All Forum Posts by: Michael Greenberg

@Al Williamson:  To my knowledge TripAdvisor can only import and not export - reason enough to limit your availability to them as I find potential guests from TA to be overly cost conscience as well.

@Matt Smith Some of this depends on number of properties you're trying to manage.  In my opinion Bookingsync is a bit pricey to manage just a calendar.  If you're looking for a booking system, there are quite a few choices in the marketplace.

Three options to consider for calendar syncing and I've tested all three successfully (though I'm a PC user and it may differ if you're a MAC person):

1.  Outlook Calendars - you can setup a calendar to receive iCal syncs

2.  Thunderbird by Mozilla (their email program) has a plug in for Calendars and they can also accept iCal feeds (I use this so I can keep my booking calendar separate from my "other" calendar.

3.  if you're planning on building your own website (WIX, Wordpress, etc....) you could sync an online web calendar using iCal as well.

Hope that helps....

Mike

Only know of this one in November:

https://www.homeaway.com/info/summit-2016

@Garry C. - I agree, I do get more fillers with Airbnb - even same day bookings and yes, be careful with the rates. I protect myself by upping my damage deposit in the off season and I have pretty firm rules about disturbances and taking care of the place.  So far, so good (knocking on wood) I haven't had a nightmare renter yet.

I agree with @John Underwood, it's heavily weighted on pricing correctly to increase reviews which will increase your exposure no matter where you advertise your site.  Price it competitively to begin, then begin to increase it slowly - look to capture repeat guests and spend time tracking competitive market data and events to maximize revenue and nights.  I use Airbnb as my primary channel, HomeAway is second and TripAdvisor a distant third.  I have found Aribnb tools to automate my pricing also has a nice affect and is very inexpensive - beyondpricing.com and everbooked.com.  You might also check-out Airdna.co for competitive data in your local market.  You can immediately capture your top 10 competitors from this site, then use that data to continually monitor the competition.  

Mike

Hi Pandu,

I would reach out to them with your specific questions, they are very good with data and can answer all of your questions as well as provide you with some sample data for you to analyze.

Mike

Hi Jared,

I too am working on this and I think I can save you some testing time and money.  I ended up using a theme called Travel Eye by WEN Themes but had to do quite a bit of customization because I want my guests to be able to book directly with me and I didn't like their booking engine.  So here are the other plugins I'm using (for now):

VRCalendarsync (booking calendar with iCal capability - $34 can't beat it!)

Photo Gallery by Supsystic (I like this better than the one built into Travel Eye - it's more flexible)

Ultimate Social Media Plus (Amazed at the functionality of this plug-in for social media icons)

Hope that helps you get started.  If you have suggestions as well, I'm all ears!

Mike

@Darryl I. - PM me I am not a realtor but I do have friend who is a turn-key vacation rental realtor in a great destination.

I would welcome comments, strategies, suggestions and introductions to tax professionals regarding VR property ownership, rehabs, deductions, liabilities, etc...

Thank you!

Mike

@Lamar George, @Amber Elmer, @Stone Jin, @Tom Albares, @David Alvarez  I am looking at creating a "sharing economy" group of VR owners / managers in Arizona.  I presently own two properties in Scottsdale that are doing quite well and I firmly believe that collaboration is the way to grow all of our businesses together.  PM me if you are interested in chatting about this further.  I'm certainly no expert (then again I don't think anyone is) and welcome new ideas, suggestions and discussions specific to our market.  

Kindly,

Mike

@Jeff Piscioniere  Interestingly I run Airbnb, VRBO/Homeaway, and Flipkey at the same time.  Airbnb and VRBO/Homeaway are about even in terms of bookings, but I prefer Airbnb from a "community" standpoint and they've been awesome with their customer service.  Flipkey brings me about 10% of my rentals and I'm considering moving to booking.com (though they're so enormous it's difficult to communicate with them and get signed up).  I too feel like TA/Flipkey are bottom feeders.  I do get negotiators on VRBO/Homeaway, but very rarely on Airbnb.  Hope that helps.

Mike