All Forum Posts by: Scott K.

Best of luck to you... The market is basically dried up and any inventory has 20+ offers in a day. I'll see you out there :) 

Yeah since we're not in a city, getting guests during the week is pretty uncommon. So occupancy rate is not my major concern. Its more just, can we squeeze out an extra 10% of revenue by having access to a greater pool of people. We saw that vrbo increased our revenue by 15-20% because the clientele happened to want to stay longer than the average airbnb guest. So I wonder if there is some 'hidden advantage' like that, to booking.com. Seems not.

Thanks for the input. We get probably 60 percent occupancy in a remote rural town where people generally only come for weekends with huge groups, 14+. So while it's possible to get higher occupancy I think it's unrealistic given the market. We still make a lot of money. 120k revenue for a 300k house. 

While I'm doing incredibly well on airbnb/vrbo, its really taught me that multiple platforms helps a lot. Whether airbnb is banning certain dates for no reason (no parties on halloween, 2020) or vrbo doesn't have enough bookings to sustain all year so I need airbnb guests, I was wondering if booking.com was a good alternative. Is anyone using all 3? Anyone use booking.com at all? It seems all my software backend is already setup to include booking.com so it'd be pretty easy to integrate.

I have a very different perspective. I've hired at least 6 different companies so far for my 2 6 bedroom rentals. Some quit because i was too demanding. Others I fired. Others tried to quit and I gave them more money. 

The only thing I've learned is you NEED a checklist, preferably with the app Get Properly as it let's them take pictures. I can't tell you how important it is to force a cleaner to take a photo. They can check things off all day and not read it, and not care, but if they take a photo, it will be correctly cleaned/organized/restocked. It also gives you evidence against crazy guests. I've had guests try to extort me, and luckily I had photos to show to Airbnb the cleanliness and stocking of each item I promised and it proved without a doubt they were lying. 

Another tip, have a separate cleaning crew per house. It helps because they'll have their own network of Handyman and cleaners when one drops the ball. I'm on my 3rd house and we're hiring our 7th company just to constantly evaluate them and hopefully one day end up with the best in the area. 

We have 3 full sets of linens for quick turnovers. They try to do as much on site as they can but they sometimes bring extra off-site. I don't think an extra set of washer and dryer would hurt, just an expense you could probably push onto the cleaners. 

I use quickbooks for accounting. I keep hearing stessa, what's the advantage? 

We use quickbooks, 1 bank account for income/expenses, and 1 bank account for repair fund with auto deposit into it. We have 1 cc that runs most of the expenses on it, autopaid by the expense account. I also keep a excel spreadsheet that shows the revenue, expense and profit per property so I can compare, see trends, and evaluate how to buy the next property. 

I can't imagine running an airbnb without being able to check on it every few months. It's so difficult to get cleaners to do the same job each time. It's really difficult to set up a place, or to ensure the little things don't get overlooked over time when you don't personally go there. I have my cleaners take 50 photos each cleaning but they still miss things. Broken game console, cue tips need replacing. Lamp went missing. I could see someone running a barebones airbnb remotely and having low maintenance guests. But my properties cost a lot per night and people have very high expectations. 

 Candy soda machines? Great idea. Nickel and diming for laundry... Sounds bad. 

What machines did you buy for the soda? How much do you charge? Who restocks it?