All Forum Posts by: Jean H.

@Heather Zazulak Yes. MeetUp.com or sometimes EventBrite. If you search for your city and “Airbnb” or “vacation rentals,” you should be able to find a group of vacation rental owners who could use your services.

@Heather Zazulak Find a local Airbnb host meetup and introduce yourself. I run an Airbnb hosts Meetup in Miami and we have a lot of service providers come who specialize in short term rental services or want to target Airbnb hosts.

We even had one designer/stager like yourself give a 10-min talk at one of our meetings on “how to stage your vacation rental.” She got her name out as an expert in the field and I’m sure got a few clients that way.

Hope that helps.

@Mikhail Matorra If you’re looking for a property manager for your Airbnb, I would look at other Airbnb hosts in the area where your property is and ask them if they would manage your property as a “co-host.” Since they are nearby, they would have local housekeeping and handyman contacts for cleaning and emergencies.

Since your BP profile says you’re in Miami, you should think about coming to an Airbnb Hosts Miami MeetUp. We meet once a month at one of our members’ Airbnb property to network and trade tips. There’s lots of property managers and service providers that come. The next MeetUp is Tuesday, May 21. PM me for details.

@Tyann Marcink In Miami, FL, I organize an Airbnb Hosts Miami MeetUp group that meets monthly at one of our member’s vacation rental property (a different property each month). People can look around the property to see how it’s staged, ask the owner/manager how it’s managed and run, and network with other vacation rental owners/managers. We currently have 500 members and growing.

We have recently added an education component where we bring in speakers to talk about things of interest to Airbnb investors, like how to furnish and state your vacation rental, what to do in the off season, how to invest in opportunity zones, and next month, how to organize your business to mitigate taxes and liability.

We also have a WhatsApp group for members to share news and regulation updates, and pass along booking leads (e.g. “I have sb looking for a 2/1 in a beach location for these dates, but I’m already booked. Anyone got availability?”)

PM me if you would like the link to the MeetUp or just look up Airbnb Hosts Miami on the MeetUp site.

@Shawn M. I had a similar issue with holdover tenants. The wife was the only person on the old lease. I told them that on the new lease, both needed to be on the lease. They said what your tenant said, that having him on the lease would affect his visa application. After much wrangling back and forth, we compromised by having his wife as the signatory on the lease but including the husband under “other occupants,” along with their children, and mother-in-law who visited 2 weeks every year.

Not sure how legal this was, or how effective that would be in case they stopped paying, but I was planning to rehab the property a year later, so it was really a stop gap measure.

@Jacob Kelley I wouldn’t discount the value a long term tenant might find in your casita. Maybe it could be their home office or studio. I have a friend who paid $500 more to rent a house with a guest house because she was able to save that money by not renting a separate office.

If you want to go the Airbnb route, what I’d do is AirBnb the main house and get a long term tenant in the casita who gets a discount on their rent in exchange for managing and cleaning the Airbnb.

Personally, I’d handle all the bookings myself or hire a service like Evolve to handle the bookings. The tenant in the casita would be in charge of greeting guests, giving them the key, cleaning, and maintaining the grounds. That way, you get the higher rent amount of Airbnb without as much of the hassle.

@Greg Lindor You should talk to my agent @Sebastian Giraldo. An investor himself, he’s investor friendly. And he just did a talk on opportunity zones.

@Genene G. I am also an introvert and find it hard to go up to people and introduce myself. Two things that helped me were these:

1) Go into the meetup with the mindset of “As soon as I meet one person that I’d be interested in having a one-on-one coffee with, I can go home.”

With your goal of “just one person” you become less anxious because, hey, one person isn’t hard. You network until you meet that one person, trade business cards, then breathe a sigh of relief knowing you accomplished what you set out to do.

If you’re feeling up to it, you keep networking. But if not, go home and focus on contacting that one person and setting up a one-on-one coffee or lunch.

You’d be surprised how many people you get to know with the one meeting-one follow-up approach.

2) Start your own meetup. I am just like you—I have a hard time networking, but I can be quite sociable on my own turf. So when I had the opportunity, I took over the Airbnb Hosts Miami MeetUp from a friend. Now, I’m on my own turf. People regularly approach me either at the MeetUp or online because I was the organizer. They consider me an expert in vacation rentals in Miami, even though I was a total noob 3 years ago. That has opened a lot of doors for me.

I hope this helps you on your journey. Best of luck!

@Payman A. If PM is listing agent and is not doing their job as manager and evicting, I’d ask for a credit from their listing commission “if they don’t want to lose the sale.” Just my two cents.

@Anxhela Musta Consider this: you put your money and time to rehab the property, then pay $ out of pocket to furnish the place, and you get a few bookings. Your boss sees that it’s a moneymaker. What’s to stop your boss from kicking you out and taking over the Airbnb? Now you’re out all the money and time you put into those units with nothing to show for it. Not saying you can’t do it. Just make sure your and your boss’ expectations as to roles and responsibilities are clear. Maybe ask for a 2-year lease at above-market value rent (starting when the listing goes live) with a right to renew? Totally doable. Just make sure you have everything in writing and you understand the risks.