All Forum Posts by: Ken Boone

The question becomes what is the county going to do with the $8 million in additional revenue....

 Makes no sense whatsoever.  So much for their algorithms 

Demand is definitely down.  In town and got the first front row spot at walmart.   Another identifier is the Local Goat.  No matter what time of day that parking lot is jammed.  It has not been full each time I have driven by it.  No lines at the goat coasters either.  So yea demand is down no question about it and there is my anecdotal evidence ;)

So I do have a big problem with too many guests.  1 or 2 ok I can deal with that, however, when they get much more than that we got a problem.  I have had one of my places trashed in only 2 days by only 4 additional guests, and the 4 additional were just kids.  People that will come with too many guests are already the kind of people that are not going to follow your rules.  Period!  

This is what I do now and so far this has worked well for me.  It is and always has been clearly spelled out in my rules what the maximum guest capacity is.  In my house rules on the OTAs it clearly states that the guest will need to agree and sign a digital rental agreement that will be sent to them after booking.  It is basically the same thing that they will see on the platform.  The difference is in my digital version the guests must initial every page, and list the names of the individuals that will be staying on the property.  We clearly state in that section, that anyone that shows up with more people than allowed on a given property will be evicted with no refunds, unless the additional people are authorized by us.

The legit people will call and say hey my grandmother wanted to come but that is one extra will that be ok.. yes of course that is okay.  

The last time this happened I had 23 people show up for a cabin that sleeps 8.  I first identified it that evening, but was dealing with my dad in ICU at the time, and was kind of pre-occupied.  By the next morning I verified it was 23 people in that cabin.  At that point you call the platform and let them know your house rules states x number of people and they have y number and that you want to evict them with no refund.  The platform should back you up.  They have done this every time I have run into this now.  At that point I call the guest tell them they clearly broke the house rules, and that they have broken the rental agreement and that they need to vacate the property immediately.  Also, let them know that any damages that may have occurred to the property during their time there will incur additional charges. I let them know that the authorities have been notified as well as the platform and they are usually gone within the hour.  

This way you get them out and you keep the money.

The reality is that the people that do this kind of thing know exactly what they are doing.  It's not an accident.  They just don't care.   And quite frankly I don't want those people in my STRs.

I list on both and am still predominately booked by vrbo.  Question would your cabin happen to be in Wears Valley?   I say that because when we purchased that on a few years ago the people we bought it from said it was predominately Airbnb which is not what any of my other cabins in that are so. However when we took over we saw the same thing.  Hardly got any traction on VRBO for like 9 months.  The only thing I could think of that made a difference was the location because all of my other cabins are either in PF or not far outside it. 

 Wilson the problem is GFH is stating they will be forcing everyone to change their connection by end of Q2.  

 Thanks @Michael Baum  I think the issue is I'm kinda wordy sometimes ;)

Been using Guesty for Hosts for quite some time with multiple properties with AirBnb and VRBO.  Typically 85 -90% of my bookings come from VRBO.  Yes we have had problems which I have mentioned before, and GFH always told us well once we get our API connection to VRBO we won't have those syncing problems happening, such as price changes and occasional booking issues.  They don't happen often, but lets face it, they have awful support, but when things are working it works great.

I just learned recently through another post, that GFH now has the API connection with VRBO.  They call it the upgraded connection vs the standard connection which I have always had.  Apparently, anyone who has joined GFH since I think February of this year will be automatically put on the upgraded connection with the API connection to VRBO.  And then there is a host of other folks that say between I think November of last year and February of this year may or may not have been boarded with the upgraded connection.  Bottom line by 2Q 2023 they will be moving everyone on standard connection over to the upgraded connection to VRBO.

At first glance, this sounds great - yea no more syncing problems with pricing, reservations, etc.. they are now a VRBP premier partner, they have straight up access to VRBO support which they don' with standard etc..  However, after reading through their FAQ on this and thinking about this I see a whole bunch of negatives from the way I run my business today and I just want to throw these out there and see if you guys are seeing this or if I am misunderstanding something or have better thoughts about doing this.  This is how I see things once I am forced to move over to the upgraded connection:

1) Again, 85-90% of my bookings are VRBO, and VRBO has handled all the payment processing.  Adding a day, refunding someone etc.. is easy in VRBO.  Pice of cake.  Now that goes away and I have to use Stripe.  Well ok, I recently started doing that with my direct bookings, and I suppose there is a learning curve, but its a payment processing system that I have to work with now for almost all of my bookings instead of easy VRBO, that was built specifically for these functions and not just simply a payment processing system.

2) Since, VRBO is offloading the payment processing back to the user, they are no longer remitting the taxes.  Yes I do have to do that for my direct bookings now, but it is minimal, now it's going to be most everything.

3) Since you will no longer access VRBO to edit your listings, that might sound nice, as you will have one stop shop for your listings and pics and so forth.  My question is, what happens to my boosts, and looking at my rankings and metrics that are really helpful in VRBO?  Am I losing my boosts and stuff like that when the connection gets upgraded.

4) Will I still have my VRBO account rep?  Due to my status I have a $1 yearly subscription costs with VRBO through my account rep.  Will I lose that as well?

What are ya'lls thoughts on this?  Big deal?  Not a big deal?  More headache? Less headache?

@Saranya Sundararajan So there are a few numbers that may be a little off such as PMI. If you are putting 20% down you shouldn't have to carry PMI. 80k for a 3 bedroom is definitely doable. I have a 3 bedroom that did that pre-covid, and went up over 110k during covid. Don't think it's gonna do that this year, not quite sure where it will land. It does have a fantastic 270 degree view. Having said all that, your numbers look pretty good. Looks like you have been very thorough in your analysis. You might not need to spend all that much on furniture if you are purchasing an existing cabin.

But your numbers show why I am down on purchasing in that market right now for me, unless I find a deal. What you have listed is not a deal, it seems to be market rate. $400/mo cash flow on a 700k investment, carrying that much debt does not interest me. It might you though as we all have different reasons for investing. Basically you are taking on a second job for $400/mo carrying that much debt. Is that worth it to you? It might be. Perhaps you are happy to use this to learn, happy to have a 2nd home for family use and who knows why else. My point is for me that is a slim margin for an STR. Purchase prices are through the roof compared to what they have been, there is less demand and more supply, interest rates up, all of which are contributing to these slim margins. 3-4 years ago everything was a slam dunk. Not so today. I was there last week for the whole week. We are talking about spring break there, and except for Friday, traffic was waaaayy down compared to how it has been in years past.