All Forum Posts by: Ken Latchers

I cannot speak to regional demand. I am in eastern PA so I seem to get interest from New York Metro, Jersey and eastern PA.

I can also not speak for the rest of the year, but during the summer I allow several days between booking so I can take to mechanic for lookover and adjustments.

things can happen. Things can break or others. This is my first year, so I'm in a learning phase.

it's not for everyone though. I got a large discount on this and I would never do it with a newer motorhome. This is much more stressful than vacation rentals if you have too much into it

I am now a few months into motorhome rental as I mentioned on earlier threads. It is quite different then vacation rentals, is nobody drives your vacation rental a thousand miles away!

I had actually bought the 30 ft motorhome to be a tour vehicle for my new tour company.  Then of course coronavirus wiped out tourism this year,  so RV rentals was my backup plan .

I'm giving a brief update  on where I am.  They're really two OTAs for RV rental and they take a high  percentage of your take. 

I have a 2015 motorhome,  it currently is in  California,  from my Pennsylvania home.  That booking was June 4th through July one.  It is going out again July 5th until 26.  I had to  Dicker on the per mileage charge,  but since I paid such a low price, and they were good people in bookings I did so. 

A lot of issues I'm still working out,  I'm starting next year I'll try to move to mostly to  direct booking. They essentially take 25% of everything.

I cannot speak for the whole country, and this year is very unique because of the pent-up demand, but your biggest months will be July and August

ownerrez 

Personally, I would not own short-term rentals in the Smokies or anywhere else that is not where I live. I live in a tourist town in Eastern Pennsylvania. All the winners are quiet and I generally get people for the weekend, the housing prices are super cheap so it's a good return. I live a block away from my rentals. When things get bad I haven't sufficient long-term Market to rent to, as I've done with all my unit now.

I have long distance long-term rentals in Tennessee and Virginia and it is a Non-Stop annoyance with the management issues.

I see the same complaints on a couple Facebook groups. I have no idea what owners are thinking when they whine about one of the big three OTAs. VRBO sucks. Airbnb stinks! booking.com is useless!

the problem is the owner, not the OTA.  You know they have limitations.  They are really there to make a profit for their owners or stockholders.

First,  you should never be on one OTA.  I've seen people who got the listed and it ruined  everything. 

You should be on VRBO and Airbnb and booking.com!  You should sync calendars across them.  You should keep your prices higher because you will get more  inquiries .  You should use instant booking. You should master  the process and settings and wording and pricing on each. 

For Heaven's Sake, stop whining. It is the owner's fault for the most part. We are in a pandemic.

I have my own formula. On the left is a long-term rental dollar. On the right is a short-term rental dollar. The left is worth $1 and on the right is worth about $0.70. Because of all the additional expenses. If you have to get a property manager then maybe it's worth $0.45. Short term rental looks really good until you understand all of the additional expenses. Then maybe it doesn't look quite as good.

If you don't know what you're doing, don't expect short term rental automatically make you a lot more money. That's a you make a dollar from long term rental. The short term rental dollars worth about $0.70. If you hire a property manager it might be worth $0.40.

I usually met my guests