STR Bookings for Smoky Mountains

[Erica Calella]

Hi everyone, question for those of you on here who have experience with STR, specifically in the Western North Carolina market.

At what point do summer vacation rentals typically start to book? As of today, my bookings for June-August are really light, but the house has done well so far considering the listing only went live in early March. My property manager has the property listed on most of the major booking sights, so I am comfortable with their efforts. I am mostly just trying to discover any tips or tricks or identify any strategies that I could potentially be missing out on. Or even just looking to find some reassurance while I play the waiting game.

Any insights, stories or shared experiences would be great!! I am a new investor in this area and am also looking to making connections with anyone else in this market who is open to it as well.

[John Underwood]

Our Pigeon Forge 6 bedroom cabin is booking up very well throughout the year.

I just want to get the unbooked days and weeks booked.

We have a big fat mortgage to pay!

There is a lot of activity on local FB groups for that area. Lots of people are looking.for direct bookings to save on the crazy Airbnb and Vrbo fees.

[Erica Calella]

Quote from @John Underwood:

Our Pigeon Forge 6 bedroom cabin is booking up very well throughout the year.

I just want to get the unbooked days and weeks booked.

We have a big fat mortgage to pay!

There is a lot of activity on local FB groups for that area. Lots of people are looking.for direct bookings to save on the crazy Airbnb and Vrbo fees.

 I am happy that you are experiencing good occupancy! Was it like that from the jump for you? Or did it take some time for your property to establish a high volume of website visits, good reviews etc?

[John Underwood]

Quote from @Erica Calella:

Quote from @John Underwood:

Our Pigeon Forge 6 bedroom cabin is booking up very well throughout the year.

I just want to get the unbooked days and weeks booked.

We have a big fat mortgage to pay!

There is a lot of activity on local FB groups for that area. Lots of people are looking.for direct bookings to save on the crazy Airbnb and Vrbo fees.

 I am happy that you are experiencing good occupancy! Was it like that from the jump for you? Or did it take some time for your property to establish a high volume of website visits, good reviews etc?

 We bought an established cabin with many guests that come back every year.

How many bedrooms do you have? Smaller cabins benefit more from last minute plans than large cabins do.

Someone just posted about social media presence and how that can boost your search placement.

[Kyle H.]

@Erica Calella My market is specifically Bryson City and I would say the general sentiment here is that we are seeing a high level of last minute bookings across smaller properties with larger properties seeing more booked occupancy ahead of time.  This has been the trend recently and can definitely cause some booking anxiety for owners.  In my area the amount of inventory has had a high impact on off season bookings, with a tremendous amount of price pressure chasing bookings. Anecdotally I can see 8 vacation rentals from my personal residence and across the eight they have been booked less than 20 days since 1/1.   My personal opinion is that the demand is there for the high season and we will have normal occupancy for the summer/fall.  Just for reference I have 10 properties and all are 2BR and 1BR.

[Erica Calella]

Quote from @Kyle H.:

@Erica Calella My market is specifically Bryson City and I would say the general sentiment here is that we are seeing a high level of last minute bookings across smaller properties with larger properties seeing more booked occupancy ahead of time.  This has been the trend recently and can definitely cause some booking anxiety for owners.  In my area the amount of inventory has had a high impact on off season bookings, with a tremendous amount of price pressure chasing bookings. Anecdotally I can see 8 vacation rentals from my personal residence and across the eight they have been booked less than 20 days since 1/1.   My personal opinion is that the demand is there for the high season and we will have normal occupancy for the summer/fall.  Just for reference I have 10 properties and all are 2BR and 1BR.

This is really good insight thank you! My property is 2 bed 2 bath with an additional bed in the upstairs loft. I thought it interesting that the home was already booking up for the autumn months, but nothing was really coming in for summer yet. Last minute pricing strategy is definitely something to consider and something I will discuss with my property manager. My house has seen decent occupancy since February when I purchased, right around 40%. So I guess anything during the offseason would be considered a bonus in this market. Thank you again for your response!!

