All Forum Posts by: Benjamin Vail

When I first started with just a couple houses, one of my favorite parts was going in after a group checked out, and finding a half a case of un-opened cold beers in the fridge. I called them AirBnBeers. I  had a ritual where I would randomly choose one un-suspecting friend around town, and drop the beers off on their porch. Spread the love around! 

FurnishedFinder.com

30daystays.com

Homad.com

There are so many of these popping up.....

@Collin Hays - In Ohio (and every other state I know of), you must be a licensed broker to collect any amount of a fee from managing rental property owned by someone else. Same with collecting a commission (or any fee) from the sale of property owned by someone else. If you are an owner of the property, it is not illegal. To answer your question, having a brokers license "qualifies" someone to manage property owned by someone else because it makes it a legally permissible action. 

Does having a brokers license make someone "better" at managing a rental property? (that is a whole separate question!)

The reason these laws exists, is actually exemplified by the OP. It is also illegal to hold clients money in an account that earns any interest, or in an account that you co-mingle with any other funds (such as operating expenses). If one were a licensed broker, they would learn about these laws, and what is needed to avoid breaking them. 

Great advice by @Account Closed! I was going to suggest a paid software that we have used for this before called Latchel. It is actually free for emergency reported issues, and gets expensive if you want them to manage non-emergency reported issues. But this is something that should be covered by your property manager. I agree with the other posts that if you pay a property manager a fee, this should be included in their service.

However, if it is not included in their service for whatever reason, then I would try the Google form method that @Nicky mentioned. 

The theory of getting a signed lease to cover the mortgage is a solid one. I have seen it done that in the past successfully, and then ran Airbnb out of the leased unit. If you are doing that though, you probably want to have the lease be with someone other than you because you are married to the owner. You should look for a friend or a family member who could sign the lease with your wife. Then get a second lease with that friend or family member that allows you to do short term rentals. As long as the second lease is slightly higher than the first lease amount, I believe this is a legal arrangement. We call this the “straw lease” method. 

@Luke Carl - Yes, once you hit rockstar status, DTI does not matter. But we all got to get a few properties under our belt to achieve rockstar status!!

@Nathan Speary, if you are a licensed Property manager (which it sounds like you are not), then there are laws about the where the money can be held, and can’t be held. If you are not licensed, than what you are doing is illegal in most states. However unfortunately 99% of people doing what you are doing, are also doing it illegally. My best advice is get a brokers license, or an agent license and work for a PM Brokerage. Since that is likely not in the cards, My next-best (non-legal) advice is to have the money sent to the owners directly, and then invoice them. 

@Ken Latchers - why do you even take the time to post? You don’t read the OP, you just spit out the same sentiment on every thread that we all have heard so many times from you guys like a broken record. 

Have you used Smartbnb before? Their metrics product works great for what you are describing! 

@Yankel Raskin i’m sorry you have gotten so much bad advice and naysayers responding this far. There are data websites that will give you the occupancy rates and average nightly rates of booked reservations for all the other Airbnb properties in any area you are looking for. Check out AirDNA.co 

Seeing the calendars of other Airbnb’s and how many Booking is a really in-accurate way of determining how many nights they end up getting booked. With lots of B&Bs, there are lots of bookings that come in last minute, and your friends apartment could actually still be 60 - 90% booked, but you would not know that by looking at the future availability calendar. In my market, 50% of all reservations are made within 6 days of check-in. Most of my calendars look empty, but I am usually around 70% occupied when you look back at the past bookings. 

Please do check that the HOA allows STR. Most don't.

@David Greiner sorry to hear that you are facing this battle. We had a similar fight in Columbus Ohio a year ago. I, and a few other hosts were successful in changing the opposition in Columbus towards being STR friendly. They were originally proposing a ban on non-owner occupied rentals, and a cap on only running one short term rental from your primary residence. After a year long battle, on July 30, 2018 Columbus city Council passed legislation that allows non-owner occupied permit holders to operate 365 days a year, and own and operate as many short term rentals as they want. It CAN be done!

I have networked with And worked with many other advocates for STR regulations in many other cities across the US at this point. The number one most successful tactic that we used and that I have seen used in other cities is to create a nonprofit organization of short term rental hosts. Include all hosts, not just investors or owner occupied hosts. Once that group is formed, then it is much easier to negotiate with the opposition. they will actually give you a seat at the table. It is also much easier to get support from Airbnb, Expedia/HOmeAway, and other interested parties.

I would be happy to connect you with the rep from Airbnb that covers our region, as well as other contacts that could be helpful in your battle. Feel free to shoot me a message. 

Also, don’t listen to all of the “expert” naysayers above,(@Luke Carl) is just lucky that they work in vacation markets instead of urban markets where regulations are more of an issue. @Mark Miles, if you don't think anyone rents a STR house in Ohio in November, I would kindly like to point out that my business Airbnb payout in November alone was $118,836. Last 12 months in Ohio was $1.1m.

@Isaac Anderson Most people that own long-term rentals have at least considered hiring a long-term rental property manager at some point. What you are offering them now is that service but in a new/different format. What you need to overcome is all the objections they had before to a property manager, (loss of control, loss of revenue) as well as new objections to the short term rental business (“risk”). 

I would agree with @Peter Lohmann, it is illegal to collect a fee for renting out property owned by someone else, unless you are working as a licensed agent or a licensed broker in Ohio. So when a property owner is approached by an unlicensed individual there is the added layer of apprehension and fear of risk involved. It is not that your goal can’t be done, but you need to have everything airtight to overcome those objections!