All Forum Posts by: Khoi Le

Quote from @Khoi Le:

I have a few! Thanks so much for doing this!

1. Do you use a pricing software and which one?

2. How do you handle guest requests while you are out of the state?

3. What suggestions do you have for bedding, mattress, towels, etc? Or best place to purchase?

4. Do you have a separate LLC for each property or is everything one umbrella?

5. How much do you charge for management?

6. What keypads do you use?

7. How do you manage places that have gates and need remote controls?

8. What do you do about negative reviews?

9. What is your maintenance routine? do you have someone check on the property every 6 months? do you have bug spray every month? Landscaping? etc.

10. What do you expect or have the owners do? For example: Do they need to take out the trash bins? Do the owners do the laundry and put towels etc in a closet for the cleaners to put out? Do the owners supply things like soaps, dishwasher, laundry detergent? If they are out of town how do they get that to the property?

Hey Khoi, it's my pleasure, and thanks for interacting. 

1) We run our pricing through PriceLabs, with some daily human intervention. 
2) We have local and offshore staff who handle all guest concerns. I mostly focus on company administration and sales. 
3) Zinus mattresses are great. Amazon is usually the best place to get towels and bedding, you really can't beat the prices:quality ratio. We used to order pallets from a direct supplier before Covid interrupted their supply chain.
4) We have separate LLC's under our investment corporation for properties that we OWN. For arbitrage and cohosting we have things under a separate corporation. (Talk to a lawyer)
5) We charge 20%, or as low as 15% for large clients - we call this a "preferred rate."
6) We use RemoteLock hardware and software; at our scale the other brands like Schlage and August start to glitch and are quite unreliable. 
7) Those suck. But when we do have them, we just send automatic reminders to the guest 2-3x during their stay to be sure to leave the thing before they depart.
8) Try to have them removed, otherwise leave a public response. 
9) We have landscapers and pool maintenance and pest for all properties as needed, on recurring schedules which vary by climate (AZ / CA). We also have a quarterly preventative maintenance schedule which includes air filters, batteries, lightbulbs, water filters, kitchenware & supplies, cleaning detail, and curb appeal.

10) All they have to do is pay the cleaning and maintenance bills. We pretty much handle everything else. I started a cleaning company in February of 2021 which has now done over 10,000 turnover cleanings. We have a warehouse with racks and bins full of everything you could ever dream of as an Airbnb host.

Hope this helps man :)

Have you ever had a travel nurse who wants to leave her children unattended in your furnished rental overnight for a 13 hr shift?  I was told that they were bringing their 18 y.o. daughter to watch her 3 younger brothers, ages 5, 12 & 16.  She signed a lease for 5 people, listed them all on the application, but showed up without the 18 y.o. and said she would not be coming.  

I only agreed to let them apply based on the fact that an adult would be with the children and they would not be unattended in my space.  She claims that the lease says nothing about the children being left alone, which is true, however I was very clear in the phone interview that I would only agree if the 18 y.o. was supervising. She argues that 16 is legal age to babysit and I did not list it as a house rule. Also true.  I didn't think I needed to state that children cannot be left alone.  After all, she seemed to understand this based on the fact that she was bringing someone to watch them while she is away at work.  It now appears that this is what she does and was all just a strategy to get into a place.  I think I am dealing with a professional.  It is very likely the daughter was never coming to begin with.  She says she has been doing this for a while now without any issues, and that she always leaves the 5 and 12 y.o. with their 16 y.o. brother.  

She only told me the 18 y.o. was not coming the day before she was to move in, to which I said I was not comfortable with that.  I am trying to fill the space and let her out of the lease.  I have returned her deposit to her and will refund the full month's rent as soon as I fill the space, hopefully today.  I feel that was very fair. 

Lesson learned, I guess.  She is still blowing up my phone saying she needs her money back now, that she never moved into the place and it was not in writing that her children could not stay home alone.  She found somewhere else to stay, so that's not the issue.  I am happy to return her money, even though she signed a lease under certain terms that she presented herself as having childcare.

Am I being unreasonable? I feel that it is a huge liability she is asking me to carry.  She can leave her children home alone in her own home if she wants, but not in my fully furnished vacation rental.  What if there is an accident and they need medical attention or the 16 y.o. can't get his little brothers to listen to him and they trash the place or stay up all night making noise for the guest upstairs, or worse, they try to cook and burn down the place with other people in it?  We have smart TV's in every room with Wifi and access to any content they want. I would be worried about this as a parent. I guess we are not a good fit for families if they do not have childcare. New policy.  I will be sure to list that in the lease next time and not just discuss it verbally.

I hope that helps someone who may end up in a similar situation.  This was a new one for me.

Quote from @Wendy Fate:

Have you ever had a travel nurse who wants to leave her children unattended in your furnished rental overnight for a 13 hr shift?  I was told that they were bringing their 18 y.o. daughter to watch her 3 younger brothers, ages 5, 12 & 16.  She signed a lease for 5 people, listed them all on the application, but showed up without the 18 y.o. and said she would not be coming.  

.....

I wonder what Child Protective Services would have to say about this.

It's not the 1980's and we do have FaceTime, and some 16 year old girls seem like they would be VERY trustworthy with things like like this (but not all).

Some 16 year old girls are Unwed Mothers and care for their own children, so (???)

I understand the rental risk and am against it 100% for that reason, but you know this must be happening out there in some instances.

But I do wonder if CPS would have to say about this--I wonder if they would confiscate the children from the Mother and put them in Foster care or something (???)

Because some families have to do what they have to do to get by in life.

Maybe this Mother was only 16 when he started having children (???)

But still I think the rental risk associated with this is huge, and it doesn't seem to be a protected family status thing, but rather a lifestyle thing along the lines of practicing bagpipes indoors all day long (they say you can hear bagpipes 10 miles away = LOUD).

Just my 2 cents.