All Forum Posts by: Karen Chenaille

I use evolve for a property I own in a SDIRA.  They are not great on handling guest communication. I had one guest show up with no place to stay because Evolve did not cancel their reservation;  even with one week advance notice to Evolve that the unit had to be taken down for maintenance issues. It was a real disaster for the guest.  They do have pretty decent rates though which translates to revenue in your pocket.  Their 10% fee is reasonable when you take into consideration it includes professional photos up front and all the processing fees from the booking platforms.  I am considering listing a second property with them in the same area because they are able to get more off season bookings.

Raised my rates and I am not allowing days in between bookings.  So far, this has not impacted my ability to get booked.  June is Full, July is nearly Full and I have upped rates for August and the fall.  People who had trips planned to Europe and cruises are now staying in the US and driving...I expect demand to increase.

@Reagen Natho. Get ready.

@Julie McCoy . I am right there with you.  I do not need Air BnB policing my cleaning practices. That is what the review system is for. I too have started looking very hard at how to get off their platform. I have reached out to my VRBO rep to see if they are considering something equally as draconian.  This is a great opportunity for another provider to come in and steal Air BnB's lunch right out from under their nose.

I am placing two offers in PCB Monday. I used a Comp set of sales since January 2020. There was no appreciable drop in prices...even in March after everything had pretty much shut down. My starting offers are 10% below avg price per square foot for the comps just because I like to know I got a good deal and not because of the corona virus. 

@Jesse Ottesen Vermont has directed Air BnB and VRBO to indefinitely hide all listings for all future dates. I don’t think it will last much past May but we can’t even take bookings for fall foliage or ski season. 

Smart BnB is great. Kudos to @Benjamin Vail for the summary. Their focus has been in beefing up their Air BnB integration. To my knowledge they can message on VRBO but their financial reports do not include VRBO numbers. They don’t leave reviews for VRBO either. 

I use OwnerRez as my PMS. It integrates at the API level with Air BnB and VRBO. It has a great direct booking website. You can use what they have out of the box or put a nice front end on it to dress it up. It cost me $800 for the front end. 

OwnerRez can get all the financials from Air BnB and VRBO in one place.  This is extremely powerful.  They also integrate with Beyond Pricing.  They have a robust messaging platform so you can set up the same message flows for bookings that come in off your website.  You can make mods to your listings in OwnerRez and they will push to Air BnB and VRBO.  You can also do credit card processing in their platform through a 3rd party integration.  You can import your Air BnB or VRBO reviews and post them on your direct booking site.

You can send emails to cleaners and also share a master calendar with ALL your bookings on it (website, Air BnB and VRBO).  

I will admit I did not like it at first but once I took the time to learn it and decided to take the plunge on my own direct bookings site I realized how great it is.  It’s also cheap.  8 listings costs me 102.00/month.

Their tech support is da bomb. Same day response during biz days. 

Just do it. :-)

 

I went to Roku’s in all my properties a year ago to save $. Most guests are good with it since nearly everyone is subscribed to some kind of streaming platform. I also include Sling Orange and Blue for free so the sports junkies can get their fix on vaca. 

@Luke Carl we are on a plane headed to the Gulf coast now to “shop” in PCB. I can’t wait to see you and Avery succeed in PCB!  Please do keep us posted!

@Collin H.a guest who cancels cannot leave a review.