All Forum Posts by: Alton Johnson

 Thanks a lot. I believe you're right too - someone from VRBO reached out to schedule a call not too long ago, but I haven't been successful with getting that set up. I'm going to follow up with them on that.

My VRBO listing is https://www.vrbo.com/3760455. Going to update the original post. Thanks a lot for that forum link too. Going to check that out!

 Gotcha. Sounds good. Thanks a lot!

Thanks a lot. Unfortunately I can't use the boost option yet because I'm not a Premiere Host. I did check out the Market Maker feature though, and I feel like it's somewhat OK. For me, I can see that the searches in my area are 1/3rd of what it was last year, but the booked properties have a much higher rate than I do. The opportunities are suggesting me to bring the rates even further down, even though the strategy is set about mid-way in the revenue range.

I did make a few adjustments to the pricing though, so I'm curious to see if the search impressions move around at all.

So I take it that VRBO actually doesn't boost new properties by a little bit automatically?

I'm a new host who started hosting about two months ago, and I recently listed my property on both Airbnb and VRBO, approximately a month ago. During this time, I've had 1 booking on VRBO and 3 on Airbnb. The VRBO guest left a 5-star rating, and on Airbnb, I have one 5-star rating with another on the way.

However, I've noticed something that has raised some concerns, and I'm not sure if it's specific to VRBO or related to my listing. While I'm aware that Airbnb tends to boost new listings, I'm uncertain about how VRBO works in this regard. Here's the issue: Airbnb is showing 14.3k search impressions between December 13th and today, whereas VRBO only shows 232 in the last 30 days.

Is this level of search visibility normal, even for new listings, on VRBO, or could there be something potentially wrong with my listing on the platform?

Sounds great. Thanks a lot for the feedback! In your opinion, is there anything that you would have a VA doing given my scenario? All I can think of is basically continuously researching more ways to improve our chances of success; however, I'm not sure if that's too much to ask for a VA tbh. I don't want to underestimate a VA, but also don't want to overestimate either. My VA in my other business has done well, but only after given extremely specific tasks and essentially a playbook.

I recently acquired a single short-term rental (STR) property, and so far, it's been a smooth journey with four successful guest stays. During this time, I've managed the property efficiently, coordinating with my cleaner, restocking supplies, and addressing the occasional guest inquiry.

Initially, I enlisted the support of a virtual assistant (VA) from my other business to assist with tasks such as compiling event lists, researching property management system (PMS) tools, and providing general assistance while I focused on my other business. However, as the initial tasks have been completed, I'm now questioning whether continuing with a VA is necessary.

I'm interested in hearing from fellow members who have experience using a VA for a single STR property. For those of you who have a VA in a similar situation, what daily tasks do they handle to support your STR business?

Any thoughts here would be greatly appreciated!

Any clue on how much they charge? I have a VA that I was looking to move away from, but not sure if it's cheaper or more expensive to go with STR Secrets VA. Sounds interesting though.

Hi there. We just acquired a cabin in Blue Ridge from owners who previously used it for short term rentals and now we've got our first guest. Unfortunately, today (Christmas), TMC Electric had an outage, and of course we're freaking out because this obviously sucks and will likely affect our rating. It appears that there's just a little bit of rain going on, but nothing crazy. 

That being said, the questions that I have here are:

1. Does the Blue Ridge/Epworth area experience outages quite often?

2. Is a backup generator worth it for a STR in this area?

Thanks for any input.

Gotcha. Thanks a lot!! This is great information @Michael Baum!

First time STR owner here and trying to apply for a lodging certificate. One of the things that just came up in a conversation with Debbie is that they wanted to see what information we're displaying to the guests, such as gun laws, noise ordinances, nearest hospitals, etc. Unfortunately I wasn't able to quite get the information I was looking for in the time on the call, so I'm hoping someone here could chime in.

When applying for a lodging certificate, does anyone know what exact document they're looking for here? Is it the Airbnb listing or another document? If it's the Airbnb listing, I'm a little confused on why we would have to quote laws in the listing -- I feel like there's obviously a misunderstanding somewhere here. The Blue Ridge STVR Ordinance covers everything very clearly, but I'm still not sure what exactly I'm supposed to provide.

Any thoughts?