All Forum Posts by: Avery Carl

I get about 50/50 bookings from Homeaway/Airbnb...but I will mention (maybe you have better experiences) I have bought several properties from owners who have listed their properties with Evolve who have either lost money or broken even so decided to sell, that I have been able to cash flow upwards of 3% per month self managing for short term.  Also, that "voodoo" that Evolve did on your property...every time I give a call to either Airbnb or Vrbo and ask how I can improve my listing...it somehow magically moves up in the search page. That voodoo is available to all hosts, so keep an eye on what you could actually make monthly just by getting notifications on your phone!  I have never seen Evolve do anywhere near the numbers that an on top of it host can do on their own! Unless of course you have so many that it's impossible to keep up with without outsourcing.  That's a different story. Cheers!  Just don't want you to spend money where it's not warranted.

My real estate investing started going well enough last year for me to quit my corporate job, yay! I already had my real estate license for my own investing purposes, but I do a lot of agent work with my investment connections.  I work for Keller Williams, and was recommended for a high production team within the company because I had been doing so well.

Let me preface with I never wanted to join a team, but I wanted to see what it was like and oh did they promise me the world!  So I joined. Fast forward 2 weeks and I have already gotten off the team because it's just driving to the office to make cold calls. Not why I quit my corporate job! 

Yesterday I had a closing and today I was hit with an email that I owe them a commission split on deals I had under contract from BEFORE I joined the team.  I'm not sure if there's any way I can fight this since I signed a contract, but the agreement dates on the deals are from a week before the contract date, and they are taking a hefty amount of money.  Needless to say, I am furious.  This is an expensive learning experience.  Just wanted to see if any other agents out there had problems like this, and if you have any advice for how to fight it, although I know it's probably a losing battle.

Hey there @Ken Dillard! I have 5 investment properties in the Smokies (both Pigeon Forge and Gatlinburg areas), and I find deals for investment clients out there regularly.  I've got quite a few under contract currently actually.  Prices are DEFINITELY on the rise in the entire area, but you are correct: Gatlinburg proper is not the place to buy (right now).  They are selling a lot of "slabs" in Gatlinburg: the remaining foundation of the cabins that burnt down for good prices, but I would steer clear.  A lot of heat damage occurred and it's very hard to tell until you've built.   Not to mention, if you buy in an area that is being rebuilt, your renters are going to hear construction for at least a year.  Something else to consider when buying raw land out there is that 90% of the time you will have to drill a well, which will run you 25k IF they hit water the first time.  Construction prices are currently around $175/square foot, but you can buy an existing cabin for much less (that already has a well).  Once you factor in the well costs, investment/immediate cash flow wise it makes the most sense to buy an existing one.  I manage all of my own properties, and I work as an agent out there as well so if anyone is interested, feel free to reach out.  I can talk all day about Smokies investing!

@Ariel Smith Also, I should add that we don't make it a "rule" we just "ask" because it would help out the housekeeper. Most people are super respectful about that.  If they don't do it then it's just annoying to the housekeeper and that's it. We don't hunt people down over it. :)

@Ariel Smith I have 5 properties in a very tourist heavy vacation area.  The cleaning crews/housekeepers/what have you all charge about the same rate to do the turns in between guests.  They each have at least 5 properties usually but often many more, (if they are good) and often have several turns in the area to do each day (there is only a 5 hour window between check out and check in times usually), and they all ask that the beds be stripped and the dishwasher run so that they do not have to waste their time waiting on the dishes to go through so that they can put the dishes up and get to the next property before check-in.

Pretty much all of the short term rentals in the area have this checkout procedure, even the ones with the large property management companies.  The cleaning fee pays obviously for the cleaners time, supplies, and for her taking/washing the laundry, and dealing with the draining/refilling/sanitizing of the hot tub on each turn.  

We live 4 hours away so we have to outsource the cleaning, which is the cleaning fee that the renters pay.  And when I say "push-back" with 5 properties and over a year of renting them all, I have had only 2 guests complain. Both were 19-20 and both had pretty much trashed the place.

@Andrew Wong No joke!  @Lucas Carl had a guest of ours text him last week asking why the fireplace would not work (we turn the gas line to it off in the summer). It was 94 degrees outside and they wanted to turn on the fireplace!

I don't know if your property has a fireplace, but to add to @Michael Greenberg's set of rules, which is very similar to our set of rules, we add "we ask that you please do not run the fireplace and the air conditioner at the same time" Because that costs us approximately 1 million dollars in electric bills.

We have the same checkout procedure: strip the beds and put sheets/towels by the laundry, run the dishwasher, take the trash to the outside can. We have gotten pushback after checkout a time or two (mostly from young guests, -__- ) so we word our checkout procedure as "please complete our quick 3 step checkout procedure to help our housekeeper, Monica, quickly prepare for the next guest." I have found that humanizing the checkout procedure is less irritating to those guests who believe they should not have to clean up after themselves.

@Andrew Wong the interesting part is, between our 5 and the people that we know that all have places within 15 miles of ours (probably 15 total properties), it's really half and half on who gets all airbnb and who gets all Homeaway.  I have been trying come to a conclusion on the reason for several months! They are all pretty comparable properties.

@Ken Dillard neighbors are definitely a factor, but I often wonder if all of the "neighbors complaining to the city" that we have been reading about in the news is actually THAT high volume, or if it's the hotel lobbyists working on the city...

@John Underwood your response prompts another question: we, and most of the short term rental owners that we know list on both airbnb and homeaway.  However, every single one of them (including us), say they almost exclusively get bookings from one and not the other.  We get 96% of bookings from Airbnb, while our colleague gets 96% of his bookings from VRBO.  Anyone have any insight or tips to even it out?