All Forum Posts by: Joe C.

While I don't know Gulf Shores I know beach vacations and families. I would say that it depends on what you are renting as a STR... Are you trying to rent out a 1 or 2 bed condo near the beach or a 5+ bedroom SFH? Small properties where there is little need for a car because you are so close to everything, or even in a self-contained resort community would tend to benefit from the airport. Snowbirds, a couple looking for a getaway, etc. would be drawn to this. Packing up 2 families with kids and grandparents for a week in summer? Nobody will be doing this via airplane, nobody.

I've had a 3/2 condo rented as a STR for about 11 years and my typical family I aim for is 2/2/2 - 2 grandparents, 2 parents, 2 kids, so I have a queen, queen, and 2 twins. If I get a family with 4 kids the queen still works for at least 2 of the kids to sleep together. I also have a pullout sofa bed in the living room in case there is a visitor or maybe the family is a 2/2/3.

Unless you have 10 foot ceilings I think bunks are tight. I had ceiling fans in the rooms and 8 foot ceilings with bunks and a ceiling fan don't mix.

My renters bring their own linens in this market.

I use hottubworks.com for my personal hot tub. Go for the best one they make with the double wrapping. I got about 5 years before it took on water. They make a solid product. The cover that came with the tub was complete garbage compared to theirs.

I've visited there a few times and have relatives with oceanfront condos and golf course homes there but please don't take my answer as an expert's opinion. There seems to be a nearly unlimited number of oceanfront condos and interior land for golf courses and golf based communities. 

A relative with a home on a golf course has seen extremely limited price appreciation over the years because there is so much construction of new golf courses and homes. The relative with the oceanfront condos is basically making the captive on-site property manager rich. His building is in one section of a three section property, so there is one master HOA and three sub-HOAs, and the HOAs are suing each other.

I visited with my family and stayed in an beautiful oceanfront condo by the ferris wheel and thought "this is amazing I should buy one and rent it out, use it a few weeks of the year myself maybe". The more I looked into the economics it made no sense, you were basically hoping for future price appreciation. My opinion after looking at this market was that owners are like cows being milked for the pleasure of all the locals.

If you were to find a single family home near the beach to self-manage with no HOA perhaps that might work but if you expect to hand your property over to someone there to manage you will probably break even but don't expect to make a killing.

If only there was a forum where people wanted to hear about trading S&P500 options instead of short term and vacation rental properties...

I would adhere to your existing refund policy. Do not alter it. People making reservations after April 1st 2020 know full well what they are doing with regard to COVID-19. We've been told things will get worse in winter all summer long, it is not a surprise to anyone.

You have no idea what your guests will do. For all you know they WILL quarantine in place. They may live in a 300 sq ft apartment somewhere and have been locked down for so long they are suffering mentally. They may just need to get out. Maybe they will work from home there. It's not up to you to enforce the law on them, if they break it they are responsible. Do you pull over people speeding on the highway? Then why are you enforcing a rule that pertains to THEM not YOU. Simply tell them "There is a lockdown in effect and I am assuming you are performing essential travel as mandated by the governor unless you confirm in writing otherwise."

I too refunded any and all guests that wanted to cancel this summer, all the way up through mid August. All those weeks rebooked. However all those guests booked with me in 2019 and had no idea that this virus would be an issue. Someone booking with you recently is 100% responsible for making their choice and you should not be held financially responsible.

Whatever happened to the good old days where people bought trip insurance? If you booked a trip to Disney and suddenly you became hospitalized right before and can't go then Disney still gets their money. You would have trip insurance to pay you back. That's what should be happening here, enough is enough. We are running businesses just like Disney is.

As an investment condotels are horrible. Only proceed if you want this for personal use and don't care about it at all as an investment. It won't work.

No, been considering it for my own pool but with the virus been home so much it's not a big deal. Sometimes if I travel I forget the pool heater on and waste the money so thought it would neat to be able to turn it off remotely. The temp is almost always fixed on the heater, it's just whether you are going to use it or not. Not sure how much the heater reader is but I'd assume you still need to cover the main heater control panel so nobody can override it from the heater.

You can use a simple on/off switch to apply power to the heater or not:

https://smile.amazon.com/Migro...

Just put one of those tamper resistant clear covers over the pool heater controls so nobody can alter the temp or touch any buttons.

Hayward and Pentair make replacement breaker panels with complete control available over every single circuit and timer but the prices seem to be very high.