tool for all of my marketing. You should be able to utilize your previous guests to tell who your most likely future guests would be. Jets are in Tampa Nov 12th. You best believe I am looking at my prior guests who traveled to Tampa to see their team play. Using facebook advertising I can spend about 20$ in ads for some of my premier listings and direct book guests at a much higher nightly rate than normal... 20$ is a drop in the hat at this point. That is likely what I would have paid in commission on booking.com or some other site. 

Get/advertise your own site and start tracking your guests. You will get return customers and you will get higher nightly rates guaranteed.

I wouldn't recommend putting any type of recording device inside your Airbnb. I'm not sure it's legal but it's certainly not ethical...

As for what setup we use... Nest camera's overlooking the front door and Nest thermostats controlling the A/C. RemoteLock LS-5i deadbolts on the front door. System works flawlessly. 

I actually own and operate a business here in Tampa that does this exactly. You are not acting as a property manager. You are Co-Hosting! I believe in all 50 states you must hold a brokerage license to perform traditional property management but good thing that is not what we are doing! 

We are not property managers in any form. We do not actually broker deals between two parties. At Teal Door Hosting we call ourselves concierges because we are full service hosts that operate in the hospitality management industry. Most importantly we do not ever broker any kind of lease agreement between parties. We also utilize third party sites like Airbnb to disburse payments. We never actually pay our owners from our own accounts. This type of agreement certainly walks along a very gray line but we are definitely not property managers and I would never agree that we are acting as one.

I do this currently in Tampa. The key for my clients are the end of month statements that I provide that detail the monthly cash flow. If your lender tells you no, kindly thank them for their time and go to another one. With properly managed property and monthly reports, you should be fine. If all else fails, come to Tampa! I would love to work with you!