All Forum Posts by: Kaiden Foster

@Jamie Rose Hope to be there but currently dealing with frozen pipes in my Airbnb unit haha. We'll see if I make it

@Emmanuel Borromeo Great! Thanks for doing the legwork on this. Now I just need to get a reply from Airbnb and find out why they are not collecting taxes.

@Sean McDonnell Yes! STRing top and bottom. During winter months I'm hoping for $1.4k/month on the bottom, $2k/month on top, during summer $4-5k/month on the bottom, $5-6k/month on top. Could be more but I feel like these are conservative estimates.

@Jamie Rose Thanks! I'll be there.

@Emmanuel Borromeo have you found that you get enough bookings through your website to make it worthwhile? Or do a majority of your bookings still come through Airbnb/VRBO, etc?

@Chris S. Anchorage has a 12% short-term rental tax on gross rental income. Nightly fee + cleaning fee.

@Connor Dunham from what I read on the muni page it says "AO 2019-99(S) requires hosting platforms that receive payment including tax to register with the Municipality, collect, and remit tax on behalf of the operator to the Municipality. AND if an operator is exclusively renting or offering rooms for rent through a registered hosting platform, Treasury's application for a Certificate of Registration is not required."

Now if I was running a hotel and accepting bookings outside of a registered hosting platform, I believe I would need to register.

Investment Info:

Small multi-family (2-4 units) buy & hold investment in Anchorage.

Purchase price: $320,000
Cash invested: $80,000

Contributors:
Vance Foster

Partnership with Vance Foster to purchase up/down duplex that we will be using as a short-term vacation rental.

Did you work with any real estate professionals (agents, lenders, etc.) that you'd recommend to others?

Realtor and investor, Keenan Fitzpatrick (Also on BiggerPockets)

Hi all,

Just recently listed my first property on Airbnb and I have a couple questions about taxes. If I understand correctly, Airbnb automatically collects Anchorage muni 12% tax from the guest (see article here) and I don't need to worry about it. However, when I'm looking at other listings, there is often a line-item for "Occupancy taxes and fees." 

Is that fee automatically added by Airbnb, or is that added by the host? If added by Airbnb, why don't I see it on my listing? If added by host, am I currently covering taxes out of my payout and I should add a taxes and fees charge to each booking?

Someone else listing:

My listing:

@Connor Dunham have you looked into RBOY APPS for integration with Hospitable? Was looking at Hospitable a bit more and it appears that may be an option. RBOY APPS works with a SmartHub and Z-wave lock.

Depending on the locks you have, RemoteLock may be an option. I believe they can provide codes to guests through Airbnb messages. Not sure how well that would play with Hospitable if you already use them for messaging. RemoteLock charges $3-$9 /month per lock. $3 is their base plan, not sure you would need more than that.

For PMS, I'm looking at going with YourPorter App. They provide integration with Schlage Encode and Sense locks. Guessing keycode messaging to guests will be seamless since I'm also using YourPorter for all messaging automation. They charge $0.75 per auto-generated keycode.

Not sure how RemoteLock or YourPorter would work with your security system. At this point, I'm just trying to get my units ready to list, will circle back around with security another time.

Thank you both for your input! I ended up going with Casper mattresses from Costco as their return policy is excellent. For locks, I went with the Schlage Encode. While pricy, the ability to integrate with Airbnb with automated key codes for each guest should pay off in the long run.