All Forum Posts by: Andrew Steffens

We managed for a client (who since moved here and no self manages).  He paid $760,000 in 2020 (now worth in the $1M range) and in the year we managed grossed $260,000.  It is not impossible to still hit those numbers here (Tampa area beaches, FL).

 As far as I know you are not able to seller finance.  If you quitclaim that can trigger the acceleration clause and/or due on sale clause, unless your mortgage is assumable.  Also if you were to quitclaim you would no longer be the legal owner which means whoever new owner is, would likely have to then apply for the permit you were mentioning.  You could look at lease optioning...get some cash out, potentially cash flow and stabilize it...

 Do you own the property free and clear? If so (and my experience is in FL so may vary) you would still want to close with a title company and they (or an attorney) can prepare the deed and you would have a promissory note and a first position lien on the property.

As ex-Army Infantry/Drill Sergeant it is whiny guests.  I know it comes with the territory and we do 300-500 reservations per month so the law of averages apply but people demanding a 50% refund because the wifi went out for 2 hours after a Florida summer thunderstorm and then trashing your review because they did not get their unreasonable request granted is the worst.  Knowing this is my weak spot (customer service to unreasonable guests) I hired department managers from the hotel world who were already trained to deal with this type of thing. 

 We have had some success with the following:

- Make a spreadsheet with all of your bookings.  They all give you a phone number for the guest and you can use tools like Twilio to build text campaigns to past guests.  All OTA's markup one way or the other so they will get an automatic discount booking direct.

- VRBO and a few other OTA's do give you email addresses, so you can build an email campaign as well.

- StayFI allows you to make  a login portal to your WiFi similar to hotels.  All they need to do to access the wifi is provide email.  It captures and stores this info.  This is good as one reservation on a larger house may have 6-8 or more adult guests that access wifi so you can market to them as well.

- Leaving literature on the kitchen counter encountering booking direct next time.

- Using SEO to push your direct booking site.  A lot of guests have wised up recently to the 10-15% service fees and are seeking direct bookings.

I hope you find this useful!

We have offshored our reservations department and have them assisting with reservations related administrative tasks but I believe you will still be extremely involved in the day to day without a PM company. If you are interested Cyberbacker is a company that can assist with overseas VA.

This is a really tough question because the STR market continues to proliferate (market depending). Here in FL there are was/is an explosion of new units coming online but a lot of the amateurs have and will weed themselves out and demand has been so far pacing the supply. The old rules still apply, having a good location and a quality product (at least in my market) means you will continue to do well.

 I would recommend using AirDNA to assist in analyzing your market.  They do not discern themselves with why each person rents (i.e. business or personal) and I do not think you should either.  You can just make your unit more business friendly to capture that market segment.

 This price seems fair - many of our designers we have worked with charge around $2-3 per sqft.  We asked for that model as opposed to charging a premium on items bought to not enrich them to spend more.

 Highly recommend having an attorney assist in each state to make sure you are not exposing yourself.  You are managing expensive assets on behalf of clients with a range of personality types.