All Forum Posts by: Kevin Lefeuvre

 I see you posted this 9 days ago. Did you get any more information on this to share?

According to the passed bill, self employed in a LLC does qualify for this. It has been loudly and clearly posted on all banks who were taking applications. However I don't know if they are actually approving them. I know a couple people who are still waiting. Their bankers told them if they are not denied it's a good sign, but two weeks later they are not approved either. And now they received emails saying funds have dried up and they need to wait for the next round of funding. It's a total mess.

 Anand, That's exactly what I am seeing since a few weeks. At first I thought it's me. But checking daily now I notice that the payout date is being reset every single day to "today". Official scam. You would think working with large companies like Expedia or Airbnb you would be protected from illegal scammy cheating behaviors but man they are showing their true nature in large scale. They either need to file for bankruptcy (if they can't pay) or the class action is next thing to do.

The fact you own a bunch of guns and have a concealed weapon permit is the exact reason why in a situation of crisis like now, when people feel threatened, they feel the need to possess a gun. Since they can't disarm you (as someone armed), they try to get armed. Common sense! 

When I decided last year to gradually convert my units to LTR, I tried CHBO and FF for a few months. Here's my brief experience:

CHBO has an awful website where after seeing them you would think VRBO is cutting edge tech. lol. For a 4BR/3BA in Orange County, not far from Disneyland and Anaheim convention center it brought me 1 inquiry in 3 months and 0 bookings. But possible reason could be that I did not have a calendar wide open. I had not yet fully stopped taking bookings from airbnb and vrbo. So maybe, I say maybe, if my calendar was wide open it would have worked better.

FF is really for traveler nurses basically. I had one case with 4 nurses who knew each other and wanted to book for 4 months. despite a complicated negotiation with 4 of them involved, all with different opinions, after 3 weeks of back and forth, one of them dropped out and contract cancelled. So if you have a small place and there are big hospitals around your place FF should work. It does have good traffic and my place has some big hospitals around so may inquiries. 

The short take away is that Corporate Housing is not compatible with mainstream STR (airbnb/vrbo). You need to go either way not both at the same time. Since you can fill in fast with airbnb when you get a new property to list, while CH may require months before you get someone in,then STR is more appealing.

Also CH potential renters do require showing unlike STR. I hate wasting my time showing (so many tourists out there) and if I do, I want to rent for years not months. That's why IN MY CASE, Corp housing didn't work. It may be different for you.

 Agreed with Valerie.

Got full refund under strict policy for a case of cancellation made 2 weeks after booking and 3 days before checkin date. But it appears that the guest did receive full refund if I read the dashboard properly. 

Airbnb (just like VRBO) has big cash issues both because they had to refund a lot, and mostly because there's no fresh money in. Airbnb was cash positive and was preparing IPO in 2020, before the crisis happened. But they had to go for another round of fund raising, in emergency, at low valuation:

https://www.cnbc.com/2020/04/06/airbnb-raising-1-billion-amid-fallout-from-coronanvirus.html

@Collin Hays I think you need to have at least 5 properties to cut off from their payment system. I converted 2 of my STRs luckily just before the crisis to LTR (no I didn't have any insider info, lol. May share later why after 4 years successful STR business I decided to gradually convert to LTR).

I still have one unit left and VRBO is acting; the payout date which is supposedly hard printed in the reservation page under "payment" tab, gets re-edited every few days....

I posted this to see if I am the only one in this situation, maybe because I have not renewed my subscription or something specific to my account or everyone else is seeing the same.

If you are receiving payouts from VRBO smoothly or not, please share. Thanks.

Airbnb CEO is funny. He's in total breach of contract with the hosts he's depending on. He then realises he's lost many of them, and he's lost trust. He then says trust is important by giving back only 25% of what he owes us. 

 Interesting how people get impressed by politicians decisions or by the media. 

You are right about Philippines government measures. But do you have an idea of the number of infected peopl and deaths there?

https://www.arcgis.com/apps/opsdashboard/index.html#/bda7594740fd40299423467b48e9ecf6

For a population of over 100M, they have only 38 fatalities in 3 months. That's less than a fraction of seasonal flu.

I really wanted to avoid the back and forth on the subject, whether this whole crisis is justified or not, and focus on the impact, but can't resist... especially living in LA, where we have less than 10 fatalities in this mega city, in 3 months and they still closed everything and sent 30% of the residents to unemployment. There will be more people dying indirectly from the economic consequences, in the coming years (like not being able to afford healthcare). Crazy!

But let's focus on the impact, the damage is already done as I mentioned in the opening comment of this thread.

A realtor in the Bay area sharing his experience: (no open house, market frozen for a couple months). 

https://www.realtor.com/videos...