All Forum Posts by: Alyssa Dyer

@Tre Irvin great to hear that you're re-dedicating to make a move! My right-hand works with out-of-state investors every day! She spends a lot of time on the phone overviewing the market so that new investors leave the conversation with a strong understanding of what it looks like to invest here. She overviews general market information, return expectations per strategy and what it looks like in step by step terms to buy and manage. Some investors want to dig even deeper and understand how to run their own numbers in our market while some just want access to a constant stream of evaluated deals in order to easily compare our market to the next. Feel free to reach out to her! @Kiera Underwood

I and the investors I work with are doing well with short-term rentals in Oklahoma City. With turnkey condition, you can furnish a 3 bed 2 bath for ~20k. Property management designs, gets approval through the city and then of course does the management throughout ownership. You can snag single-family homes that are ready to go at the 200k price point in great neighborhoods easily here. With only ~1% property taxes annually it makes the STR return more obvious than other markets. For the 20th biggest city in the US it's still under the radar so there's some peace of mind from a competition standpoint.

 @Naeem Khan echoing Doug's statement. I and the investors I advise do well in Oklahoma City. My right hand @Kiera Underwood would be happy to overview the market for you if you're wanting some information that you could take to compare against other markets. 

 @Jenni Vega Wanted to chime in on the traveling for leisure note. I'm also a super host and advisor to people wanting to start a short-term rental portfolio in Oklahoma City. Although we're more densely populated with about a million in the metro area than where you likely own in OK, we also have a low vacancy rate and very few of our occupants are on vacation. There's so much medical traffic in Oklahoma City with the biggest and best hospital in the state. Work travel is a common denominator with our guests. Could that be impacted by the downturn? Of course! But I agree that it's not as obvious or straightforward as downturn=less vacations=don't position properties as short term rentals.

 Just echoing what you mentioned. We love priceless for STRs. Our MTRs require more manual work to get the pricing right. I made a couple errors early on and guests got a couple bookings for way too low. But lesson learned. We seem to be hitting a sweet spot now by manually checking/modifying settings. I'd love to know if someone else has a solution that's working for them.

I swapped to PriceLabs a couple months ago. I didn’t really want to spend money when airbnb has a free smart pricing option built in but they offer a free trial.

Revenue increased from the free trial on PriceLabs. I signed up when the trial was over because they don’t require a contract. Revenue stayed higher so I’ve continued to use it. It’s not a magic bullet and I didn’t make a substantial amount more right away.

It’s not a one and done, every Sunday night I spend 5-10 minutes and adjust settings to keep it dialed into the market. But I was constantly looking at airbnb pricing so that doesn’t bug me.

I recommend it.

I swapped to PriceLabs a couple months ago. I was hesitant, I didn’t really want to spend money when airbnb has a free smart pricing option built in. 

I did the free trial on PriceLabs and revenue increased. I signed up when the trial was over because they don’t require a contract. Revenue stayed higher so I’ve continued to use it. It’s not a magic bullet and I didn’t make a substantial amount more right away.

It’s not a one and done, every Sunday night I spend 5-10 minutes and adjust settings to keep it dialed into the market. But I was constantly looking at airbnb pricing so that doesn’t bug me. 

I recommend it.

I swapped to PriceLabs a couple months ago. I was hesitant, I didn’t really want to spend money when airbnb has a free smart pricing option built in. Similar to you, I also used airbnb’s promos. 

I did the free trial on PriceLabs and revenue had a small uptick. I decided to sign up when the trial was over because they don’t require a long term contract. Revenue stayed high (and increasing) so I’ve continued to use it. It’s not a magic bullet and I didn’t make A TON more right away.

I log in every Sunday night for 5-10 minutes and adjust settings slightly to keep it dialed into the market. So it’s not a one and done. But I was constantly looking at airbnb pricing so that doesn’t bug me. 

You mentioned airbnb still running promos and it combining with PriceLabs. Totally true. I had that bite me on a couple long term stays where discounts were layered. Not a big deal and easy to correct. But you might considering adding some restrictions while you’re getting used to the changes. 

Let me know if you have any specific questions, I'm happy to help if I can!

I swapped to PriceLabs a couple months ago. I was hesitant, I didn’t really want to spend money when airbnb has a free smart pricing option built in. I did their free trial and revenue had a small uptick. I decided to sign up when the trial was over because they don’t require a long term contract or anything. Revenue has stayed high (and increasing) for the properties so I’ve continued to use it

it’s not a magic bullet or anything. I didn’t make A TON more right away or anything. and what everyone has said about having to stay on top of it is true. I log in every Sunday night for 5-10 minutes and adjust settings slightly to keep it dialed into the market.

I’d say if you’re pretty committed to self managing you *can* do it.
1. set expectations around response times in your listing or consider hiring a VA for guest responses.
2. you need a cleaning person and a backup cleaning person and a backup for your backup. If you don’t have that, I’d block out 1-2 days between bookings so you have time to scramble when your cleaning person inevitably bails on you last minute.
3. you need a handyman. Get on Angie’s List or Task Rabbit or Facebook and make some good contacts.
4. you need a really great checklist for your cleaning person and an easy way for them to report back to you. Sounds like you’re looking into PMS so that’ll handle this.
5. communicate well and remember this is new territory for everyone. You have to work WITH your team, not against them.

We use PriceLabs for dynamic pricing. I was hesitant to spend the money since airbnb has their own free smart pricing but I have noticed a pretty big increase in monthly revenue.