All Forum Posts by: Ken Boone

So you said something that is key in this market, especially with a cooling off.  And that is build something that stands out from the competition.  That is exactly what having the pool does.  It is the #1 amenity in that market.  It trumps the view, dollar for dollar all day long.  However you still have to buy right and that is tough right now, especially without doing new construction.

However, not sure when your last build was @Matt Mertz but I am in the camp with those guys that I will never build there again.  It has to be one of the worst places to build in at this current time.  However, it sounds like @Nathan W. might have a history with this builder and if that is the case that might change the story.  I have had 2 cabins built there.  The first one was a nightmare dealing with the builder and all the cheap shoddy work that was done because they used the bottom of the barrel for labor, and they left problems they knew about and waited to do something about them until I found them.  The second build which was completed June 2022, only because I pretty much had to spend the first 6 months of last year in TN 90% of that time, managing, doing, fixing, due to unscrupulous builders (plural) (who were vetted), made the first build look like a walk in the park.  In fact, in my circle I know of 8 people in the middle of builds there right now, and they are all upside down, nothing is being done, lawsuits, etc.. And this spans 3 different builders.  And oh, most of these builds having been going on for like 2 years.

 @John Carbone I think you nailed the problem with this location 100%.  It is not the distance specifically but rather this specific location combined with the distance.  For instance if this was in Wears Valley it would work. 

So a pool cabin without a view is no problem whatsoever.  The location on the other hand I am not thrilled with.  I would not be interested in that spot myself, even with a pool cabin, and that is pretty much what I stick with.  Not saying it wouldn't work, but I would pass on it.

 They are small heated pools.  
 8x17x5ft deep

6x13x4ft deep

8x16x4ft deep

All of mine are fiberglass pools.  2 of them are the curvy shaped typed pools and one is a rectangle.  If I was doing a new build I would do rectangular.  You can easily put a solar cover on that guests can easily roll up. This helps a lot with the humidity factor and heat loss from the pool.  

@Nathan W. I have a few pool cabins in that market, and I will tell you that I will most likely not buy another cabin that does not have a pool.  That should say enough about how I feel about it.  The pool aspect should not add more than 70-100k to the build.  I can't imagine it being anywhere near 250k, but I could be wrong.

I went through a few different pool cleaning companies and strategies taking care of the pool cleanings in the beginning. Weekly was one of the strategies in the beginning and it doesn't work.  It needs to be cleaned after every guest.  The pool cleaning fee is passed off to the guest just like the cabin cleaning fee.  

A pool does add more issues and cost, but the additional revenue more than offsets those items.  

Also what I have learned is that a lot of people will tell you stuff about pool cabins, but the fact is unless you have one, you are just speculating on what it takes to operate etc.  My first pool cabin is about 15 years old, so they have been around for awhile, just didn't gain in popularity until the last few years.  It was a hidden secret. ;)

Even if you don't want to self manage, doing it for a few months help you to understand the ins and outs of the property better as well as helping you understand in more detail what it takes to manage your property.  This gives you more perspective and a better understanding of what your property manager will need to be doing when you move over to one.  If you don't start off this way, you are not 100% sure of what you should be expecting out of your property manager.  But again.. its not for everyone, it all depends on your goals and where you want to be and what you want to be doing.

@Matthew Spiers Sorry you had to go through that.   Have you thought about self managing?   That is what a lot folks on this forum do.  My properties are in another state as well and we have self managed from the start.   I mean you have to spend time managing your virtual property manager spend that time managing your str yourself.  It is very doable but not for  everyone.  Just something to think about. 

 I was the buyer in that scenario. Didn’t take a whole lot of time to put 45k worth of bookings on to my calendar.   

I think it depends on the situation, however, depending on the bookings I don't think it is a big deal.  One of my properties I bought had active listings and future bookings when I bought it.  Things just have to work out between the sellers and buyers.  Once the property is sold, the seller should be completely out of it.  How it worked in my case, is that the seller shared all their photos with us and we set up the listings.  Then we provided the link to those listings to the seller.  The seller contacted all the future bookings and let them know they were selling and that they will have to cancel their booking and rebook with our new listing.  The seller provided us with all the information on the bookings.  The key thing is that you have to block all of those dates on your calendar first.  Then we emailed all the guests letting them know as well that they can re-book with us and we will honor the same price, however, they have 2 weeks to do this and if they haven't re-booked in 2 weeks we will no longer hold the spot.  We told the future guests they needed to send us an inquiry prior to booking so that we could unblock those calendar dates to enable them to book.   

It was not a difficult process, the booking rates were decent, and out of all the future bookings only two declined to book, because we do not allow pets.  What it did for me, was give me bookings and income right from the start so I was cash flowing immediately after taking ownership of the property.  Since I had immediate bookings, it also let me gain a bunch of 5 star reviews quickly on the platforms.  So I personally don't think it is a big deal to take over bookings and find it preferable, as long as the rates of those bookings are good.  Now if those future bookings were all like 1/2 of what the market rates were, then yea, I would forget it, but in my case they were close to market rates.

 Well typically with my cameras they are mounted in locations where a guest would need to get a ladder to do something like that. They are monitoring the driveway/entryway only.