All Forum Posts by: Bonnie Low

 I don't use an application. I start with a conversation with the person to understand what they're looking for and whether or not my property is a good fit for them. If that checks out, we do the background check next and so on as I described before. And yes, I require every person over the age of 18 who will be staying in the house to go through the background check and be a signer on the lease.

 Thank you for taking this seriously!

 Yep, we see it ALL the time. It's literally copy and paste.

There are lots of FB pages dedicated to vacation rentals for sale. Here's one: https://www.facebook.com/groups/2030179357267062 This is nationwide so you'd have to filter for FL or just put out a request. You may also find a page more specific if you search STR for sale & Florida as keywords. I'm seeing LOTs of FL and Smoky Mountain properties coming up for sale lately.

I don't know what you mean by your trust account, but I use Baselane to manage my LTRs, MTRs and STR. Baselane is a banking and bookkeeping platform build specifically for real estate investors by real estate investors so I find that it provides everything I need and nothing I don't. It's not a property management system. It is for banking and bookkeeping specifically. You can link it to your external accounts if you have them, open new accounts quickly and easily through Baselane's partner bank Thread. You can create sub-accounts for each property and create virtual credit cards you can assign for use with certain properties or with certain providers like your cleaners or handyman. The best part about it is it's easy to tag your transactions for each property with categories that sync to your Schedule E for taxes, making tax prep super easy. It sounds like just what you're asking for.

Hi, Summer. Here are a few brief answers to some of your questions. This is just what I do so it may or may not work for you. I would call at least one prior landlord reference but you may find they don't respond so you may need to call a few. For travel medical professionals I will accept a copy of their fully executed contract in lieu of pay stubs because their prior pay stubs may be totally different than their current contracted rate. 

If you're renting to multiple individuals for the same time period they should all pass the background check and all be signers of the lease. I don't charge an application fee but I do have the tenant pay for their background check. 

For pet deposit, you'll need to discuss with them what their plans are for the pet when they're gone. Ideally, they're either going to pet day care or have a pet walker come in to relieve them during the day. But some people do leave them in a fenced yard or even in the home. It just depends on what you're comfortable allowing. Service animals are not a red flag in my book.

Rent is always due the 1st day of the month and late fees apply by the 3rd. Guests are responsible for moving trash and recyling bins to/from the curb and that is spelled out in the lease. 

hard to say how many pages the typical MTR lease is. Use a state-specific lease and feave everything in there so long as it applies. You can add clauses, like how to handle garbage and where parking is allowed, but don't take out anything relevant in your state specific lease. I use Baselane's partner Rocket Lawyer to create the lease but I've used Keycheck and Avail before and they're all very similar.

Hi, Joseph. You're off to a great start between your 4-plex and what you've already saved. It's very impressive. Be wary taking advice on these forums from people who are not experienced in the niche you're trying to break into. I see people recommending things like buy cheap furniture or list it before it's furnished. Both are terrible advice for MTRs as this space is becoming hyper competitive in most markets and the bar has been raised significantly by STR owners pivoting to the MTR space. If you're going to do it, do it right. What market research have you done so far to test the waters for MTR demand? If you haven't done so already, look at Furnished Finder or search Airbnb for 30+ day stays to see how much competition there is in your area and what the competition's properties look like. This will give you a good idea of the supply and demand as well as the standards in your area. Also look to see how many are single family homes vs. multi-family. Multi-family can work out but if you're marketing to travel medical professionals, many of whom work nights and sleep days, you'd need to be able to provide a relatively quiet space and that can be hard to achieve in multi-family properties. Medical professionals are just one corner of the market, though. Make sure you have a good idea of who is traveling to your area and why and what their typical budget is. If you haven't already, I recommend you read 30 Day Stay to get a good intro to midterm rentals. Good luck to you!

I'm interested!

 I love your QB analogy ; )  That's how I felt. Too much. Too bulky. Too expensive. I switched to Baselane for banking and bookkeeping and it has vastly simplified my bookkeeping and prep for tax time. Plus, it's free. And there are so many other things I use it for: tenant vetting, developing lease agreements, collecting deposits and rents and more. I really recommend you start with a system you can grow with because switching your entire process and systems over later when you have more properties is a bear.

There is no dynamic pricing tools for MTRs yet. There is no pricing tool period for MTRs yet, though I know a few people are working on developing one. For now, you still have to do somewhat laborious research yourself using different sources such as Furnished Finder, Zillow, apartments.com, 30+ day stays on the OTAs, etc. The good thing about that is that it forces you to really examine your market and get a good grasp on what the competition is offering and how it's being priced. So while it's kind of a pain right now, I think it's not a bad thing for MTR operators - especially new ones - to have to do this kind of deep dive.