[Mike Anderson]

Quote from @Erica Calella:

Quote from @Kyle H.:

@Erica Calella My market is specifically Bryson City and I would say the general sentiment here is that we are seeing a high level of last minute bookings across smaller properties with larger properties seeing more booked occupancy ahead of time.  This has been the trend recently and can definitely cause some booking anxiety for owners.  In my area the amount of inventory has had a high impact on off season bookings, with a tremendous amount of price pressure chasing bookings. Anecdotally I can see 8 vacation rentals from my personal residence and across the eight they have been booked less than 20 days since 1/1.   My personal opinion is that the demand is there for the high season and we will have normal occupancy for the summer/fall.  Just for reference I have 10 properties and all are 2BR and 1BR.

This is really good insight thank you! My property is 2 bed 2 bath with an additional bed in the upstairs loft. I thought it interesting that the home was already booking up for the autumn months, but nothing was really coming in for summer yet. Last minute pricing strategy is definitely something to consider and something I will discuss with my property manager. My house has seen decent occupancy since February when I purchased, right around 40%. So I guess anything during the offseason would be considered a bonus in this market. Thank you again for your response!!

 You need to make sure you are using a pricing tool. If you are already booking up for fall your prices for fall are too low. I live right close to WNC just minutes over the line in NC and the market is similar here. It's been slower this winter than previous winters seems like just the top rentals are busy though. It should pick up soon as we head into the main part of the season.

[Erica Calella]

Quote from @Mike Anderson:

Quote from @Erica Calella:

Quote from @Kyle H.:

@Erica Calella My market is specifically Bryson City and I would say the general sentiment here is that we are seeing a high level of last minute bookings across smaller properties with larger properties seeing more booked occupancy ahead of time.  This has been the trend recently and can definitely cause some booking anxiety for owners.  In my area the amount of inventory has had a high impact on off season bookings, with a tremendous amount of price pressure chasing bookings. Anecdotally I can see 8 vacation rentals from my personal residence and across the eight they have been booked less than 20 days since 1/1.   My personal opinion is that the demand is there for the high season and we will have normal occupancy for the summer/fall.  Just for reference I have 10 properties and all are 2BR and 1BR.

This is really good insight thank you! My property is 2 bed 2 bath with an additional bed in the upstairs loft. I thought it interesting that the home was already booking up for the autumn months, but nothing was really coming in for summer yet. Last minute pricing strategy is definitely something to consider and something I will discuss with my property manager. My house has seen decent occupancy since February when I purchased, right around 40%. So I guess anything during the offseason would be considered a bonus in this market. Thank you again for your response!!

 You need to make sure you are using a pricing tool. If you are already booking up for fall your prices for fall are too low. I live right close to WNC just minutes over the line in NC and the market is similar here. It's been slower this winter than previous winters seems like just the top rentals are busy though. It should pick up soon as we head into the main part of the season.

Okay, I will look into that! What's interesting is that the rentals for October were booked at a higher rate than the current nightly rate for July and August. I thought that was odd, but since I am new to the market I wasn't sure what peak demand season actually was. 

[Mitch Davidson]

@Erica Calella. In my experience the people that book further out are less likely to notice your place until you have 30 or so good reviews, super host status, etc. For that reason I think it's more critical for you than others to do whatever you can to stand out (ex: EV charger, arcade games, amazing photos, allowing dogs, etc.). Also, I would highly recommend building a market report for your property in PriceLabs ($10/mo). You'll be able to use the report to see how your competition is doing regarding bookings for the Summer, for example. You'll likely see that some (surely not all) of the folks that are pretty full for Summer are giving their place away and leaving money on the table. I just looked at a place like that yesterday (in Bryson City). Also, PriceLabs will do a fantastic job at pricing your place for you, surely much better than your property manager (unless of course they're using such a tool), if you also connect to their dynamic pricing tool.