All Forum Posts by: Matt Mertz

PriceLabs just rolled out their Revenue Estimator Pro tool.  Haven't used it yet but worth a look if you're already using PriceLabs.

We use StayFi because we have a big cabin that sleeps 16.  We've had it in place since launch (Dec 2021).

No one's complained to us and we have over 50 5 star reviews (5 overall).

I was nervous that it would turn off people and affect ratings but it hasn't.  We have a marketing opt-out button on the form.  And it redirects the guest to our digital guidebook after they sign in so that's convenient.

But, we haven't had much success in leveraging our email list.  That's mostly my fault.  I've tried doing it manually from our outlook.com account and that was too much work.  We tried free mailchimp using our hosted domain address but noticed that they were getting filtered to Junk mail on our tests.  We haven't gotten very far trying to do email marketing at this point.  This year I intend to work on it.

Basically StayFi is great in theory (if you hosts multiple guests per stay) but there's a lot of work on the marketing side.

Maybe reach out to VRBO and ask about it.

We had an issue late last year where we stopped getting VRBO bookings for our Smokies cabin.  It took us a while to notice because we're also listed on Airbnb and those were coming in fine.

But then we started testing the search results and confirmed we weren't showing anymore.  So we contacted our account manager over there, scheduled a meeting and she verified it was broken.  She made a support ticket and they fixed it pretty quickly.

I think what happened was I tried to add another property of ours but encountered an error.  So we didn't move forward with that one on VRBO and just listed on Airbnb.  But something happened on our account that hosed our cabin listing.

Anyways, just a long way to say that VRBO account managers actually will try to help you out.

Quote from @Shiloh Lundahl:

By far my best amenities are our caretakers. We have 3 high-end, luxury properties in Costa Rica that sleep between 20 and 30 people and our care takers cook for them, pick them up from the airports, give them suggestions for excursions, and do everything they can to help our guests have the greatest time possible.

We also provide 12-passenger vans as well which are great for the guests to drive around and explore Costa Rica. 

 This is another level.  Do you hire people to drive the vans or do you rent them out to your guests?  How do you handle the insurance/liability?

Smokies cabin: pool table, hot tub, boulder firepit, Tesla charger, landscaping lights, firewood.

We resisted firewood for a long time but figured it might help the guest experience.

 not in Gatlinburg city limit, but thats fine as snow is not regular thing in Gatlinburg, more interested how to do my due diligence regarding the construction and inspections to make sure structure will not fall in couple of years lol 

Seems to me that the simplest thing to do is ask the builder for a few references and ask them.

Secondly you can hire an inspector.

Lastly, you can tell us the builder and there may be people on this forum that can give you some private feedback.

The price makes me wonder if STRs are allowed there.

Get customer references for the builder.

Call Gatlinburg Building and Planning Department to make sure it's zoned for STRs.

Is it in Gatlinburg city limits?  This matters for snow plowing (which was an issue just this week).  Gatlinburg plows the streets.

Quote from @Bien Nguyen:

@Matt Mertz - have you thought about using OwnerRez 's 3rd party vendor for damage protection policy?  I just started doing that and trying to figure out how to charge the guest since Airbnb doesn't recognize or have a line item to charge for that.  It's pretty reasonable and depending on the policy chosen, covers much more than a few hundred dollars for a security deposit.   

I can show you if you are interested, and will keep you posted on how it goes 😉 

Bien Nguyen 

Sweet Retreats Vacation Properties LLC

Bien, I just wrote out this long response to why we don't use it but then realized you're talking about damage protection, not travel insurance.  You taught me something new today!

I will be taking a closer look at it. 

We will still keep the security deposit because we think that's a great deterrent to bad behavior.

Please share your damage protection experience with us and how you implement it in your pricing.

@Bien Nguyen that is our exact tech stack.

I will mention that OwnerRez solved one of our earlier headaches - it allows real security deposits (even with Airbnb bookings).  A security deposit is peace of mind and we've only had to collect from it a few times (probably because people behave when there's a security deposit on the line.)  :)

OwnerRez also has built in rental agreements, e-sign and archiving.

We meant to replace TouchStay but it's so darn useful when we need to update the guidebook really fast.  It's worth the cost IMO.