All Forum Posts by: Patricia Andriolo-Bull

What the others have said. I'm I. Marco Island and was considering homes on canals or off and condos on the Gulf. I ran a full analysis and ended up with 2/2 condo on the Gulf ( I now have 3 ). I charge more or the same per night as cabal front homes which cost at least double the price. I have higher fees with HOA but overall, I believe I do better. I also looked at non canal homes which were a bit cheaper and they can do similar to canal homes but cost less so end up with better profitability. Run the numbers and see what works best. Also think about your ideal guest. I preferred couples rather than families due to liability and damage. I still get families but they are smaller.

Personally, I hate glass. I had some beautiful pieces personally and realized that they always look dirty in sunlight. For a vacation rental, I could see people thinking they look dirty / streaky. 

I also like Schlage but have to use Igloo in a couple of installations because of mortise locks.  I highly recommend them as well (BTW, their pricing is going up at the end of this month I believe).  No WiFi is required with Igloo which is a great benefit and it syncs with AirBNB, too.  I liken it to magic!  You can remotely create codes for guests, vendors, etc.  The only downside is you have to be local with Bluetooth to make edits to anything already created but it does allow for one time use as well as duration codes.  I have to use the lockbox in my installation and not the actual door lock.

As I'm down to the wire on making my decision to keep it or toss it, I've decided to keep it but for different reasons.  I find the interface easier to manually update rates across my portfolio, OwnerRez doesn't easily let me match rates across my properties on a spot basis (unless anyone here has other recommendations that uses OR).  And I like the reporting (how far in advance are people booking, etc.).  It makes it a little easier for me than going into AirBNB, VRBO etc. and taking a look at data.  I may change my mind after a couple of months but we will see how it goes.  I am still manually adjust my rates beyond what they recommend.

Congratulations.  I would say hire another you when your value proposition begins to slip (e.g. you can't stay true to your boutique goals because of the volume of work) or when the work is too much for you alone.  Assuming the financials make sense to do this of course.  Good luck to you!

I periodically go on and change the order or add a new one but honestly, I haven’t seen it make any difference. 

Great timing.  After years of not using it, for some of the reasons listed in this group and mainly because I didn't think it worked well in my market, I signed up for the 30 day trial that expires in 7 days.  I was on the fence on keeping it.  I did a ton of work to set it up and have had to manually adjust the base price almost daily because it was so out of wack.  Low season isn't low enough or high season isn't high enough.  I find that I am doing just as much work using Pricelabs than I was pricing it myself, so why pay more.  One of many examples, Easter Weekend, just those 3 days, I had to manually adjust my price down 20%.  They were trying to charge over $1000 per night (the rest of the week is in low to mid $400).  They did the same for the US Pickleball Championship weekend.  

Now, I am an economics and finance major (I find it funny saying that since it's been 30 years) but economics are ingrained in me so I am a firm believer in supply and demand economics.  That said, I also don't believe in price gauging and believe in Karma and think I'm doing okay for that.

I'd love the answer to this, also, I'm not too far from you (Marco Island).  

I've explored social media and post often and I don't think it really lands me any bookings.  

I've stuck with the tried and true reasons I've heard to keep my search ranking high (quality photos, stellar reviews, updates to my listing) and that helps but in slow season, when I'm not willing to cut my rates as much as some of my competitors, it can be a ghost town.  But I do use those times to update my properties.  I've even started to proactively schedule September for painting, etc., also hurricane season. I price higher in other months so the lower occupancy doesn't hurt.

Would love success stories on how to really attract.  I have a Facebook ad set to go but not right now.  I'm in the midst of high season with no availability and people aren't really booking for May yet.

I hear others have these crazy issues but I do not.  I have luckily not had to contact them often but when I have, they have been incredibly helpful (every now and again I get someone that doesn't know what they are doing but no more so than any other call center I call).  I've only had a couple of damage claims also and they have paid out what I have asked, once within a couple of days of the damage.  The only thing they didn't reimburse was excess cleaning (they said they don't reimburse for that) and honestly, I find that as cost of doing business.  I had to deal with them through Hurricane Milton and Helene, and they were easy to work with - no issues.  I find that if things are well documented and reasonable, they are pretty good to work with.  Sorry this probably isn't helpful.