All Forum Posts by: Lee Davis

It feels like anytime we are offline for even a day that something happens where our guests try to get a hold of us. It's like murphy's law. Imagine coming out of the backcountry to find out that your water heater broke three days ago and two sets of guests did not only not have water, they had radio silence from their host who they've been trying to get a hold of? What if a key gets lost by the previous guest and the next ones checking in don't have a key? If you're using a keypad lock, what if the batteries die and they can't get it in? Stuff like that is tough enough when you are on the grid. STR's are actively managed. This is not "passive income" as you're in the hospitality business now. If it's not a disaster, we are being asked questions pretty much every day about anything you can imagine. You would need someone to fill in for you who is capable of handling anything thrown their when you are unable to be reached for a long period of time.

Seems like super high demand for "staycationers" still and appears to be the trend. No international guests, which I miss, personally.  We got shut down for a couple of months too, and short of physically getting shut down by airbnb and/or local governments(likely?), we should be ok. 

No moratorium yet in San Bernardino County. The cities of YV and 29 palms I can't speak to. SBC did increase fines by multitudes and allocated millions towards the enforcement of unpermitted rentals(and illegal weed grows). http://sanbernardino.granicus....

+1 for dark colored towels. Even with bleaching it's impossible to keep them looking white and then you have dirty looking towels. 

@Tim V. Higher maintenance guests ran through my mind as well, as I'm sure it would for a lot of hosts. I agree, the "plus" side as it were does seem debatable for those already receiving a premium, enjoying 5 star reviews, etc. 

I just read about this as well, but it's not clear on how to apply to become a plus listing. 

@Brian Singer Great work on your sunburst flip! Did you guys do all of that yourselves? Finding people reliable and who aren't horribly busy out there has proven to be a difficult task. I want to do a similar type of stain to my concrete floors, but I'm not about to play around acid washing myself. 

@Regina Peacock @Account Closed I was out at my place in Sunfair Heights this past weekend and I could feel high powered machine guns and bombs and what not going off near the base. I'm pretty far from the base, but I guess as you get closer that's got to infringe on the whole get away from the city noise desert experience in 29 palms, right? 

So the previous owners had my place listed on airbnb during escrow and now nearly a month after closing still have it listed. They haven't responded to any of my emails requesting for it to be taken down.  Airbnb has responded to my request that they cannot intervene as this is an "offline arrangement" and they are an online company. I'm guessing I'm locked out of listing it on airbnb so long as this listing exists.  How could I go about getting it taken down? 

I haven't seen Mashvisor before. Great that it shows occupancy rates of individual airbnb listings. Do you know that is just like in the last month or averaged over the last year? 

@David Jarvi I see, yeah I was just planning on doing what John Lee did who posted earlier in the thread. 

"Currently, as Joshua Tree is in San Bernardino County, you have to register your STR at the county tax office and pay the 7% TOT quarterly (end of Jan, April, July, and October). You self-report your revenue and pay 7%, which, of course, is normal to pass on to your guests. I walked in to the county office and registered my property same day, and got the actual license (which must be posted in your home) in about a week."

 I didn't realize until now, however, that JT wasn't an actual city, which I feel a little silly about after doing all this research. That and the fact that I'm going to have the keys to a JT property in less than a week. It seems to me to be good news though if we don't have any of these pesky city council meetings to worry about.