All Forum Posts by: Trent Reeve

Hello. Would hiring someone through up work be a good strategy to cold call on prospects for giving me an opportunity to CoHost their STR?

 Are you using any management Site like gesty to sync the different platforms? 

I didn’t get this email. I always get emails asking me to add discounts. I wonder how they chose properties. If they discount everyone, then no one is discounted. Or they are trying to be less expensive than their competitors. It’s only about VRBO. 

Why are they booking off-platform? So they can get a discount rate? Is there anything in this transaction that benefits you? Is it worth the lack of protection?

I would be very careful. Bargain hunters are more likely to be problematic. Renting outside of the platform takes away some of your protections.

From an ethical standpoint, I think it's theft. The guest found you on the platform, so the platform provider deserves compensation for the marketing service they provided.

I'm not sure our individual experiences are correlated to what's happening overall but I've definitely experienced many more last minute bookings than ever before. May, June and July were pretty much the same as in prior years but August is still not fully booked. I only do STR during these 4 months so I don't know what the fall would have been like.

Thanks for all the great feedback everyone! We are getting new professional photos but when I look at other listings that have better decor, I don't see them with booked calendars too so worried about putting more money in without confidence of a return. The cost of really decking out the house seems like a considerable investment. We originally wanted to hold for the long term to potentially retire in but at this point, there may be better use of our money if we can sell. 

The extra cost of the grill was due to my cleaners charging me and seeing others including the charge. I've played around with upping price and significantly reducing the cleaning fee and removing the grill fees but it didn't really change much. I feel like people look at the listed price first before clicking in so wanted to at least get people to look at the house first but will keep trying...

Thank you @Michael Baum! @Annie Balagot Solterra typically performs pretty well as it has the amenities rival many of the other top communities, but it is further away and the traffic to get to the parks. Its a big community and has a good reputation.

I would have to say that simply to 'up the decor' may not be enough. You'll still find yourself in the same general price point. You would have to seriously level up if you want to get out of the trap that bad operators have set with the pricing wars just to cover their expenses. Right now there are 109 units for sale in there (24 are townhomes), so that tells me there are lots of people are trying to exit and not making money. The 7 bedrooms are going for $650-860,000. Of all the 7 beds for sale, yours is as good as or better than almost all of them, but they are also sitting on the market a long time.

As far as your decor, a good thing is you have laminate or LVP flooring, which is a big plus, the missing spa is a big deal. The upstairs loft is underutilized..its just another living room, you need to do something very different there (adult games, poker, pool table, bar etc perhaps?) i don't see any photos of the garage so guessing it is just a garage. That is the biggest area of opportunity. I've attached some photos of current listings of some garages and lofts and bedrooms. These are not even 'over the top', but things like these will grab peoples attention when scrolling thru listings, you have to give them a reason to stop. Another idea is to do an Instagram wall on the lanai..have a mural and maybe a neon sign (some people name their house) and you can put that in neon and have people tag your house and help them advertise for you. You've got a really good start, looks very clean, good start to theming, but you just need to take it to a level that most others aren't doing and you can justify a higher ADR. 
Hope this helps, best of luck!

  I would recommend adding $25 to the cleaning fee and an extra $10 per night to cover the cost of providing a grill for guests. When I'm on vacation, grilling is often part of the plan, and having to pay a propane deposit and a $50 cleaning fee could be a deterrent. I’d likely leave the grill cleaner than I found it! While some guests might not treat it the same way, providing amenities like this is a chance we take with Airbnbs.