All Forum Posts by: Andy O'Neal

@JJ King & @Matt K. -- You have convinced me to go with a Netflix / Sling combo for my new STR (with two TVs).

I am a satisfied Sling user myself and between my own apartment and two STRs, I only have 4 TVs. I'm thinking I can try just using my own account. If I have to add a second, just for the STRs, that's fine. 

I 1000% agree. I am in the midst of finalizing the furnishing, etc of an old house. I am shaken, at times to the point of panic (mild exaggeration) at the thought of getting a low mark - especially for cleanliness - in my first review or two just because the place shows its age in places. 

Look at all the punctuation in that last sentence. I’m probably panicking about it now.

I wish you good fortune with the high maintenance guest to come.

I second @Julie McCoy on the TCL Roku TVs. I have two in my larger home. The interface is as intuitive as anything these days... and the TVs are dirt cheap at Costco (in a full range of sizes).

Success with AirBnB is 80% “ensuring a guest doesn’t find a hair left behind by anyone but themselves” and 20% “all other things.”

At least that’s what I tell myself as I clean.

@Rachel Kokosenski - I have a 1 bedroom that has a Roku and an HD antenna that gets spotty reception. I supply Netflix. 

From my informal survey - I start up the Roku and Netflix at each turnover to ensure everything is working - I’m guessing one in every three or four guests actually watch something. That home sees an average stay of two or so nights and is high occupancy.

I have a 5 bedroom that will come online soon and have two Roku TVs and a DVD player each on each one. I plan on supplying Netflix and am 80% sure I’ll also provide this new DirecTV Now streaming service.  I figure for the larger home and its larger groups, guests will occasionally want to congregate around the television or use it as childcare. Plus the expense is small compared to the hoped for* revenue.

*fingers crossed 

@Dave Ramirez - I think the broader point stands, though.... houses, *especially* for any sort of investor, are a commodity. An expensive and less liquid one, yes. But people & companies looking to list homes on sites like AirBnB are shopping in the same pool as everyone else... and their needs aren’t much different. 

If you are advertising your home to as broad a market as possible, savvy STR investors interested in your neighborhood will find it.

The upgrades you discuss making would be interesting to many kinds of buyers. Vacation and business rentals do better, I guess, when they have nice kitchens (to a point) and definitely more bedrooms. But that’s also true of homes sold to anyone else as well.

The frills like gift cards and a TV and gift baskets and prepaid cable are unlikely to move any sort of needle. Frankly, they are distracting to me... not exciting. 

I doubt trying to target your selling efforts to short term rental investors will yield a substantial profit over what you would get just listing your home on the MLS.

Best of luck.

It may just be me, but an AirBnB investor does not want to be sought out. And they are not going to pay appreciably more for a property than any other homebuyer. 

The market is the market.

@Ellie Narie - I’m just going to bang this drum one more time. Zeona McIntyre talks about airbnb’ing multiple rooms individually in a home she did not occupy herself. She’s worth a listen for any aspiring AirBnB entrepreneur... but doubly or triply so for someone looking to do this. 

My uneducated take is that this is a recipe for more drama than it’s worth. Minimize the work done booking and checking people in and out by airbnb’ing the whole unit. Consult AirDNA and other sources to determine the best return for a given size - since you have flexibility on that front.

Every diagram you ever needed (as a non-plumber) to think through how to set up two tanked heaters:

http://waterheatertimer.org/Two-water-heaters.html

@Julie McCoy - I really really wish I had gas as an option... I'd be going tankless without blinking. This discussion has opened my eyes to multiple tanks in a row. I'm hoping the extra plumbing won't be too pricey. But I can't have a bunch of grimy, cold, unhappy AirBnB'ers.