All Forum Posts by: Karen Chenaille

@Chase Hoover.  You ask a really great question...something I have spent a lot of time trying to crack the nut on.  I work full time and was spending a lot of time on my books every weekend. I am huge fan of 'Clockwork' by Mike Michalowicz. After reading his book, I realized book keeping is not the highest and best use of my time.  My time is best focused on figuring out how to grow my business and quit my corporate gig :-)

I use Quickbooks for my back office. Every two weeks, I pay a Virtual Assistant to go in and classify all the sales deposits. Each property is a class. We do both traditional STR Air BnB for properties we own and we host properties for other people. Using classes allows us to see the expenses and income by property. This is very handy, especially when you are applying for loans and trying to grow your business.

OwnerRez has a quickbooks integration built into it.  If you already have a robust QB setup, you may not want to jump on the bandwagon for the OwnerRez integration because it goes in and creates a bunch of entries on your chart of accounts.  If you don't have a QB setup though and are just starting out, the integration may be the way to go.

I'd be happy to share a snapshot of what some of my reports look like with you so you can see first hand how nice it all rolls up using Classes in QB.

Best of luck to you,

Karen

Hi Nathan

Last I checked a year ago, CBiz and Proper only do non owner occupied STR. I have been renting three bedrooms in my home for three years now. You want to call Wolfe Inn keepers. They have the traditional homeowners coverage wrapped in with additional liability you need to protect you and your guests. They also offer income loss protection.
Please reach out if you are looking for ny other home sharing insights. After 3 years I have seen it all. :-)

Karen

Go Avery! That's my girl! :-)

Hi!

@Adam Tafel For my local cleaners I found them by creating a Facebook job ad. For remote properties, I stay in a STR while prospecting. If the place is well kept, I get In contact with the cleaner and hire them

I use TurnoverBnB to auto schedule and manage my cleaners. No confusing google calendar and it syncs with Air BnB and HomeAway. It also does round robin scheduling. That means if the primary cleaner rejects the job it will automatically send to the alternate. cleaners have access to a calendar for the property they are assigned. 

Smart BnB also has some cleaner scheduling but it doesn’t do round robin scheduling and is a little more manually intensive to manage for the host. 

Good luck!

Karen

@Adam Tafelundefined

Hi @Scott Tucker

I have two properties at Mount Snow. PM me. I would be happy to help you out. 

@Rick 

@Rick Mosca. I have been running STR's for three years. I have them in four different states. I have a lot of experience in this area. Three weeks ago I took a chance and paid for a course called the Short Term Rental Profit academy. It's the next iteration of the class you mentioned. I have not regretted it. My only regret is that I didn't do it sooner. I would be much farther along than I am now if I didn't spend so much time trying to do the research to figure it out on my own. You wouldn't think twice about investing thousands to spruce up a STR to make it stand out, but somehow we think investing in ourselves to make us smarter about our business is a waste. You are on the right track my friend. You can PM if you'd like to chat about it.

@Luke Carl that was exactly what I wanted to know. Thanks so much!

Hey Folks!

I have a rental arbitrage deal on a lease expiring in December 2019. The property is not providing the appropriate return and we intend to exit the lease.

There are three Air BnB reservations on the books for 2020 that will be cancelled.

The three reservations are for very busy weekends. Offering to have someone else host them is not an option.

Does anyone have suggestions about how we could handle this with Air BnB and avoid losing super host?

Thanks very much!

Karen

@DJ Snow

I have a similar horror story in Biloxi, MS. Glad to see you were able to exit the deal.

Karen

@Caryn Zallnick

Hi Caryn. Don't assume anything with regard to STR regs. The best source of info is to call city hall or search through the meeting minutes of the city council meetings. I have lost big $ by going on an assumption STR was allowed solely based on many properties being listed on popular STR platforms.

I have a lot of colleagues who are into the corporate rental game and they are doing well. They get high quality low risk tenants and because the rentals are frequently longer than 30 days, they fall outside of normal STR restrictions on rentals of 30 days or less.

Best of luck to you!

Karen