All Forum Posts by: Leslie Anne Morris

You’ve already unlocked the main piece which is a real estate license in most states. In the Smoky Mountains of Tennessee where I’m located there are 2 other licenses required. Possibly look at networking with your local agents who are in the business already. One could mentor you!

Quote from @Bruce Woodruff:

@Leslie Anne Morris ^^^ Don't use IKEA, typically all junk particle board with twist-lok fasteners....

We use either high-end thrift stores or the less expensive antique stores....good solid wood furniture with character that will last forever...

Exactly! If you buy cheap you’ll be replacing it fast. Not worth it. 

Hi there! Definitely not Ikea. We actually discussed this on a thread a week or so back. You want quality furniture and not Ikea.  Some folks buy used and that works out fine. I have a particular style I go for here in the Smoky Mountains. I work with a local furniture company for the most part and I have gotten items from other cabin owners or Facebook marketplace. 

Mattresses are not a particular brand but we typically go for something between hard and soft to make the majority of the guests happy. Again mostly getting those locally. We’ve ordered one or two from Amazon even and that is a memory foam style. 

Quote from @Josiah Pisel:

Hello BP! I am looking for advice and recommendations. I own a vacation rental management company and have properties on both VRBO and Airbnb. I am using Guesty for Host as a property management platform and am mostly happy with it. However, I seem to be struggling with putting monthly statements together for owners in Guesty for Host due to the info that Guesty is "pulling" from VRBO. I charge a commission on the reservation only, while the owners get the remainder of the reservation + cleaning fee and I remit the sales tax on their behalf. The info Guesty is "pulling" from VRBO has the reservation amount + the sales tax in one number, which happens to be the same number that Guesty uses to base the commissions off of. This makes all the numbers wrong, rendering the Guesty for Host reports useless.  

Looking for any insight on how to remedy this (reached out to VRBO and Guesty with no solution yet)! Of course we can create a spreadsheet and manually enter everything but this is very time consuming and not scaleable.

Looking for something that is easy to use, time efficient and minimizes time spent on monthly accounting. What are other short term rental management platforms are people using? What are people using for accounting? QuickBooks Online? Wave? Excel?.... 

Thanks in advance!

Hey there! I’m in the Smoky Mountains and own a property management company also. I am using Ownerrez. I can’t speak to Guesty. But in relation to your VRBO questions. There is one small annoyance with them since we process their bookings on our own platform. They charge commission in arrears and it creates an extra manual step to charge the appropriate commission to each cabin. 

You might see if Guesty has a users Facebook group where you can ask questions from other folks like you. This has been tremendously helpful for us. 

Quote from @Account Closed:

Oh awesome! Thanks so much!!! I’ll check them out! Maybe I need to start looking in the smoky mountains too!

If you’re looking to expand into Tennessee this is the place!

Hi there, I'm using TheLender for my DSCR deals. I also refer my clients in the Smoky Mountains to them. Important to note I am paid no referral fees by them!

I think most investors buy and hold. Now if an investor bought a bad property and it’s not making money then that’s another story. In that case they would most likely look to sell or find a partner (property manager). If it’s a vacation hold it could be a long term rental, but of course it would make a lot less money in the long run. 

I own a few properties in the Smoky Mountains that are in HOAs. It isn't exactly perfect, but it works in most cases out here since tourism is heavily popular. It really depends where you are located and your particular environment / HOA etc. It also depends on if the HOA is required or not. Hard to say really, but what you are considering doing sounds like it's doable!

I started investing in STR while living in Los Angeles also! It can be done. First I looked at Palm Springs, too costly and heavily regulated for me. I ended up investing out of state, primarily in the Smoky Mountains. It can be done. While it is nice to be able to drive to the property, I realized I would never get started investing if I only looked within California. To your point about doing a smaller deal first - yes this is how I started.

If you are looking to get conventional lending the lender wants to see that money sitting in a checking account...I know boring and no upside.