All Forum Posts by: Scott K.

LLCs do not protect very well because they can be pierced easily if it comes down to it. Additionally most mortgage lenders will refuse to loan to an llc owned property. 

Just get good str insurance and umbrella on top if you're really nervous. 

LLCs have no bearing on taxes whatsoever. Unless you incorporate as an s Corp which I just did, but you pay another $600 to $1000 to your cpa so you better be making at least 100k in profits a year to make it worthwhile. 

Honestly just hire a professional if you want to start doing this as a real business. Finding advice on a forum is going to make your life miserable and potentially cost you a lot of money.

 They stayed 1 night then left. At the time I offered a half refund which they refused. 

Having a hell of a month. Had a very bad customer interaction where long story short, they demanded a refund, I refused.

Few weeks pass, VRBO refuses to refund them. They go to their CC and issue a chargeback.

Month passes, I get notification from VRBO that I won and the money was issued back to me.

A Week later, I get another notification from VRBO that they issued a second chargeback(How is this possible?) and when I asked for more info, this is precisely the response I got:

 "Our chargeback team was initially able to defend the transaction successfully however, the traveler filed a second chargeback. Each appealed chargeback (also referred to as a second chargeback) is reviewed on a case-by-case basis to determine if we are going to successfully be able to win in arbitration. Second chargebacks are only evaluated on the process, and not on the case itself. Unfortunately, we are unable to dispute this additional dispute and this chargeback is considered lost therefore, the funds were returned to the traveler.

Please note that the final determination of the chargeback dispute rests in the hands of the card holder’s financial institution, and not our own.

There is no guarantee that an appealed chargeback (also referred to as a second chargeback) will receive the same outcome as a first chargeback. We know that an appealed chargeback can seem very unfair. Unfortunately, we are unable to change or dispute the decision of an appealed chargeback. While chargebacks can be a frustrating part of participating in the credit card network, they are also a critical element that helps protect cardholder rights. The unpredictable nature of chargebacks is why we encourage hosts to try to come to a resolution before the guest feels like they do not have any other options."

Does anyone have experience with this, or understand what they're talking about? Can all of my customers just decide to do this from now on? What is preventing them from taking advantage of me? How do I fight this if VRBO is refusing to do anything on my behalf?

all my properties are in the poconos. you can make a killing. you can also fail. there are a significant number of houses that come onto the market every few months that were obviously short term rentals and the owners gave up for some reason. if you're serious about this i'd suggest you really sit down and spend some hours researching or you'll end up like one of them :P

To Paul's point, it takes me about $30k to furnish a new place... so its a significant effort if you do large, 4000 sqft 6 bedroom places with all new modern furniture. You can't furnish a place with your traditional loan. Maybe a commercial or private lender would let you do that.

This happened to me a lot, and I switched to 'getproperly' which helped SIGNIFICANTLY, but it will NOT erase all problems. I now go in person every 2-3 months with my own checklist that is extremely exhaustive (2 lamps per room, 2 pillows per bed, outlets in good condition, mirror in each bedroom, bed not wobbly, curtains not wobbly, curtains cleaned etc. etc. etc.)

The benefit of getproperly is you sync it to your calendars with ical, then you invite your cleaners to it, then you create a checklist, their checklists can require a photo per item as well. I have about 50 photos I require my cleaners to take after each cleaning which does 2 things.

1. If they take a photo of something, they will for sure realize theres a problem if there is one. Like I have them take a photo of the empty dryer, because they kept forgetting they ran a load in there, and guests were annoyed the dryer had towels in it. I have them take a photo of the clean backyard, becuase guests were complaining there were bits of trash in it.
2. If a guest ever complains and goes for a refund due to issues, I always have cleaning photos I can send to airbnb that proves 'no, the house was in fantastic condition, i have no idea what they're saying, look at these photos' and generally airbnb goes 'hmm yeah you're right, this looks fine'.

I'd suggest just getting a good real estate agent wherever you decide to purchase. One who is involved in the area should know off hand which townships are good and which arent.

It's a business built on ignorance (landlords not knowing how much more money they could make, or how to run the STR themselves) and IMO any business built that flimsily will not last. It's high risk due to regulations and landlords changing at a whim, and it's high effort for minimal payoff. There are certainly some people who are doing it well, with 200+ units 'automated' as they claim, but I truly don't know what payoff they're getting, or how handsoff it is. It's also hard to tell how many years it took them to achieve a full time income. I'd suggest going on fb groups for 'airbnb automated' its a very arbitrage focused group, but has some owners like me just chatting with people about airbnb strategies in general.

Those 'rentalizer' apps or calculators are garbage. Not worth using.

I second what others said above, for a 6 bedroom you NEED 3 baths. Imagine having 16 people in a house and only 2 bathrooms. You literally have to wait for 7 other people to shower before you can? Awful. It also has to do with how large a house is, you don't want to have to change floors to find a bathroom. Or imagine if one of those 2 baths gets clogged and now you have 16 people on 1 bathroom. Instant 1 star review and demanding refund. I've had 16 people stay in my house and if one toilet has a problem, or a sink leaks, they have 2 others and they don't mind at all.