All Forum Posts by: Joel Oh

 It seems like it has been on the market for a long time. It has a higher initial cost (2~3k) but less maintenance over time with a longer warranty. We all know that maintenance is where it kills our back.

Yeap, exactly same as Zillow's Zestimate increased the price of houses. STR is a bit weird because the Covid travel demand pushed the price hardcore for the last few years. The market will eventually correct the price.

This is the time I use muscle over legal. You are in a deep **** if they declare tenancy and eviction can be extremely painful. (A lot of states, they can easily pull emergency assistance, and the court case get automatically dismissed) If they are pro at this, you have no way to win without a super experienced PM and legal team. If somehow you can prove that they lived there less than 30 days, call the cop and put a trespassing. A lot of time, this will scare the people out of the property rather calling the cop agrees to issue a trespass or not.

They have a deal on salt water hot tub. 

According to the sales person, I don't need to handle PH level, adding chlorine or even changing water due to sodium level they maintain. (Just need to clean filter every month? and maybe change the water once or twice per year).

I always consider 40% of what sales person say, matches the actual performance. Do you guys see the benefit outperform the 2~3k price difference? 

(More buoyancy was very tempting for myself though)

Man the fishing discount is wild. My best one on 2024 was that the guest found a ghost in the basement. I told them we sent out a ghost detecting team and found 0 ghost. 

 Have you seen the price difference between a ghetto and a downtown in any major city? That is the difference. You don't need to visit the area to know this. Just Google Maps and see it from yourself. Often 3 blocks can make 2~3 times difference in the price. 

This is 10 minutes, max 30 minutes DYI. Get the water line, change your valve to water line valve, drill a few holes and connect it to fridge. Man up and make some money!

 I am honestly shocked your handyman had to break the toilet to fix that haha. Toilet is held by 2 bolts and nuts and any skilled person can replace it in 10 minutes unless it has cast iron waste line or an uneven floor. I train my team to not waste their time snaking if they can’t fix it in 10 minutes and just replace it since toilet is under $300 (I use $120 Costco ones) but yeah these things are difficult to know for regular hosts.

Besides that, it is unfortunate but I kinda see why Airbnb made that decision. Did the guest start the claim? Who initiated the claim first is so important. I ask my team to send the Airbnb team a message right away if an issue happens during guest’s stay. Tell Airbnb what was broken and we fixed it and tell them how much it was to fix and note that we will charge this after the guest leaves. Honestly why it broke is not that important to Airbnb. It is just a matter of whether they broke it or not.

It goes the same with all issues such as guest complaining about not being able to check in before check in time, or not able to find the item when we clearly stated where they are and sent them photo proof… I call this stacking the bullets before the battle and I tell my team you guys are sending me without weapon to fight if you don’t do this for me 😂 (I handle all the claims as I do this for my job)

You are in an expensive market! One of my mentors told me once. The higher I move up, my intention doesn’t really matter. The important thing is how my team thinks what my intention is.

I think it goes to the same way. We can’t expect our guests to understand how expensive the house it. It is a matter of if guests can justify their sprnding. If a lot of guests are complaining about the value, I think there is a disconnection between your absolute property value (not the inflated market value) and how much guests think your price should be. 

 I would say test it by telling people in the listing what is the size and the value of the house like a 700sqft 1 million dollar beach house. I think this may help change their perception before complaining. Who knows?

 The stat comes from my own properties and people I speak to everyday. We don't expect to collect money back when we send them to the collection companies. I haven't recovered any collection I sent since 2023 to give you an idea hahahaha. That is why we just offer cash to key even they owe thousands since we all know it is lost money. Damage after deposit, legal charge, skip out, unpaid utilities lists go forever.... and of course eviction process takes at least 60~90 days here while lawyers are asking $600 to just start with the case.

Unfortunately screening is getting more and more difficult with workforce, big name companies changing their policies to not sharing rental history. That is why I am moving to STR because I am tired of all these regulations popping up everyday.

Sucks that you had to replace the toilet, and they rejected the payment. Hope at least it wasn't cast iron waste line. Plumbing is historically one of the most difficult things to fight since age and the structure matter so much and it is nearly impossible to pinpoint one issue that caused the damage. You bring 5 different plumbers and all 5 plumbers will give you different answers. I usually suck up all the plumbing issues with LTR because I know it will just waste my time and of course plumbing is the most expensive repair every single time. 

Well, yeah you gotta fight for the claim. A lot of times they will not say yes to 100% payment. It is always partial or rejection. I think I called 18 times for one claim once. People just need to have more insurance and legal experience to deal in this issue and you can't rely on your hired property manager. They just simply can't care as much as owner wants. Sucks that our education program teach us nothing about this matter.

I agree that competition is important for the market! Good luck brother!

 Thanks for sharing! I had over 50 claims with Aircover so far and only failed once or twice and it was definitely my fault for not having enough evidence. It was one of my first claims and I learned how their claim system works and never failed again. Maybe it is more difficult if the damage was more serious like fire or flood but it goes same with any insurance claim. I think most of horror stories came from people who do not understand how insurance system works. They can't just pay people because he or she says this. Record keeping and providing evidence are the key.