All Forum Posts by: Wendy Schultz

I wish I could make it! 

@Kerry Baird my pleasure! When you're waiting for that first booking, it can be easy to fall for the scams so be proud to have reached out to ask the question and not fall victim! 

It's a scam. Here's how they go "is this property available?". Our first red flag since clearly it's open on the calendar. Then "my boss wants to pay for this but needs to send a certified check" or some variation of that. Red flag number 2. When they try to circumvent the booking platforms, that's red flag number 3. 

@Aaron May Thank you! It's in Homestead

We looked at both areas and bought in Reunion. I love it there. It just has a great feel to it. You can rent on your own and choose any property management company or go with the Reunion property management. There is a membership that you can choose to belong to for access to golf and the waterpark but it's pricey. It's a lot less expensive if you rent through the Reunion property management company. We still have access to the community pools which are really nice. We manage our own since we are professional property managers and it's pretty seamless. Championsgate is also really nice but as soon as I drove through Reunion, I was hooked. There are some massive homes and PGA golf courses there too which gives it a really upscale feel. This is a link to our property there. We bought it for $365,000 as a turnkey.  It took a little while to get rolling since there are a ton of rentals there but we've been marketing it through social networks, media channels (including USA Today) charities, and friends and it's picking up steam. I'd say the biggest thing is to find a unique property if you can so that you have more to compete on besides price. https://www.simpleliferentals.com/details.aspx?PropertyID=266935 

I am not a fan of Airdna based on some numbers I've seen that aren't terribly accurate in my experience. Occupancy rate is not as important to me as gross/net revenue. I could have 100% occupancy charging only $50 a night but the margin is so low on my labor, not to mention the wear and tear (and clientele attracted to that price point) on my property. I tend to charge higher and have less occupancy but still come out ahead. Most STR properties that are 100% booked all year are leaving money on the table and getting more wear and tear than they should. It's a supply and demand balance. Not to mention that marketing, customer service, property management, owner usage, etc heavily impact each property individually. So, to answer your question, I'd do some research to identify the rate that similar units are charging during different parts of the year and as @Villy Ellinger said, factor in the occupancy for each part of the year. 

@Villy EllingerI'm interested in your property! Tell me more about it. As the others said, poor marketing, poor management, poor pictures, poor customer service, poor housekeeping and owner usage are just some of the factors that can equal poor ROI. The rental potential in the building is a good indicator of what's possible but even that may be misleading because there are so many factors at play.

Now THAT's a story! Lol. People never fail to amaze me. 

@Adam Cole wifi enabled key pads on the door. You can change the code and dictate how long the code will work. They're a game changer.