Vacation Rental Slow Down? What Gives?!

[Alexander Krasne]

I imagine this topic has been discussed multiple times on this forum... so, what is one more?

My wife and I have an AirBnb we host out of our house.  It is a completely separate 2 br/ 1 ba apartment in a very touristy area (if anyone knows Asheville then you get it).  Anyways, we had a lot of very consistent bookings for the first few months and have great reviews (17 five stars, and achieved SuperHost Status).  We also got professional photographs etc.  Lately it feels like there's been a big slow down.  We use BeyondPricing to help adjust rates.  

According to the data out there it seems like maybe its just a combo of the down season and also a glut in the market (around the holidays there was a 50% vacancy rate).  We have not expanded beyond AirBnb to VRBO or other vacation sites yet.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated.  I would love to know what other people in similar situations have done!

[Paul Sandhu]

My wife and I have 23 STRs in this town that we rent to travelling refinery workers.  Scary looking burly guys with neck tats.  The work that they do is not predictable.  Therefore, their occupancy of our STRs is not predictable.  But it's good money, but it is not steady money.  We could convert our STRs into conventional LTRs and make steady money.  But the steady money would not be good money.

That's the price you pay for having good money.  It's not steady money.  

If you or I could figure out a way to make good steady money with STRs, we'd be closer to becoming multimillionaires.