All Forum Posts by: Mike Shemp

 Totally agree.  VRBO guests just tend to be better.

MIke

Hi All,

Just thought I'd pass this along.  I used the new AI Bot (Chat GPT) this morning with the idea of using it to improve my Airbnb and VRBO listings.

 I asked it to "rewrite this so that it is more marketable toward couples" and I copy/pasted in my current description/summary I have on Airbnb and VRBO.  The AI bot rewrote it, and it was WAY better than what I had.  I abandoned my wording and went with the AI-generated description...and have now officially submitted to the machines.

The link in case anyone wants it is:  chat.openai.com/chat

Mike

You should search for a Facebook group in your marketplace that is specifically for the fellow hosts/owners.  You can use this group to help find good cleaners, handymen, plumbers, electricians...as well as learn about which ones to stay away from.  Many times these groups also provide good information on any existing, or pending short-term regulations for the area.

Mike

We send every guest a rental agreement.  There have been times where guests have read it and said "I'm not comfortable signing it" and then we mention to them that there are plenty of other nice short-term rentals they can choose from besides ours.

After each reservation, we send the guest our rental agreement via Docusign.com from our web site or mobile phone using their app.

Works great.

Mike

If you get a small house near the ocean, you may want to budget more for maintenance.  The salt water/air makes every wear out faster.

Mike

Instead of an LLC, you may want to research the benefits of getting insurance with a company that specializes in short-term rentals (there are a few of them out there), in addition to an umbrella insurance policy.

Mike

We make sure to have a unfair advantage at each property...something that requires money, effort, and time from another host to recreate.

Mike

If you have experience with Excel or another spreadsheet program, you may want to make a model for your property so you can do what-if scenarios.

At the top put the money items:  loan amount, mortgage rate, down payment.

Then list your revenue projections you received from AirDna or by looking up similar properties in Airbnb and VRBO.

Then list out your projected expesnes.

You should then be able to do what-if scenarios like:

"What is my cash flow and what is my cash on cash return if I get rid of cable-tv?"

"If I put 25% down or 40% down, what is my cash on cash return?"

"If I allow dogs and charge a fee, how much additional revenue will that give me and how does that impact my cash flow?"

Mike

Here are some options for the electrical:

Can a propane truck get to the site? If so, install a propane pig underground, and hook up a propane generator to it if your local regulations allow for it.

If a propane truck can't get get to the site, there are several all-in-one battery solutions that have the battery and inverter and solar panels together.  If it were me, I'd buy a couple of them and ask my cleaner to swap out the batteries if they saw the batteries were under a certain level with fresh ones, and then have the cleaners charge up the batteries as part of the service contract with them.

Mike

Agree with Paul.  Partial refund for wasting your time.

Mike