All Forum Posts by: Melissa Bovee

It more than picked back up over the summer in my market and many others. The strongest STR markets have been drive to vacation destinations. The STRs in urban cores have suffered much more than traditional vacation destinations.

I know the resorts near my area and other property managers typically charge 20-30%. Yes, it is very salty and hard to make a property cash flow if you are using a service that will take this portion of your revenue. Not sure about the numbers specifically in your area, but I would look for a property you have the option to self manage. 

@John D. I’ve never canceled a guest before and (being new to this) I have a perception that there are consequences to me if I cancel guests. (So far I’m only in Airbnb)  Can you let me know how to go about canceling without getting these public reviews etc. that are written in the Airbnb “what happens if I cancel” docs? Thank you! 

CA is again under orders that restrict travel. The county I am located in - Placer, North Lake Tahoe - is covered in the order, but is distinctly less vocal about deterring travel than South Lake Tahoe. There has been no official outreach to Placer county STR permit holders which contrasts to their extensive and clear outreach for the last shutdown.

Below is an excerpt from the FAQs on the CA.gov site. It is pretty clear.  Should I go nuclear and cancel and refund all of my high season reservations?  If I honor reservations (assuming any out of state are for the minimum time required and I just assume my guests are following the rules), what about the people who want to cancel?  Do I let them cancel with the agreed upon cancellation terms, or should I give them a full refund? So far I have one long weekender from inside CA that is requesting a full refund or the ability to re-schedule.  I'm not even sure how it would be possible to carry a credit like that for Airbnb... maybe just say I will give her a special offer equal to the cancelation fee I was paid out if she books another time?

So folks: Either what are you doing with you STRs in CA, or what would you do if the below order was in effect for your property?

As Always, Thank you in advance! - Melissa

from CA.gov:

When any California region is under a Regional Stay Home Order, no hotel or lodging entity in California can accept or honor out of state reservations for non-essential travel, unless the reservation is for at least the minimum time period required for quarantine and the persons identified in the reservation will quarantine in the hotel or lodging entity until after that time period has expired.

Additionally, hotels and lodging entities in a county under a Regional Stay Home Order cannot accept or honor in-state reservations for non-essential travel.

Hotels or other commercial and residential buildings may offer lodging for essential functions and travel including COVID-19 mitigation and containment measures, treatment measures, accommodation for essential workers, or housing solutions, including measures to protect homeless populations.

My handyperson was a referral from the vacasa property manager who managed my property before I purchased. I was on the phone with her to get the codes to the lock boxes on the property. She had previously worked with my handyperson at a large local resort.  I have found that connections through the employees of the big ski resorts in the area (Tahoe) have been a big win.  Each resort runs short term rentals for many homes and condos within the resort so many locals have done this at scale by working for the resorts. 

I am pretty new to this.  My first purchase was a 3 hour drive away from my home.  While I renovated and got it set up I visited several times. I used these visits to set up my team. My maintenance person lives locally and works at a local resort.  Their connections and ability to get over there to check stuff out have been so valuable.  Having a team set up has enabled me to feel comfortable moving across the country.  I now live 3000 miles away from this property and I can self manage pretty easily. 

I require a government ID and I screen each guest. If they have a bunch of positive reviews I care less about the back and forth conversation to feel them out.  With no reviews I send the below script. 

Hi {{guests_first_name}}, thanks for sending this request! It looks like you may be new to AirBnB as you don't have any reviews. In this situation, we like to confirm a little bit more information about the renter and guests. Are you familiar with the AirBnB platform and the experience that is typically provided? It is a bit different from a "hotel" experience, and so we just want to make sure that your expectations will be met and you'll have a "5 star" experience.

In order to move forward, we need a bit more information. Please:
- Confirm that you have read through the entire listing (so you know what you’re getting) including the rules and responsibilities for renting the unit. For example, the quiet time for the condo is very important because we have neighbors that share a wall with us.
-Tell me a little about who all is coming and your plans for this trip.
- Proceed with the ID verification process here: https://www.airbnb.com/verify

Thank you!

It sounds like you haven't used Mashvisor much. If you have a property pulled up, it will spit out a full cash flow analysis specific to that property for STR and LTR. All the expenses and income are filled with data from their model, but you can overwrite the numbers with your own. You can sort all mls properties by STR CoC return or LTR revenue or any other thing you want. You can also export the LTR or STR data for the market to a spreadsheet for whatever offline analysis you want, or to do research on the most profitable listings. Everything I needed to analyze and purchase was there for me with mashvisor. For Airdna, it was more high level data about an area and didn't seem as useful to analyze each potential deal.

It sounds like you are going for something similar to what I did with my STR in Ca. I saw an opportunity to get higher rent with some minor renovations and better marketing. I would say you should do a clean break. Honor the reservations on the calendar if it works for you, but do your work as soon as possible. Get photos and marketing together after you have done the improvements. Is there a way to keep the old listing and reassign it to you for the short period you are operating the "old" house?

Mashvisor. You can get all markets for a year for about the same price as a few months of one market on Airdna.  I also like the property analysis. It will throw in estimates for income and expenses, but you can override as you do more refined research.