All Forum Posts by: Luke Carl

I’ve switched all of my properties to pay per booking. I have 5 so we’re taking $2500 just to get off the ground with the annual fee. Screw that. I only get 25% VRBO 75% AirBnB.

Michael Greenberg this is off topic but regulations say 10 conventional properties. Per person. If you’re married and don’t put them in BOTH names, rather the individuals names, you can have 10 each. So 20. Not sure who told you 3 but Id call another lender. Some banks may say you’re done at 4. I’ve never heard 3. Could be DTI issue?? Check out this article and call another bank and get you some more houses! https://www.google.com/amp/s/themortgagereports.com/7395/the-5-10-properties-program-is-for-investors-with-more-than-4-properties-financed/amp

@Ethan Cooke most of us hosts on this forum agree that airdna is a waste of time and we prefer to do our own annayslis. 

I'm not a facebook person but @Julie McCoy brought this point up earlier and I thought I'd ask the forum. 

Would it be worth it to put our website up and see what happens? Has anyone tried this? 

Blake Milliken I have vacation rentals in Pigeon Forge/Gatlinburg. Can be easily managed from your phone. Avery Carl is realtor you want to talk to. She has several CA clients some of which have never seen the properties or even been to the area. (I would encourage you to fly out at least once but everyone is different) Whole other ball of wax than a long term rental but I manage 6 of them remotely with a a day job. And I’m a long-haired college drop out.

I also want to mention I've tried to reset my tripadvisor password 3 times and it doesn't work so they're pretty much worthless also. 

Love to hear other folks positive experiences with platforms other than Airbnb/VRBO but with 6 properties and a day job its not looking like they're worth my time. 

So. My February is very light. I spend hours on my 6 listings every day. I'm pulling my hair out. My prices are lower than I want and still, the bookings just aren't coming in. 

I decided to try Booking.com and wanted to share my experience with the forum. 

It was a complete waste of time and here's why. They send snail mail to the property with a code to verify the properties existence. My property is in a Vacation Rental Only area and doesn't even have a mail box. I called customer service. They said they might be able to send someone to the property and verify its existence and paperwork to verify that I own it. 

I checked the site. There are Zero single family homes in my market. Only hotels. In my case we're dealing with Pigeon Forge/Gatlinburg log cabins. There's somewhere in the neighborhood of 10,000 of these cabins in existence and there are zero on Booking.com. I wish I would have done this step first, maybe I would have realized it was a waste of time. 

I'm sure this is market specific and you may have different results but instead of it being a complete waste of my morning I thought I'd share this info with the forum in order to hopefully save someone else's time. 

If for some reason I'm the first person that has tried to put a cabin on Booking.com and they call me back and verify that it's going to happen I will post an update. I'm not holding my breath. 

@Jeff Oberts  These questions are market specific and you're not likely to find someone who's active on here that's doing a cabin on the same lake as you. I do cabins in the mountains in Tennessee so I'm happy to answer these questions as if they were asked about my area. 

LLC.... You'll need to talk to a business attorney to find out if this is for you. It is not for me. If you already own the property you'd have to refinance into the LLCs name, if they even let you, so there's another 5k~ right there. My take on it is... if it's financed and you have insurance... don't bother with an LLC. This is an OPINION.

My cabins are not in the city limits they're in the county. So.. I called the county and asked what to do! I had to get a $15 business license and a tax ID from the state to pay taxes. (You have to pay sales tax and occupancy tax on short term rentals. Something that far too many people "over look". They don't last long). 

In my market, in fact in my state, Airbnb just announced that they'll collect and pay our taxes for us starting March 1st. So we're only collecting and remitting from VRBO from then on. I've spoken with VRBO it looks like they are also working on changing this policy. Again, market specific. Just do some googling. 

You will be using Airbnb and VRBO/Homeaway. Two different apps. Most folks find this gets the job done. 

Question is... why do you have a partner and what is their role? If they are providing the money why do they need you? They can easily and inexpensively hire someone to manage their property that already knows the answers to these questions; whether its a simple Airbnb CoHost or Evolve. And if they're not providing money... why do you need them? 

Good luck! Happy to help any way I can! 

@Andrew Johnson nobody has to beg me for my time you’ll be more likely to say “how do I get this guy to shut up” LOL

I’m always looking for an ear to bend and I always learn something in the process!! 

And yes your are correct typical PM fee in my market is 40 (yes -four zero) percent. I do everything from an iPhone for 100% :) 

@James Carlson  maybe we need stickies or at least links to all major markets. I live in Nashville but I manage remotely my VRs are in Pigeon Forge.