All Forum Posts by: Joel Oh

Hi guys, 

I know I will get a lot of hates from this but does STRs insurance really good as their price?

From my experience so far, Airbnb never failed to cover any issues I had caused by guests. 

Also in case of fire or flood, I know a regular homeowner's insurance will have no problem covering it.

I have been wondering, if the local regulation doesn't require it, why do we need pay thousands of extra for STRs? 

Also I am having more and more difficulty finding insurance companies service STRs.

My agent recommended a visitor covering option to my regular insurance. Any thoughts on this?

Your place needs a serious visual update. People who visit Disney are ready to spend money and they want the lifetime experience. They don't want to stay at a regular home when they are spending a fortune for their memories. There are places you can save money, but your furniture and decor look cheap and not screaming dream and fantasy. You have a very nice pool. Try to match your house to your pool then you will see a serious revenue increase.

Yeah I was thinking about throwing some rubber mulch so the kids are safe. I will check the green ones! Thank you :) 

Awesome! I was thinking about putting up some benches and a picnic table for parents. Thanks for your feedback!

Hi guys, I am closing a property in February and this house has a huge backyard.

I see that Sam's club has $1k playground so I am very tempted to try this one for my Airbnb. (Probably 1.5k~ with mulch)

There is a huge demand from family guests with kids in this area, so I think the value is there.

I am pretty handy and live nearby, so I am not too worried about repair.

I am just wondering have anyone tried putting a playground at your STRs?

What was your experience? and was there any unexpected issue?

Focus on one platform for collecting reviews. Expand it to a different platform. Expect Airbnb ranking for your listing go down a bit as your exposure will go down naturally as the result of spliting your nights to different platforms.

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I had months like this (STR dream)

Also had months like this (my cleaner's STR dream)

and also months like this (where is my guest?)

but after all that, I learned that you don't need to stress about your bookings but just go with the flow.

In the end, the money comes from the number of units not individual performance. 

Even it makes $100 per month, if you have 100 of them, it is $10,000 per month.

Reviews are just reviews, tax is just tax. No stress and freedom = A good life

Hope y'all enjoy your life! 

Your running an STR that is listed on Airbnb.

$100 per month I'd not worth the effort to me. I would just have LTR houses that I cash flow over $1000 each after expenses because I bought them cheap with cash  These are very close to passive, even self managed, because I have systems in place.

STRs also run the risk of the rules being changed and areas becoming saturated. So I would want way more than $100 per month given the extra risk.

Unlike the popular opinion, I believe STR is a lot easier than LTR management. I'm a professional property manager, so I managed close to 2000 residents in LTR. You don't need to worry about eviction, uncollected funds, massive property damage, insurance hassle, annual renewal, death and crime, rent control, fair housing… that you typically need to handle in LTR. Airbnb customer service rocks and I am a huge fan of Aircover!
Also cash return is not comparable haha

If your only getting $100 per month from a STR then I'd prefer a LTR.

I self manage and I have alot of LTR'S.  I have systems in place to where they are much less work 

STR's have constant turnover and is a customer service job and must be treated as such.

I can easily cashflow 1k a month on a LTR the way I buy them with much less effort than a STR.

I know some people are killing it with their STR, some are scrapeing buy. All is well till the local authorities prohibit their STR or a bunch of people start STR'S in your location. I see this happen all the time.

lI love my true vacation rentals, but the bulk of my wealth is in LTR houses for the reasons mentioned above.

Yeah, that is STR's risk factor. I also see a lot of LTRs go on foreclosure or short sales after the owner got sued for numerous different things haha. I definitely see these things a lot more because I am the person all these troubled owners come for help. All it takes is one fire with a renter without insurance or one methhead deciding to use your house for illegal childcare or refugee camp. A lot of states are pushing mandate government housing programs and evictions are getting harder and harder. My last one only took 105 days to evict and I had to holdover her belongings at the unit for 30 days 😄

I rarely have to evict tenants and normally have ones that stay 5 years plus.

Luckily I live in a red state. I can file an eviction for $40 and have someone out in about 3 weeks when needed.

Haha that is the best! Im in a metro so people come and go fast. Stay in the red state! I think blue state appreciate faster but managing here is no fun at all. Police take 45 minutes to arrive so crime here is through the roof. This year’s election will be very interesting with all these crazy housing laws going on for both STR and LTR! 

 I call the sheriff and 3 cars rolled up in less than 10 minutes!

I called on a squatter and the cops told them they had 10 minutes to get their stuff and get down the street.

Man!! I found a body in one of the garages and it took them 15 minutes 😂 it is a wild world here. Even after 105 evictions court, people get 15 days grace periods because they have kids, sheriff takes another 3 weeks to show up, landlord is obligated to keep their abandoned dirty diapers for 30 days and non paid tenant can visit as many as they want during that 30 days 🤯 often blowing my minds how far this “humanitarian” act will go. 

 Of course the minimum status is superhost haha but i think a lot of guests don’t care about the reviews as much as hosts think about them. Many people know a lot of reviews are fake and manipulative. For example i honestly don’t care about Amazon review anymore.😂