All Forum Posts by: Sid Payne

Where is this located? I would echo what others have said (@Kevin Murphy and @Etienne Martel), you could make a lot more doing AirBnB or VRBO/HomeAway instead of long term. However, it is also A LOT more work day to day.

Here is my list of of what I use that I really like:

For my Thermostats, I use Inthrma with Proliphix thermostats. The system is pretty amazing. It is not cheap, but the feature set and savings are worth it. They have just deployed a great feature, synchronization with your calendar (VRBO, a few others and ABB coming soon). It is called their Villa edition. No having to worry about setting the thermostat while the house is unoccupied will create enough ROI for me. Sam is the owner and his customer service it really good. He has spent a lot of time with me showing me how everything works. I have had these in two of my houses for years and just added it to a third.

For reservation management I use OwnerRez. Really like it for automated guest communications, digital rental agreement signing and a few other things.

For locks I use the Schlage connected to alarm.com Via z-wave. This is also how I control my security system. I setup temporary code for guests on the alarm.com website and it is all managed from there. I can also manually lock/unlock the door and arm/disarm the security system remotely.

I use Ubiquiti Access Points for my wireless directly connected to the cable modem. These things are super reliable and virtually never have to be rebooted. I do it once a year proactively. I am I.T. person in my other life and we deploy Ubiqiti APs for tons of clients because of their reliability.

I have a ring camera on the exterior of one house and look at it every few months. It seems pretty unnecessary. I virtually never have issues with guests.

I don't sync any calendars automatically because I am pretty much only on VRBO/HomeAway. I am looking for primarily family bookings so ABB does not seem like the right demographic for me and I do well with VRBO/HomeAway and repeat guests.

Sid