All Forum Posts by: Michael Greenberg

@Steven W. Ah, now I get what you are doing.  A novel concept and I know a lot of people doing this and growing their portfolio.

Yes Steven, I would setup a master lease, ensuring your T's and C's cover what your "investor's" T's and C's (Airbnb's T's and C's) are consistent with your master agreement so as to not create a conflict.  Have you considered a "property manager" as an option?  If it's in Charlotte I have a good friend who might be able to help if you went in this direction.

I think a lot has to do with the location of your prospective property. I have homes in a location that brings in far greater annual revenue & profit as STR's than long term rentals. Sound advise from @Jon Crosby and @Kevin Lefeuvre.  Do you research with such tools as Airdna.co (not .com) and by browsing the Airbnb and Homeaway websites for like properties to determine nightly/seasonal expected rates.

@Harrison Liu I totally agree, wouldn't take the risk.  I have put a home under contract prior to reviewing the CC&R's and then terminated the contract due to VR restrictions.  I wouldn't ignore the local legislation either.  Do your homework - not with the risk.

@Leigh Ann Smith I do price differently on the different platforms.  Happy to exchange additional details if you want to PM me.

I have investments in the Phoenix area but no direct exposure to Lake Havasu.  My recommendation is to look to airdna.co (not .com).  In a quick search I found quite a few successful properties.  You can browse some basic data for free and then if you want purchase data for the area (buy the raw data not their reports) and analyze it for yourself.  They also recently launched a new investment tool.  While they only mine data from Airbnb it does provide a good gauge for rental rates, property types and investment opportunities.  

Since you mentioned "Nest" I'll weigh in.  I deployed this technology and it works well, however has some limitations.  One of the most challenging things about it is that you can only have (2) Nest locations per Nest accounts - frustrating if you have more than (2).  Another is the "learning" technology.  I have disabled them from learning because of guests coming and going and inconsistency's of occupancy.  The good:  I can lock the thermostat and guests that don't understand the technology will turn the A/C all the way down (can't get to 50 F ever) or all the way up (can't get to 80 F).  It's also quite good at sensing occupancy, so when no one is there it can switch to "Eco" mode - saving me quite a bit of $$$.  

I totally agree with Jeff Graves perspective.  There is one more category "events" that can be very fruitful and can occur in the low season. They're a bit more difficult to find and track.  @Kevin Lefeuvre I would look to tools like airdna.co (not .com) for seasonality pricing research.  I sound like a broken record on biggerpockets as I tout them a lot - but they are the one pricing/research tool I have found effective outside of doing your own research on the listing sites.

@Jeff Graves

@Nick Winikoff Understood and an interesting topic for discussion.  IMHO and limited marketplace exposure Airbnb's market strategy appears different than the other Expedia / TripAdvisor companies, and they appeal to a different crowd.  I see millennials and younger generations booking via AIrbnb and a more mature crowd booking through the Homeaway (I get nothing from anyone else and refuse to use Booking.com any more).  It is becoming somewhat of a crowded space, yet still growing - for now.  As with all business, it begs the question: "At what point will it saturate and margins begin to suffer?"  Airbnb scares me though (love/hate relationship) as I believe they are wiggling their way closer to the guest and working hard to keep Hosts (their customers) at arms length.  However, I also believe there are opportunities for "boutique" booking sites (possibly Vuepeer - it would be interesting to understand how you differentiate yourself)and solutions like Evolve as @Jon Crosby described, however they too are getting closer to the guest and from what I understand have acquired properties of their own.  As for "mainstream" it's all about funding, marketing and "scalability"; Airbnb has all three.

@Nick Winikoff is this marketing research for Vuepeer.com?  Airbnb gets the brunt of my business but I think it has to do with the market my VR's reside in.  I do receive about 10% of my short term bookings from Homeaway, however they do provide leads for longer term stays.