All Forum Posts by: Julie McCoy

@Paul Sandhu Congrats!  (or is that tacky to say?  LOL)  I think you've got some solid ideas here - while I think @Thomas S. is right that you and the remaining motel operator can benefit from cooperating with each other (you can cooperate to RAISE your prices too!), I also agree with your assessment that if the remaining motel lowers their prices, you should stay the same.  You offer a lot more in terms of amenities and comfort, and there's real value to that.  Clearly the price range is acceptable for your demographic; no sense in the two of you driving the price down out of competition.  

Something to consider: the other motel MIGHT actually raise prices a little - there's now reduced supply for the same demand.  I don't know how much wiggle room there is before you'd price out your clientele, but it's a possibility.

I think you should definitely see about taking on some of the closing motel's assets!  Go to the owner and tell him you're interested in purchasing his TVs - find out what he'd ask for them in bulk, then counter.  For such a large quantity I think you may be able to get them for less than $40/ea.  Heck, offer him $1k cash and see what he says.  LOL

Keep us updated!

@Michael H. Have the owners been using it as a short-term rental up until now, or has it been their primary residence?  The reason I'm asking is to find out if they have a rental history and possibly a return clientele, or if you'd be building the business from scratch.  

If the former, then I'd say have a good conversation with them about how the manage it themselves - emulate their model and improve on it where it's warranted.  Use their same people to clean, do maintenance, yard work, etc.  Then I think you'd be stepping into a relatively straightforward situation - it IS still work, and different work from standard property management, but once you were set up then mostly you'd be doing guest communication and coordinating with your support team.  I agree with those who say you'd want to charge 20-30% gross rents for your services.

If they haven't used that property for STR before, you have a MUCH bigger job in front of you - you'd need to do research to find out how viable it would be to rent such a large property in that area (could you do events there? It might be a great site for private parties or weddings, etc - and I'm not suggesting you coordinate any of those things, but people could rent the property and bring their own vendors, etc. But make sure it's permitted - in an affluent neighborhood I bet it's not). Your target market is vastly different from @Paul Sandhu's but he's right that it will be more difficult to rent such a large property.  It may very well be profitable to do so, you'll be getting $$$$$ for fewer nights vs. $ or $$ for more nights, but take that into consideration.

Let us know if there's established rental history or not and we'll go from there. :) 

There are things about AirDNA I find useful as guidelines (I like that it'll map demand across months, for example) but I don't think the hard data is credible.  I would definitely not use it for estimating revenue.  As @Luke Carl said, the best way is to just spend a bunch of time on AirBNB and VRBO looking at comparable properties and their calendars.  It's tedious because those systems aren't designed for that, and calendars aren't always accurate (and don't show any history of booked days), but it's the best you're going to get at this point, I think - unless you can get an owner to talk to you!  That's REALLY the best way.  :) 

Not an attorney or accountant, but based on what I know, save the paperwork and just get an umbrella insurance policy to protect your liability.  Then no additional bookkeeping, no potential to pierce the corporate veil, and the way the tax code is now structured it's not going to make a difference to your tax liability, either, I don't believe.

I'm subletting my place for April-May, but I'm going to take out most of my personal belongings.  I don't think someone would a) want to "move in" to a place with a lot of personal effects (besides, they'd want to use the closet space and some storage, presumably) and b) if they did they'd want to pay significantly less for it.  

I stayed in an NYC apartment once that was the host's primary residence - and it was ASTONISHINGLY clean/empty considering the small space and the fact that I knew she lived there.  I was super impressed - she had cubbies with her things up in the top spaces of her closet, and probably a bunch of stuff under the bed, but overall it was difficult to tell someone lived there.  I had a similar experience with an apartment in Rio de Janeiro.  If you can tuck away things in that manner I think you'll be fine.  But I wouldn't want to stay in a space where it just looked like the host went out for the afternoon.

@Jon Crosby is based in Tahoe; he'll have a good idea of what you're looking at in that particular market.  

