All Forum Posts by: Leigh Ann Smith

@Christopher Benjamin, I'll share mine, but it's pretty rough.  I modified it from one of the ones I got here on BP.  There's lots of #NUM and #REFs.  Those fields would be relevant if you were taking out a loan on the property.  We did not take a loan.  I left the fields in for you, but check the formulas out for any of those fields with errors in them.  I'll upload it to BP and reply here with the file name.

One note....we WAY underestimated lawn care.  Basically, I forgot to include it.  The reason I have $20/month in there now is that my husband is doing most of it, and occasionally we hire someone to trim.  We had planned to have a lawn care service doing that, but until we can get the rental income up a bit more, it would be a cash flow killer.

This is perfect @Garry C.!  May I plagiarize?  😀

@Kevin Lefeuvre, my payouts experience has been different.  AirBnB pays out on check-in + 1 day, but it goes straight into my PayPal account.  VRBO held my first payment for 30 days ( 😡 ).  Today is Day 30, and I got this message:  

"The following payment will be deposited to your account within 2-3 business days, depending on settlement times, which vary by bank."

The same guest renewed for another month and paid today. I received an email about that payment with the same message. So, I'm getting my money more quickly through AirBnB. Other than the 30 day hold, the wait times aren't a deal breaker, but it's annoying for sure.

Would anyone like to share a sample VRBO rental agreement?  They have a sample on their site, but it seems not quite right with the current model of VRBO accepting the payments.

@Jon Crosby, that is a great way to handle the situation!  No way they could say you were being unfair with an offer like that.

@Peter R., you said that you hope instant book doesn't happen too quickly with HomeAway.  Got this email today:

@Kevin Lefeuvre, I think I might not mind them adding the cleaning fee since they'll be adding it to everyone's listing.  I can see how it would be frustrating to guests not to be able to compare apples with apples.

The pricing tips are really ridiculous.  They want us to charge less for our cute little tiny house on the pond than you'd pay to stay at the No Tell Motel down the street.  I don't think so.

Oh, and I got the email today from VRBO that they're rolling out instant booking. 🙄

@Ariel Smith, you are right about the reason these sites block the contact info.  And, while the blocking is annoying, I totally understand them doing it.  Although I think the fees to the guest are too high (which means we have to lower our rates accordingly), I do feel that it is only right that the booking site gets their cut.  They provide a service to us, and they should get paid for that.  AirBnB also provides some protection in the form of guest reviews, dispute resolution, etc.  If a guest stays once through a booking site and then wants to book directly with us after that, I have no problem with it. but the first time, we require them to book through a site.

That's good info about only doing 30+ day bookings.  I'll have to think about that for sure.

@John Underwood, AirBnB blocks you from doing this, so I wonder if VRBO will do it in the future.  I haven't tried CL or Craigslist, but they block the words "Facebook" and "Google".  I need to tell guests that Google maps may not show our address correctly, but AirBnB blocks the word "Google".  😑

I spend a significant portion of my life dealing with AT&T.  Our home Internet (and cell phones, land line, and DirecTV) is with them and our tiny house VR's are just about 150 yards from my house.  We are only 25 miles from downtown Houston, but it's a rural area nevertheless.  They will not let me purchase a separate Internet account to be able to run Internet to those houses.  They say it's not available.  

We are looking into broadcasting the wifi from our home to the tiny houses, BUT our connection speed is 6 mbps.  That's the fastest that AT&T will let us buy.  I've been researching it, and apparently those cables only have so much capacity, so they ration it.  I'm concerned that if the guests start watching Netflix, we won't have decent Internet at the house.  However, with speeds that slow, maybe they'll get frustrated with Netflix.  One can hope!

I may try applying with our llc as a business and see what happens.