All Forum Posts by: Andrew Steffens

Hey Josh - this sounds like a case of bad luck.  I think about 60 of our 65 units are pet friendly.  We have had similar issues (and some even slightly worse) but never bad enough to make us reconsider our policies.  $75 seems a little low, we are at $150.  This could be market dependent but maybe charge slightly more to help cover extra cleaning and wear and tear.  About 40% of our guests in pet friendly units bring pets so it is not only a revenue source, it is an occupancy getter too.

 Thats awesome! Let me know if you need anything at all

This should be in the classifieds section, not in the forums.

We used to use Guesty but left for Streamline specifically because of bad accounting.  I have heard it is better but I would not know.  I am on this forum everyday and have only heard Guesty mentioned maybe 3 times, so I do not think you will get an answer here.  I would recommend you contact Guesty support or join a Guesty specific forum (maybe Facebook) for better assistance.

I think the word you used EXTRAORDINARY meaning EXTRA ORDINARY is key, as yes extraordinary is over and we are now firmly in ORDINARY territory.  There are exceptional properties and exceptional markets but I think the market has matured and things are more of a normalized returns part of the cycle.

I think each investment could be put into a separate LLC with an operating agreement. You will need an attorney for this, and in general. If you open a fund you will be possibly looking at SEC rules and filings that you touched on.

Kudos on investing in Seminole, that is my bread and butter as an STR Manager. Are you currently self managing? If you keep acquiring you will likely need a manager to scale if you have a W2 Job I think?

If I were you I would join an Atlanta STR Facebook group and ask for suggestions from them, and ask them for examples.

I now offer Florida wide limited service property management, everything I do for full service clients with the exception of housekeeping and maintenance management.  Happy to discuss details further if you are still in need!

I have 4 Phillipines based "Front Desk Agents". All of them speak great English (one actually grew up in CA) and all of them have been with me for 4+ years and work for me exclusively. All of them also had hospitality experience, some had STR experience. We have local support during business hours and then local support on call, but they are my front line for messages and the phones after hours and weekends.

In my opinion they work harder and are more conscientious then US workers I could hire for 2-3x the cost.  They are almost never late or call out.  When they do its for legit issues, I can tell they feel really bad about it, and try to make it up in any way they can.

Their culture is different and they are only as good as they are trained, so SOPs are very important.  On top of their front desk duties they do admin tasks for the other departments on down time.

I think adding some to your team can be very beneficial but just like any other hire you have to find the right one and train them properly or you will probably not achieve optimal results.

Something to consider, is the stigmatization of the area.  I am mainly in Tampa metro but I have some rental under management in Naples/Ft Myers.  That area performed rather well but has struggled since Ian in 2021.  The news showed the destruction over and over and many people moved their destination East to South FL or North to Tampa area.  It has never gone back to how it was before the storm.

In 2024 with Helene, Tampa area was hit hard by surge.  Luckily for my area the news showed some destruction but shifted its focus to NC where it was much worse.  Even today they are still showing the slow recovery.  The Tampa market is better this spring than last and my theory is the lack of news coverage, fast recovery and good PR by local chamber of commerce saved the day here.  I suspect NC will take years to return to where it was and may never reach pre hurricane tourism numbers.