Personally, from what I understand of the Tahoe market, I'd absolutely buy a VR that I'm only putting $500/mo towards.  But that's a general statement that obviously depends on the property specifics.  What kind of property is this?  House, condo, how big?  How close to the lake or ski resort?  Is it in an area full of other VRs or is it more residential?  (I was in Kings Beach last summer and there was a pretty big disparity in property quality)

When you say -$750/mo income, do you really mean you'd be doing NEGATIVE $750?  I interpreted you to mean ~$750/mo income, or *about* $750/mo.  I'm also assuming you mean $750/mo net, not gross.  If you really did mean negative, then run far, far away.  If you mean net positive, that's a respectable cash flow, especially on something that only costs you $500/mo.  But that also means you anticipate monthly gross income of $1250 and that strikes me as extremely low for Lake Tahoe.

As stated, I'm not in that market, but I know there's strong year-round demand for VRs in Tahoe and it's not cheap.  Tell us more about the property (and how you're getting your income/expense estimates) and we'll be able to help you better.

I'm not in the Big Bear market, but @Sarah Block I keep three sets of sheets per bed, and three sets of towels/hand towels/wash cloths in rotation.  

I'm not sure how you'd be able to track who's using the hot tub and who's not, if that were an add-on?  At my rentals hot tub is included.

I list on both AirBNB and VRBO.  I get most of my traffic from AirBNB and prefer their interface, but no reason not to do both; you'll run into people who swear all they get is VRBO, and people who say it's all AirBNB.  I say cover your bases by using both, just make sure to sync your calendars.

Good luck!

Wow, I was traveling yesterday so didn't get to look at this thread until now, but @Simone Koga you've got great advice here!

I have two (three as of tomorrow) properties I manage long-distance, in two different states.  The first one is always the most nerve-wracking!  (I actually do have a property manager for my first one, but we have an arrangement where he does walk-throughs and is on-call for emergencies for a reduced rate, and I do the rest - was a great way to get started.) 

What I have to add is: as you're planning your list of people and figuring out logistics, spend some time really thinking through the step-by-step process of turning over the unit.  What DO you do when you need to buy new toilet paper or dish towels?  Little things like that.  I order off Amazon and have the items shipped to my housekeeper to resupply as needed - super convenient.  My housekeeper for my new newest properties also does the walk-throughs and some basic maintenance for me - don't be afraid to ask your housekeeper to include small things like that as part of their service!  

@Paul Sandhu had excellent advice about the little preventative maintenance things you can do (I'll have to do all that myself!).  I also replace EVERY lightbulb in the house with a long-life LED bulb.  

Create a calendar with the recurring maintenance items (such as changing the lock batteries) that will remind you when things are due, so you can follow up with your team to make sure they happen.

The lock I use is a RemoteLock 5i - it's a bit more expensive up-front to purchase, but it's a wifi lock and not only can you change the codes and trigger lock/unlock remotely, it'll provide you with battery life status AND you can set up check-in/lock instructions to be automatically emailed to your guests!  (the functionality on the latter is not terribly flexible, but it's still a very good feature)

That's what I can think of right now - you're asking all the right questions!  Good luck and keep us posted!

I find Square is simple and the rate very competitive.  Also, I recently learned Apple Pay will allow instant transfers of money - free if the sender is using a bank account, and if they use a credit card, THEY pay the transaction fee (brilliant!).  Not every client will be able to use Apple Pay if they're not an Apple user, but I think it's a great thing to have in your arsenal.

Charge the deposit up front and send it as a refund after check-out.

AirBNB collects the funds at the time of the reservation, and disburses them to you the day after the guest checks in.  They do not actually charge the deposit but supposedly will process claims up to the deposit amount if necessary.

VRBO will disburse the funds to you when the reservation is made, AND they actually charge the deposit (they do not disburse it to you, I believe; they hold it); they'll refund the deposit automatically after 7 days unless a claim is made.  Personally, I find the immediate disbursement problematic for my bookkeeping (I don't want January to show income from a reservation in September!), so I recently requested that they disburse at check-in, like AirBNB does; they were happy to switch me to that option.

I hope this answers your questions!

There have been several threads on this subject in the last few weeks.  Scroll through a page or two of this forum and you'll find all you need to know.

A landlord policy is not going to cover the business side of STRs.  You need a commercial policy like you'd get from Proper, and yes, it's more expensive.  You're a higher risk.

But I'm not going to repeat what I've said extensively elsewhere.