All Forum Posts by: Alex Scattareggia

As far as the total sets you need it is really dependent on your turnover time and how long your average stay is.  For this conversation when I say turnover I mean washing everything and getting it replaced in the owners closet or whatever you use on site.

The longer the turnover time, or the shorter your average stay is you will need more sets just to reduce stress.  If you have longer stays or have same day turnover washing everything then you probably can get by on two sets.  

Having an owners closet that the guests cannot access helps with this greatly.  If you give guests access to unlimited towels they are going to use them all lol 

Good luck! 

Personal question so you´ll get my personal answer. 

Location! Always.

Airbnb vs. hotel I want to feel like I am in the community of where I am staying. So location dependent, but we would always want to be centrally located and be able to walk everywhere. 

I would recommend at least giving self management a go on your own in the beginning.  The information and experience you get can be invaluable, provided you have the time for it. 

You can pretty easily assign a $ value to your time in STR within the first few months if you track how much time you are spending on the business. Then weigh that against the cost of a PM over that same period and figure out what makes the most sense. Cheers, good luck!

Quote from @Barry Wong:

When I started renting my house on Airbnb & VRBO, I was unaware of the other rental platforms I could list my rental property.

I collected this list of rental property platforms, and I hope this helps someone who is just starting.

https://bit.ly/3QlFwmc

 Awesome.  This would have made my life easier starting. 

I thought I knew every platform out there but there's actually three there that I have never heard of.  Going to look at those.  Thanks.

Quote from @Travis Andres:

I’ve recently seen a couple of stories on social media about a so-called “crash“ with Airbnb bookings in several markets, so wondering if anyone who actually owns is seeing it firsthand?

In almost all of those statistic groups which purport to show negative STR numbers, overall revenue is up but the revenue per listing is down because there has been an influx of new listings over the last few years.

No drop on my end either. We are up 9% year over year in total revenue and up 3% in occupancy.  

Don´t believe the hype.  It is definitely harder to find a deal now post Covid, but they are definitely still out there. As in most business´ the best operators are going to make the majority of the money as things get tougher on the supply side, but the overall market on the demand side is still healthy.

Quote from @Tom Freestone:

I had a guest request a 25% discount on the stay. I respectfully declined and actually just copy and pasted what Julie posted as a reply with a little personalization ("The current price shows all available discounts."). They booked! It sounds like it will either work out great with this one or a troublesome guest.

I'm only in my 2nd month of operating our first STR. I have been sticking to the advice on the forums and definitely over anxious on getting the bookings. Just stayed the course and once we got our first three 5 star reviews on Airbnb 3 days ago it really seems like the flood gates are open. In 3 days we got 5 bookings. Just throwing it out there to the newbies. It is a grind but stay the course to reap the fruits you sow.

 Interesting bump on a 5 year old thread lol!  But yes, I think the customer has been trained to ask for a discount, you don´t ask you don´t get kind of idea. It used to bother me more and now just a polite no thanks response seems to generate bookings just as frequently as not. 

I like going back and reading these old threads because it puts the gloom and doom prognosticators in perspective.  Since I started this journey 11 years ago, people with more knowledge than I had have been telling me the industry is in decline and ¨you should have been here 5 years ago¨.  

Good perspective to sometimes go back a few years and see what people were saying. 

If you are going to go the PM route, I would always recommend local PM with good track record, already managing something similar to your property vs. one of the bigger providers (Evolve)

You can absolutely do it on your own, just understand that you are taking on a second job which will require some work no matter how much automation you put in.  

Thank you for your service, and good luck!

If you are willing to accept the risk that comes with not having total control over your investment strategy; make sure you have a pivot to some other strategy because the STR part of it can go away with one HOA vote. 

I think that's always a valuable strategy but tenfold if investing in an HOA controlled community.

Quote from @Ramires Lima Barreto:

@Alex Scattareggia thanks for your msg. You are right. Its a false profile. 

This is the profile that got in touch with me 

https://instagram.com/_melefaante6_

And the true profile:

https://www.instagram.com/melefante6/

I have all the screenshots and the MoU that he suggested to me. I will not pay him, but for sure he will get money from other people.

Happy you figured it out. 

Just like @Michael Baum said above, there are so many free tools at your disposal including forums like this. 

I would be a little leery about shelling out 10k or any amount for a course at this time. If the STR market does what a lot of people think it is going to do, that 10k would be better spent on your first deal IMO. Good luck!

Quote from @Martin Guerrero:

Thank you @everyone. I ended up using a lease specific to my state in Wisconsin. Mandatory 1x per month cleaning and do screening on tenants. Have our first MTR booking October through January :) and filling in the rest with a mix of STR and MTR.

Congrats, that's an awesome booking.  If you don´t mind me asking where did the booking originate from?  Did you have a min/max stay set?