All Forum Posts by: Julie Gates

Sorry, but I’m not a Pinterest person. I would base the theme on what the house is near. Then tell everyone you know, “I’m doing a house will a sledding theme!” You’ll get tons of ideas for free. I’m working on a hospital house now. I have crutches on the wall, a bedpan light, crazy stuff. make it fun. 

Definitely pick a theme. People love a bit of quirkiness. Two of my STR's are rural and I thought no one would book but they stay full, you will be amazed. Good luck! Please let us know how it goes for you.

I have a green Amex business card for my management company. I love that I can use their points for anything. I also keep either a Visa or MasterCard for companies that don’t take Amex  I change this card yearly for the points bonus. Right now I have an American Airlines MasterCard but I really like the Marriott Visa, too. 

Nice!! You won't regret them. They will last for many many years.

I have a 3 BR STR and it does very well. Your location sounds perfect for a STR. Definitely put in the subject and title that you are across the street from Microsoft, that's a really big deal. I would leave it as an entire listing and not rent it room by room.

We have propane tankless water heaters in all short-term rentals (and in our own home). The price to put them in is over $1,000, but they are zero maintenance and your guests will not run out of hot water. Plus, you aren't paying to heat water when no one is there. My last rental didn't have a propane tank, so we had a small one (100 gallons) installed with the water heater. Once you have one, you won't go back I promise you. I pay to have it filled about once per year.

Thank you so much. I'm sorry that I'm just now seeing this. I will try to make the next meeting, thank you!

I use Evolve for my larger home and I'm not overly amazed, but I'm not going anywhere, either. I had a hard time with it on my own, then got Evolve on it and bookings did go up. To me the biggest benefit is that they are a preferred provider on HomeAway, which owns many STR sites. The fees there are 17% for me, so the fact that I'm saving 4% and my listing is higher up in the rankings because of the "preferred" thing is a great trade off. Most of the bookings I get on Evolve are from HomeAway. They tend to be a bit older and have taken great care of my property. I have another STR a few hundred feet away, and I've found that listing one with Evolve gets me a ton of VRBO people and the one I manage alone brings me a lot from AirBNB.

The highest praise I can give Evolve is that they hooked me up with an excellent cleaner who knew the game and was ready to work. I hired her company to clean my other STR and my life has been better ever since. The cleaner knows that I'm with a big company and if she messes up my account, Evolve will pull other jobs as well and that's nice to have that leverage. Cleaners are typically not super reliable and if there is one thing you need in this business, it's a reliable cleaner.

Just start with AirBNB and link the other calendars to that as you add them. It's pretty easy. I use a channel manager now since I have multiple properties and I list on so many sites. AirBNB and VRBO will be your primary advertisers but don't forget about Booking, but do that later once you know what you are doing. Good luck. I'm happy to talk on the phone if you ever need advice. I love being a STR host.

Have you heard of Airdna? They keep a ton of data. You have to pay per zip code and it's a recurring fee, so it will show you what was earned on AirBNB for that zip code for the previous month. The downside is that you're seeing AirBNB data only. I use 5 or 6 channels personally, so this isn't an accurate view of my earnings, but it gives you excellent information.