Purchasing STR with existing bookings through VRBO. What to do?!

[Matt Medes]

Hey Everyone!

I am under contract on a STR that already has a few weeks booked in July/August. The problem I am dealing with is that the current management company has the property listed with VRBO and the summer nightly rate is WAY lower than what it should rent for during those weeks. I plan on listing it with Airbnb and VRBO while managing it myself. It does have great reviews on VRBO, but I won't close on this for another month and I am afraid the summer will get booked with those LOW rates. I don't want to lose out on profits, but want to make sure those guests are able to rebook. I know we have to honor the bookings within 90 days of closing and will get any monies from bookings within that period at closing. Just not sure how I want to go about this!

Any input on this would be greatly appreciated! 

Matt

[Jonathan Greene]

You technically have no control at all until you close, but you could ask the current owner to put the rates up for summer, but they have no obligation to do so since the deal could still fail and they may want the guarantee. You could have negotiated this as part of the contract as well. You can go through your agent to theirs to the owner to see if they would go up or why they are so low. In the end, you are still better with booking than not when you take over so you know you have guaranteed money coming in.