All Forum Posts by: Merritt Harris
Merritt Harris has started 9 posts and replied 30 times.
Post: Hourly cleaners verses sub contractors

- Rental Property Investor
- Syracuse New York
- Posts 31
- Votes 17
Hey folks,
For the large management groups, have you brought cleaners in house and paid hourly verses using sub contractors?
At what point did you make this change and why?
Post: Cohosting and Property Management Payout structure

- Rental Property Investor
- Syracuse New York
- Posts 31
- Votes 17
Quote from @Andrew Steffens:
Ours is set to take 20% of the room rate revenue, 100% of the cleaning fee
This is what I do too, and I pay cleaners directly. I guess my post is a little silly come to think of it as I'm taking more than 20% effectively as I take 100% of cleaning fee.
Post: Cohosting and Property Management Payout structure

- Rental Property Investor
- Syracuse New York
- Posts 31
- Votes 17
I realized that my property management contract states that I'm paid 20% of gross revenue, but in fact, I pay the cleaners their fee first (I mark it up a little on my OTA to factor for platform fees) and then I take my 20% out of the remaining balance.
How do you structure your property management payouts?
Curious how you handle the accounting side as well in terms how what the client gets.
I typically export the monthly metrics from my PMS, then use a excel work sheet to break down gross, fees, expenses for owners on their end of month reports.
Thanks in advance.
Post: First time poster, long time fan of Bigger Pockets

- Rental Property Investor
- Syracuse New York
- Posts 31
- Votes 17
Quote from @John Underwood:
@Merritt Harris
There are a lot of people who like passive note investing.
I can outperform all these note holders by finding deals to buy and hold and I get the appreciation.
It’s certainly two different approaches. You’d recommend selling and doing 1031?
Post: Marketing a STR Management Company for Luxury Props

- Rental Property Investor
- Syracuse New York
- Posts 31
- Votes 17
Quote from @Brooklyn McCarty:
Avery Carl always says you don't have to reinvent the wheel here. Provide cute, clean, comfortable places for guests. You don't need a bowling alley in the middle of the home.
I would invest back into what is already in your portfolio before trying to scale, try out luxury/unique on something you already own/manage and see what it does for numbers.
I can't do luxury for these properties, they are on pretty urban streets... However I am seriously considering making the SF a really funky maximalist design this year.
Post: Top CRE Broker Search

- Rental Property Investor
- Syracuse New York
- Posts 31
- Votes 17
Quote from @Will Pieper:
Depends what you are looking for. Most of the big CRE brokers in my area already have plenty of clients to buy the good deals so they never hit the market. They also don't usually care to cold call people because they have plenty of business just waiting for people to reach out to them. Smaller brokerages tend to try harder but may not have the network or knowledge so they might not have access to the deals.
I do commercial in central Missouri. My mentor has been in commercial here for 30 years and has brokered some notable developments here. I cold call and find stuff off market and get the perk of using his name to validate ourselves as a serious commercial brokerage so we get the benefits of both. If you have interest feel free to reach out, we are working on some warehouse opportunities right now around 100k sqft.
Hey Will,
Good insight. It does seem like the more seasoned brokers have the network already so they may be less inclined to send off market deals to investors they havn't worked with yet.
We are open to buying B and C class in any market that has 250,000 population and up! Would love to see it if fits the bill. :)
Post: First time poster, long time fan of Bigger Pockets

- Rental Property Investor
- Syracuse New York
- Posts 31
- Votes 17
Post: Marketing a STR Management Company for Luxury Props

- Rental Property Investor
- Syracuse New York
- Posts 31
- Votes 17
Quote from @Andrew Steffens:
There are specialty companies like Vintory that can help. We just severed with them, not their fault but the ROI was not as much as we would like. Otherwise, a good site, SEO, Ads, etc..
Our best rev growth has been through local networking though 100%
Thank you, I'm jumping on a demo with them now. How many deals did you land due to their effort? Do they hit FB ads too? I noticed they do Postcards. I can do those pretty easily myself...
Post: Short-term 2 small houses or 1 larger home

- Rental Property Investor
- Syracuse New York
- Posts 31
- Votes 17
Quote from @Luis Guerra:
I already have a home in the Disney area that I purchased pre Covid and it’s making me about 3k in profits per month on airbnb. I have an opportunity to purchase 2 homes for about 300k each that make me about 1.5k per month each in profit. I’m also looking at a larger property in south Florida listed for 750k and can possibly profit 4K per month on airbnb based on my comparisons in the area. Would you go for 2 smaller properties or the bigger property? Take in consideration that the bigger property will appreciate more in the long run because of the area.
According the the founder of TechVestor, they find that larger 4-7 bedrooms perform better when it comes to a standard single family.
https://www.linkedin.com/posts/taylor-jones-38997154_average...
Post: Top CRE Broker Search

- Rental Property Investor
- Syracuse New York
- Posts 31
- Votes 17
Good morning,
I'm part of an investment group looking to buy B and C class industrial warehouses and I'm wondering if anyone has a strategy to finding the top CRE broker in an area? We typically buy off market, but I know the networking is one of the best ways to access off market deal flow through brokers.