All Forum Posts by: Mike Lambert

Thanks again Dominic! Yes, ironically giving an advantage to the guest (access to the whole condo) would place an extra burden on him but I think that's fair because it makes his room more marketable. You made me think that what he could do is ask the cleaner to spend an extra half hour tidying up the rest of the condo when the cleaner does the bedroom and bathroom and I guess that could even be included in the cleaning fee as the cost difference might be little.

Thanks Dominic! The rest of the condo will be used by my family member and the guest will be able to use it. My family member is takes care of his place and gets it professionally cleaned regularly so the question becomes whether he needs to get the rest of the condo professionally cleaned in between at every turnover?

A young member of my family asked me how to start his real estate career and, unsurprisingly, I suggested that he started by house hacking. For him, it would mean renting the spare bedroom of his 2-bed condo short term. He later asked some good questions about the cleaning and I couldn't answer since I've never house hacked myself so I'm asking here for him.

He's very busy so he needs to get the cleaning done professionally. So:
- When a guest leaves, does he need to just get his spare bedroom and bathroom cleaned or his whole condo?
- Can he charge the guest the cost of the cleaning of the full condo or should he charge much less just for the bedroom and the bathroom?
- If he could charge the full cost, he could get his whole condo cleaned often and have the cleaning paid by the guest but that could be prohibitive for the guest who'd only pay for a room rental, especially if the stay is very short.
- If he can only charge part the cleaning cost for the spare bedroom and bathroom, does he need to clean the rest of his condo at his own cost every time there is a turnover, considering that, at the extreme, there could be a turnover on a daily basis? Or does a guest expect that his bedroom and the bathroom will be spotless clean but don't expect that the rest of the condo would 100% spotless clean at all times given that my family member lives there (provided that it's still cleaned regularly, of course)?
- If, at times, it makes sense to only get the spare bedroom and bathroom cleaned, can he find a cleaner/company to do that, as it might not be worth it for the cleaner to travel for such a small job?

Thank you!

Welcome to the forums Olga.

Montenegro is a beautiful country. As an international investor, I had a look at investing there but stayed away as I concluded that it's more of a lifestyle market than an investment market. Indeed, foreigners can't get financing there so we need to invest 100% in cash and therefore the returns are too low, especially considering the extra risks. For a mix of lifestyle and investment, we can buy with a mortgage in, say, Portugal or France for example.

However, as a pure lifestyle investment, Montenegro can offer us lower prices (and we could still make some money as an investment over time). Now, I'm not about to tell you how to do your job, which you know better than me, but, based on what I mention, I think that, if I was an agent there, I'd focus on the lifestyle clientele.

Hi Steve, while you don't necessarily need financing to have a good investment in Mexico, it's nowadays much easier to get financing there and I can help you getting it so feel free to reach out if needed.

@Jacques Caspi

I like the reason behind the idea but I think the idea itself is very bad because, if you implement it, you risk having 10,000 members replying "Welcome" when a new member/poster introduces him/herself. That would be terrible. Also, I think that the members who post and reply the most do so not because they want to find customers for whatever they have to sell or get any sort of profit but first and foremost because they want to give back and help. They'll take the time to write thoughtful and detailed replies if they can and if it helps, irrespective whether they get a reward or not. That's at least my case. I imagina that you guys want to encourage the best behavior that benefits the community.

You guys know who the biggest posters/repliers are. If you want to reward us (and I'm by far not one of the biggest), why don't you just send us a personal message to thank us and, if you want, give us a gift as well. If you want to give something, I'd suggest a discount on BPCON for example. I don't know if it'd make any difference to them and if they'd go with or without discount but having the likes of @Chris Seveney, @Joe S., @Jay Hinrichs, @Alecia Loveless, @Matthew Paul or @Henry Clark at BPCON would definitely add value to the event.

You have two options:

1. Deal with one of the large accounting/tax companies that have an international network.

2. You hire tax specialists in every country in which you invest and you have them work together with your tax advisor in the US.

What you could do would also depend of your own knowledge of the tax laws in the countries in which you invest.

Hope this helps

Thank you Mark. All that you wrote makes total sense and thank you for the compliments. In this case, the guests didn't ask us for anything. They actually mentioned in the review that all the rest was great and that they could even solve their perceived uncomfortability issue by using cushions, which we have a lot of. It's even more frustrating as, during their stay, they mentioned that everything was perfect and they didn't even mention the sofa.

The fact of the matter is that some people find sofa beds less or uncomfortable and so it seems to me that the guests might just have wanted to write an honest review and warn would be guests that our place might not be the right fit for people who spend a lot of time sitting on the sofa and want a comfortable. In line with that, they wouldn't give us a 5 but a 4 instead because, officially, that corresponds to a "good" review on the Airbnb scale. They might also have thought that it's better for us to not have guests who want a super comfortable sofas as they might not write the best reviews in the future.

What they probably ignore is that anything below 4.8 is in reality "not that good" and could actually be a negative for our business, given the very competitive nature of it. I've been wondering about for a while how we can make guests aware of that without giving the impression that we're trying to force the to give us a high rating.

There is no MLS in Colombia. Therefore, working with a single real estate agent doesn't make much sense as it will limit you to his/her very limited inventory and he/she might have as main objective to sell a property to you take advantage of your lack of knowledge of the market. In such situations, the best way to proceed is to do your own searches and then contact the listing agents of the properties you're interested in. This will give you more opportunities and access to various opinions about the market and properties.

As to cleaning services, you'd most likely hire a property manager who'll take care of that. In any case, it's a waste of you time to think about that before you find a property. Once you do, you'll have people who'll be able to refer you to the right companies. Before somebody will refer you to someone, they'd generally want to be sure that you'll buy a property so as to not waste their time for nothing.

Hope this helps.

Hey Mark thanks. Great point! No we don't believe or expect to get a 5 every time but we do as if we did as this help us all ensure that we provide the best product and service to our guests and we'll have the best rating we could, even if it's not a 5. You're also correct that 4 star is officially good but, in reality, it's one of the lowest ratings that's being given and it has a disproportionate effect on the property's rating when we list a new property and so we haven't had that many guests and reviews yet.