All Forum Posts by: Ken Boone

Ditto - absolutely not.  I would take that as an invasion of my privacy.  I concur with the other folks here.  No way.  I think it would affect your bookings and reviews.

If you are talking about the Arcade1up consoles - they are junk and won't last long in your own home much less in an STR.

I have pool tables, air hockey tables, X-Box on a projector screen, virtual pinball table, 60 in1 arcade console, large smart TVs everywhere.  My buddy has foosball and and shuffleboard as well.  The more amenities the better.  My guests love it all. The x-box gets used constantly.

Louis - honestly if you are on the major platforms and the PM has their own website, you will put a lot of effort into building your own website and facebook page and I think you will get a very small return on your work. Having said that, I have my own website, however, I use that more as a jump spot to send someone to if we are talking or I can give them a business card to put something out they can get to easily or remember. However, unless you are an SEO master you are going to have a hard time generating a bunch of traffic through the website. I'm not saying don't do it, but I think you will find out for 1 STR you might get 1 or 2 bookings for the entire year through that effort.

I concur with everyone else.  Just pump it more often.  Once a year and you should be fine.

@Reese Newell In my opinion you need to have a pool cleaner come after every single guest.  Even if they only stay 2 days.  I tried the once a week thing when I first started and the pool company sent someone out every Thursday.  I had a group of girls that stayed and checked in Thurs- Sun.  When the cabin cleaner came on Sunday to clean for the next guests coming in Sunday - Wed she called us and told us the pool was a disaster.  These girls where in the pool a lot!  The water was murky, the chemicals were spent and hair was every where.  I had to call someone else to do an emergency pool cleaning or the next guests would not be happy.  So I have found after every guests works best.  I do charge my guests an additional pool cleaning fee also to cover that.

@John Underwood So the deal with Roku is that you can get all your mainstream apps, netflix, hulu, Amazon Prime, etc..  I let my customer's log in to their own accounts across those platforms.  Now if you want to have a cable tv experience with local channels then you are going to have to pay for a Roku app that has that.  For instance you can get service with ATT TV and add that as a channel on the Roku TV.  Of course you have to pay for that but I think you can get the local channels.  You might be able to provide local channels with YouTubeTV as well.  Where it really shines is when you have Roku TVs behind xfinity.  This is because xfinity has a roku channel that they don't charge for as long as you have a TV account on their service  at that location.  In this scenario you can purchase their TV service, but then you can load the app on say the 5 other Roku TVs throughout the rental and there is no charge for additional boxes or anything like that.  

I guess you are in the fortunate position that you have so many rentals that you are just gonna have to get a 2nd account!

@Michael McCarthy

I started with LTRs - My Ah-Ha moment was when I realized how many I would need to get in order to reach my financial goals. With the right STRs I can get there much much faster.

Cash flow is worth the day to day effort - if you use a property manger with an STR - it won't be near as profitable.

For STRs in destination vacation markets, most of them surged in occupancy rates and in nightly rates.  For STRs in non vacation markets they did not fare so well from what I have read.

Jeff - your question is really subjective  - better than what?  better how?  etc..  The answer depends largely on your personal goals.  Does better mean more cash flow?  Does better mean easier to manage?  Does better mean less risk?  etc..  I am going to assume you are trying to compare to LTRs.

In a nutshell from my experience - I own both.

LTRs - low risk, low return, 99% passive

STRs - higher risk, higher return, more work involved.. not a passive investment.

Lots of variables in the mix.   That is the nutshell.

@Boris Mordkovich - In the past two months I had a lender say it is their "temporary" covid policy to not allow STR rental income in your DTI ratio. I am also in a market that is a well known destination vacation rental spot that has only had an uptick in bookings and ADRs since Covid started. They flat out refused my STR income. So I think this really depends on the lender.