All Forum Posts by: Jonathan Greene

The rating systems for short-term rentals has lost all validity. I stayed in a STR with over 200 5-star ratings, and not a single negative. The rental had ratty furniture, a record player prominently featured in the marketing but it had no speakers, missing basics items in the kitchen, lots of drunks in the concrete hallways that reverberated right into the bedroom at 2am, a strong odor of urine outside, and more.

We have super hosts in this forum that have hundreds of 5-star reviews and are masters of the craft, but I look at their rentals and see they don't have any artwork on the walls, decor is basic, they do nothing to make the guest feel welcome, etc. 

I suspect these hosts are buying off bad reviews. Either way, I can't trust them any more.

I am not a fan of the arbitrage system. Sure it can get a person started earlier. However they are missing out on all the revenue a property can generate. Arbitrage is simply transactions. When you analyze a deal as an LTR so you can pivot if necessary, you are in a much stronger position. Owning makes money from cash flow, appreciation, depreciation on taxes and write offs for your taxes. 
Your tech stack is critical. If you're trying to do everything yourself that is a sure fire way to burn out. Yes some things will require the personal touch. However when done correctly you shouldn't need to write a single message to the majority of guests and still have them feel warm and fuzzy because you have been an attentive host. Get listed on all the OTA's and a direct booking site, use good management software like HostAway, use dynamic pricing software like pricelabs, use WiFi enabled smart locks like Schlage encode, use an email capture system for guests to login to WiFi like stayfi, use those captured emails to do marketing for your direct booking site, and automate scheduling and payments for cleaners and maintenance. The more of the day to day items that can be handled with tech the more you can be freed up to do higher ROI on your time items. Things like acting like a guest searching for a property and seeing how well your property goes to the top of the algorithm or not, as a guest looking at pricing of your property vrs your closest competition, looking at properties that are doing well and seeing what you could be doing better. Listening to YouTube big shots that have great advice on professional ways to handle problematic guests ( most are great but everyone will get bad apples), staying at the property when you have an open window of time and actually get the guest experience (this is critical), and looking at your click thru and conversion rates to get a good baseline.

There is way more work to running an STR than a LTR. Yes good markets are over saturated. But if you're a top operator who cares if the bottom 50% are struggling. You're still getting booked. National occupancy rates are 50-55%. This year I was at 71%. Still not good enough but for my first year not bad at all. This is my first property. I was able to replenish emergency fund money I had to dip into for furnishing, was able to pay off a hot tub, was able to replace 2 garage doors and paid for a larger repair this year. My cash flow for the year was $13k. Nothing fantastic for sure but the property paid for all its own bills and made money with a newbie operator. Next year will be even better with improvement that are constantly getting made as this is not a set it and forget it business.
This hospitality business is not easy money like so many think. But if you’re willing to put in the work it does tend to make significantly more than LTR. Stay focused on providing excellent guest experience and you will stay higher in bookings and revenue.