All Forum Posts by: Andre Galaviz

We have a 3/2 in Lakewood, CO., 12 minutes west of downtown Denver. We have had everything from seasonal workers, to relocating families, local area displacements (floods, pipe damages, etc.), visiting families and all that. We MTR this unit because of city requirements. We also live in the basement of this (split into an up/down duplex 11/2022. We're getting ready to rent it out via Airbnb and Furnished Finder. I see a lot of traffic on FF for 2/1s, so we hope that will be really good to also MTR, or even LTR. 

I agree with what @John Underwood said about checking your market. Every market is different. I use AirDNA as well as Pricelabs to do some of my research, but I also search Airbnb and FF to see what's being offered. Good luck! Sounds like you got some great opportunity!

Hey all, I am wondering if anyone can shed some light on something I just noticed this month when a booking fell through. 

We have our listing in Lakewood, CO set for 30-day minimum stay and do MTR bookings on Airbnb and Furnished Finder. We are not pursuing a license on this property to do STR because we plan on moving within the year (hopefully within months!) and Lakewood allows STR licenses on primary residence only.

Last year, I had a 14-day gap that I filled with a 7-day booking. I was able to switch the listing from 30-day minimum, to 7-day minimum and I got a quick 7-day booking. This was done BEFORE the city had a process to permit STRs. Fast forward to this month, and I had a chance to book 32 days, but the guest dragged her feet on booking and the days dwindled down below 30 days and the Airbnb system wouldn't let me change the minimum stay. It would show that it changed it, but then the setting would change back. 

I assume this is now a default that Airbnb has set that requires you to have a license, or you are automatically defaulted to 30-day stays. 
Does anyone know how this works? I also tried to send a "Special Offer," but I was never able to confirm the guest got it because she backed out.

Thanks in advance for any shared insights!

~Andre

 Thanks! This is helpful. Being unincorporated, it seems tricky to determine whether the same rules as JeffCo apply. Now that the planning dept. is back to work, I'll invest some time in checking and update here for other's benefit. 

My wife and I are looking at a property in unincorporated Jefferson County, Colorado that could work out for us as a house hack + STR. I've Googled and now that we are past New Year holiday, I will call as well, but wondering if anyone has property there that they are using as both primary and STR. One result showed that it's not permitted and another, showed that it is with permission and approval from a group. Anyone know more? TIA!

 Well said. MTR is definitely a hospitality centered "job." Literally five-star service to renters and guests, for sure. It is indeed the little things! We have had several relocation families over this past year - then seasonal workers, then visiting families, then remodeling locals. It's the variety that makes it fun - and you sound like the kind of host that also sent out Holiday messages, cards, or the like. :)

My wife and I just split a ranch style home into two units. We have a 3/2 upstairs with front door access, which we have rented via Airbnb and Furnished Finder. and a 2/2 downstairs with garage access, which we are living in currently. Our plan is to move out and repeat this process. The thing we had to be mindful of (we live in Colorado) was the number of unrelated occupants. Luckily our area and the area we are moving to next allows five unrelated people to live in the same dwelling. 

I would say talking with our contractor opened our minds a lot. We learned that we could do a lot more than we thought we could with the downstairs space and that was a game changer for us! Our lower level remodel is awesome, but now we can't wait to do something similar in a new area!

I wanted to refresh this post to share my recent experience with others who might otherwise suffer the same fate. I will not use booking.com after the experience my dad just had. First booking after signing up, he lost $1,383.62, which was the entire stay from a horrible scammer. Booking.com has yet to help my dad in any way. It's been brush off service and passing him around between "Partner" services and "Customer" service. Both have essentially told him he could have gotten the credit card details, and chose direct payment. Neither of those features are available to new "partners," so my dad didn't have enough time to react once he figured out that he had to actually collect payment directly from the scammer, who also had an excuse the last three days she was staying at his home with about 10 people (was  supposed to be 6) going in and out of his place. Fail #1, platform is not intuitive and doesn't tell new hosts that there is a "trusted partner" period where PAST verifying your property, you still have to jump through hoops to actually set up direct payments. Fail #2, Although booking will capture info about the guest who was "new" to the platform, they will not share that info, instead the "call them on your behalf and ask that they pay their bill." Let's hold out breath - it's been 3+ weeks so far! Fail #3, Their customer service and Partner support is full of "Sorry this happened, but we won't do anything for you" reps. Not helpful to have the issues acknowledged, if there's no resolution. 
Bottom line, they side with a scammers and for the "benefit" of being on their site, you get to waste more time than it's worth, dealing with their confusing set up. Run, don't walk away!

 I actually searched for any comments here about Booking.com. I just had a horrible experience with them that (so far) has resulted in a $3,300 loss for my Dad, who set up with them at my suggestion - what a bad mistake. I just set up Price Labs and noticed that Booking.com allows hosts, so suggested to my dad who was trying to get more bookings. Their "Partner" services are nonexistent. When you finally figure out how to contact them, they are quick to point out that they are not responsible for unpaid stays, or property damage. So some unknown lady got away with a free 6 day stay and items from my dad's house and storage shed. 
I'm curious to know if anyone has advice on how to recoup losses. I've never experienced this kind of "hit and run" and the hosting platform offers zero help. 
 

 Great to know! I got Price Labs and didn't realize it is better used for STRs! Are you still looking for software, or has your manual pricing system work well enough for you? Curious about this as we are on our first MTR.