Buying STR Vacancies

[Ryan Birge]

I have corporate sales experience and my managing brokers license- with many transactions on both the buy/sell side. 

My friend and neighbor has experience with STR (Duplex @ ~98% occupancy) and LTR (SFR @ ~95% occupancy).

My next door neighbor has a STR in a prime vacation market. The single lot includes a 4/3 and two 1/1s. They are currently renting it out as a total package for ~$800/nt. The occupancy is around 50%. They currently use a legacy property management company who is well-known/experienced, but in our opinion a bit lazy.

Given our experience, we feel the occupancies should be closer to ~90+%. What if we approached them with a criteria- minimum of 1-2 weeks advanced notice; but with the willingness to purchase their vacancies for a small percentage of their typical nightly rate. Assuming there are about 180 nights a year that go vacant, if ~100 met the timeframe criteria, we would purchase for ~$200/nt. We would handle the Airbnb listing (as a Co-Host) and split OUR bookings into a separate bank account, handle property management, cleaning, etc. This would put another $20k/yr in their pockets; and allow them to achieve an occupancy of closer to 80%. The delta between 50% and 80% we would manage/fill/scrape the arbitrage between what we purchase at and what we can fill it at. 

Thoughts/Comments? It seems like it would be an interesting way to drive more value out of an existing property, put more money in both pockets; and could ultimately lead us to replicating this for other investors/homeowner's with less-than-stellar STRs in the area. To be clear, the area should sustain 85-100% occupancy for STR (like my friend sees with his units), as it is in high demand, and has a limited supply. I feel their numbers are low due to lazy property management. Interested to see if anyone has any experience with a similar arrangement?