All Forum Posts by: Mike Shemp

Today the Bartlett Planning Board announced they are going to discuss limiting short term rentals at an upcoming meeting.  

There will be a planning board meeting on January 3rd to discuss this.  For anyone who works/lives in the Bartlett, NH (White Mountains) area and would be impacted by this, you may want to consider attending this meeting to make your voice heard.

Mike

@Olivia Lui - There are some areas that are currently discussing STR regulations. There are other areas that seem to be more friendly. The areas that are discussing regulation are:

Conway - there is a lawsuit underway regarding regulations.

Madison - being discussed at town meetings

Freedom - being discussed at town meetings.

Jackson - has regulation in place.  I think homes can only be rented out so many nights per year.

Hope that helps.

Mike

We've recently vacationed in the area. We liked Black Mountain and Swaninnoa from an STR perspective, but I am not sure of the STR regulations, climate, etc. but liked those 2 areas from a vacation perspective.

Mike

We have 3 short-term rentals that we manage remotely from New Jersey.  One is on the beach in the Outer Banks, and the other 2 are in the White Mountains of New Hampshire.  We are actively looking for additional properties in both locations that can cashflow.

The biggest lesson learned about buying a beach property is that you have to up the budget for maintenance.  Anything near the salt water wears out faster (paint, HVACs, etc) so it requires more maintenance.

Mike

We have two STRs in the White Mountains of New Hampshire.  They have hiking, skiing, snowshoeing, kayaking, tubing, mountain climbing.  It was recently rated best place in New England for fall foliage.

Mike

I would try the nice approach first.  Maybe meet with each of them individually, tell them to call you if there is any funny business and you appreciate them watching out for the neighborhood, but you'd appreciate it if they do not approach the guests.  Mention how you really appreciate their support and give them a gift card to a coffee of the month club...this way every month their reminded.

Mike

@Emily Taylor

We put a "secret phrase" in our house rules on the short-term rental platforms that guests need to provide when they book.

If they instant book and don't provide it, we message them and ask them to provide the phrase.

After the phrase is provided, we use Docusign to send them a rental agreement to eSign.

We've had a few guests say something along the lines that they were not comfortable signing our rental agreement, and we simply did not rent to them.  We'd rather miss out on a couple of guests for more peace of mind.

Hope that helps.

Mike

Hi Bruce,

We get the majority of our bookings from AirBNB and VRBO, and are fine getting them that way as we generally only accept people with previous reviews.

The other thing we do is post on Tik Tok, Instagram, and Facebook almost every day which helps drives direct bookings.  It's also nice because many of the people that book with us from social media we get to build a relationship with a bit before they book..they get to know us...we get to know them... so in general those bookings have all been very good with no guest damage, etc.

Hope that helps.

Mike

Hi Kate,

Here are some items:

- Propane grill anchored into the ground so guests can't move it

- We buy DVDs at garage sales and do that instead of cable and also get a Smart TV with HDMI so guests can bring their Roku or Fire stick

- Boardgames and puzzles

- Schlage Encode wireless lock.  Make copies of the physical key and put it in a key safe in case there is an electronic failure of the lock so the guest can still get in.

- CO alarms, fire alarms, fire extinguishers, and escape ladders if its more than 1 story

Hope that helps.

Mike

We got over our analysis paralysis for our first rental by having a very large emergency fund/operating budget for the house.  We figured this way if anything went wrong, we could throw money at the problem.  It turns out there were some things that our inspector missed, and we were very happy to have the extra funds available to address them.

My suggestion would be to make sure you have enough for the down payment plus a decent operating budget/emergency fund....maybe 6 month worth of projected expenses at least.

Hope that helps.

Mike