Purchasing an existing Airbnb with future bookings

[Thu Pham]

Hi all! 

I am going into escrow for my first STR purchase (yay!) that is an existing Airbnb with future bookings into the year already. Ideally, I would prefer to capture their existing bookings after closing, by directing existing bookings to my new listing, but there are some dependencies/uncertainties I'm working through and would appreciate any advice or shared experiences here.

I am trying to decide 1/ if I want to purchase their existing furniture so I can start operating as soon as I get the permit from the city, and 2/ what to do with their future bookings. 

The main dependency here is that the STR permit with city takes up to 3 months, and if it does take that long, then I would prefer to decorate and furnish the bnb how I would like to. If it is faster than that, then I could potentially miss out on available days trying to get my place up and running.

The property is in the Joshua Tree market so the next couple of months is the tail end of peak season and will start to slow going into April/May, so I'd like to be ready to operate as soon as possible to capture max revenue before summer. 

Has anyone purchase an existing STR before, and how did you handle furnishing/bookings and how did it turn out? Looking forward to hearing your thoughts here and thank you in advance!