All Forum Posts by: Neil Henderson

Unless you are planning to market to guests who are highly allergic to dogs, I would let it go at this point. 

If there is no damage, write them private feedback in their review about the dog after their stay. 

Write it as private feedback about the guest to future hosts, the guest won't see this. They also won't see your review until after they post their review. 

Now, if the dog causes massive amounts of damage (it won't) then all bets are off. Leave an honest an open review with just the facts. 

If after hosting and getting a good amount of reviews, you decide that your no pets policy is indeed the way you want to go, you can get stricter about it.

We make it very clear in our listing that we allow small, friendly dogs (NO CATS). Only bad experience we've had in six years as an owner operator was with two college students who stayed with us for two weeks and left their cat in the unit while they went out job hunting all day long. Put us out of commission for nearly a month while we had the carpets replaced. It's exceedingly rare.

Hi Aileen,

We self-manage our property and we're in the process of setting up some co-hosting arrangements to manage the properties of other owners. I'd jump at the chance to manage a property in Maui but I would defer to a more experienced manager or someone who is boots on the ground in Maui.

Most co-hosts charge between 15-25% of gross rents. It really depends on their experience level, how much you want them to be involved and the specific property demands.

It would be the co-host's job to find cleaners and handymen.

Happy to answer any question via PM if you like.

The Best Ever Apartment Syndication Book by @Joe Fairless is outstanding. Highly recommend it. @Vinney Chopra 's book is also excellent. Raising Private Capital: Build Your Real Estate Empire Using Other People's Money by Matt Faircloth is my final recommendation.

I agree with @Luke Carl. You need to automate most of the guest communication with IMGS or Smartbnb. We have an auto responder that sends out:\

• Confirmation of instant booking email with dates and promise of additional info closer to check-in
• Confirmation or booking request with a promise to review it and get back to them
• Pre check-in instructions (3 days before arrival)
• Follow up the afternoon of first day of stay to ask if every is going well with their stay
• Reminder of check out time and procedures 24 hours before departure
• Thanks for your stay and reminder to leave review 2 days after stay is complete.

These emails take care of 95% of guest communication.

Same advice I gave in another thread:

My suggestion would be to look for credit unions and small local banks in the area where the property is located. Look for community banks with the fewest number of branches. Pick up the phone, call them, ask to speak to their loans department and ask them what their appetite is for doing HELOC's on non-owner occupied small multifamily.

Congratulations! In my opinion, it's better to get started with a small, base hit deal, than it is to spend years looking for a home run. You learned infinitely more doing that one small deal than you would've by listening to 300 podcast episodes and reading two dozen books.

What's the ARV?

My suggestion would be to look for credit unions and small local banks in the area where the property is located. Look for community banks with the fewest number of branches. Pick up the phone, call them, ask to speak to their loans department and ask them what their appetite is for doing HELOC's on non-owner occupied small multifamily.

Need more information. Do you have a current property that you intend to pull capital out of to fund the purchase of another owner occupied home?

The Best Ever Apartment Syndication Book by @Joe Fairless. Clear, concise, step-by-step process for raising capital for and buying large apartment communities. 

Learn the art of Revenue Management, not Occupancy Management. We actively try to stay at about 85% occupancy. If we are higher than that, it typically means we aren't charging enough.

Compete on value not on price and you should weed out a lot of the worst guests. If you're competing down in the weeds with the rest of the bargain basement properties, your likelihood of drawing a problem guest is increased. 

I wholeheartedly agree with @Sean McDonnell, if you have a guest who's asking questions that are clearly spelled out in the listing, don't be afraid to turn down the booking.

Lastly, don't be afraid to turn down a booking.