All Forum Posts by: Julie McCoy

I like RemoteLock - I've got them on all of mine now.

 Honestly, up until about a month ago I was too busy to even think about such a thing (80-hour/week "real job" + managing 4 STRs).  Now I'm transitioning into RE on a more full-time basis, so it's a possibility.  I am a member of several Facebook groups that focus on VRs in my region.  

I'm not local to my STRs so it's never something I've looked into.  I'm about to dip my toe in in Nashville, though, so I'll have to check out NASTRA.  :)

You guys are making me glad I don't have any LTRs.

I did have guests who checked in on Christmas Eve and at 1am on Christmas Day asked me to provide new pots and pans, as they said mine were scratched and they didn't feel safe cooking with them.

I wound up getting them new ones the following day (I won't even get into how incredibly sick I was at the time, too).  Overall they were the most extraordinarily polite, needy needy NEEDY guests I ever had.  They left the place a disaster.

They left a lovely 5-star review.  I blasted them with a 2-star review and told future hosts if they ever wanted very nice but absurdly needy guests, these were your people.

Thank you @Nancy Bachety for providing publicly available information.  @Wyatt Degaine I'm not sure why you expected commentary on an internal email your wife received without us seeing it?

My opinion is the STR space is going to be constantly changing for awhile yet before it really stabilizes, and this is all part of it. However, I also believe that culturally, there's a demand for unique experiences and the opportunity to "live like a local" vs. the sterility of a hotel room (or a hotel-provided house). As always, there's going to be people who prefer one over the other, so I don't expect either side to collapse under the competition.

I do find it kind of hilarious that Marriott is positioning itself as competing with AirBNB, since IMO all Marriott is doing now is offering stand-alone hotel rooms (which will undoubtedly be priced accordingly), while AirBNB/VRBO are still focused on the individual owner-operator.  But perhaps that will change too, with AirBNB venturing into the hotel space.  

In short, I'm personally not concerned; I can see this being a good thing for Marriott but I'm not sure it'll take much of a bite out of the AirBNB space, and I definitely don't see it driving nightly prices down.  Where it will most likely have an impact is in the real estate markets in the specific types they're targeting - developers are gonna LOVE this.  It's bad news for people who are looking to buy into the particular markets Marriott is getting into, and possibly bad news for people who are already there.

A little more information would be good.  Link to an article or something at least.  

I had someone leave my studio cabin early because they were upset it was "all one room".  

My research has shown that business loans cannot be used for real estate investing.  

If you can show income on a Schedule C or Schedule E, use that to qualify for a conventional loan; it doesn't have to be from a W-2 salary.

You could also pay cash and then finance it when you have the documentation together.

There are very specific rules regarding service animals that are set by the ADA, an authority well above AirBNB.  You MAY NOT ask for documentation about a service animal.  You MAY ask IF an animal is a service animal, and you may ask what specific task the animal is trained to perform.  

See: https://www.ada.gov/service_animals_2010.htm

That said, there's a couple of loopholes.  I don't have the source material right now, but I believe that if you are a private owner of three or fewer vacation rental properties, you are not obligated to abide by the commercial standard regulations for service animals.  

Also, with AirBNB specifically, when I inquired about this they instructed me to include verbiage in my listing in the vein of: NO ANIMALS of any kind are allowed. The property is allergy free due to owner's family being highly allergic to animal hair, dander, feathers and the like. This poses a severe health hazard to host's family members and therefore there are no exceptions to this rule. You will not be allowed to check in, your reservation will be canceled and a $200 deep cleaning fee will be assessed.

All my listings include this language, and I've very rarely had a question about a service animal (and have never had to host one).  

@Nancy Bachety I've been using spreadsheets but I really want to move into a software - I've experimented with a bunch but so far haven't found The One.  I think I need to educate myself on QuickBooks more, honestly - the reason I haven't been using it is because there's too much of it I don't understand, but I know it'll be best for my accountant.  My local library offers free access to Lynda.com courses so I think I'll do some training on QuickBooks.  (I haaaaate bookkeeping, the sooner I can justify a bookkeeper the better myself and my CPA will be... LOL)