All Forum Posts by: Sean Wilt

Great, thank you!  good stuff.  Maybe I should start by seeing exactly what the VRBO agreeement says ha ha.

Appreciate the feedback. 

@Michael Greenberg

Curious why you would need your own rental agreement?  So VRBO would just substitute a custom agreement and handle the admin of it? 

@John Underwood, just sent you a PM.

Thanks

@Julie McCoy @Michael Greenberg  @Eric A. @Benjamin Vail

Good discussion all... I will likely get around to the spreadsheet ha ha, but in the meantime, I think I will go with the small pad above the pass through fee for supplies, etc.  For me that would be around $175 for a 4 bedroom 2100 square foot home.  I felt the property management companies using the cleaning fee to pad their revenue was particularly good Benjamin talked about as I bet that is totally true.  The Mom and Pop local property managers in my market seem to have that $395 cleaning fee on many of their listings which is ridiculous.

@Wendy Schultz

Thanks Wendy!  I hadn't heard of of expanded distribution on VRBO but will definitely look into it!

Question.  I'm thinking higher daily rent with a lower cleaning fee is best?  Say $400/night as an example with $150 cleaning fee which would be the going rate in my area so cleaning fee would essentially be a pass through expense.

I am seeing a fair amount of my competition though that charges upwards of $395 for a cleaning fee which would be WAY over what a cleaning service would actually charge.

Is this a viable strategy to attract more people to your listing?  Perhaps from a platform optimitization perspective? my personal feeling is seeing that large of  cleaning fee is a real turnoff and feels a bit like gauging the guest.  But I may be missing a viable strategy here.

Thoughts?

@Eric A.

Thank you.

@Luke Carl  thanks.  Is that gross or net of tax/fees.  Interesting benchmark and curious how my property stacks up vs. that metric.

Gross Rental Revenue divided by (PITI + utilities) = 150%?

Or 

Gross revenue - occ taxes etc divided by (PITI +utilities) = 150%

Thanks again.

@Luke Carl

Won't find anyone to do what? The LO part in general or the business license part? First, I have seen many people on this forum discuss rental arbitrage using AirBnb. Seems to me if the owner is cool with it and the numbers work, why not. By having a LO, it reduces the risk the owner will see the success being had with the STR and decide to just do it themselves and I'm out.

As for the owner not wanting to be involved with the tax or license issues, that's obvious. My question was not if they WOULD do it but if I would have trouble getting the license and paying taxes if I am not the owner of the property.

We are considering picking up our 3rd STR via a LO as a way to get a property quickly vs. waiting to accumuluate the 20% down payment required to finance.

My questions is, since I would not be the owner on the deed, would I have issues with obtaining a business license to operate a STR and pay the hotel/motel and sales taxes or would I need to involve the owner of the property?

@Lucas Carl

Just curious what exactly the 1.5++% is referring to.

To add value to the thread, I am hearing as well as research i have been doing that Galveston is a very strong STR market.