All Forum Posts by: Brandon Gale

This has been happening to me for over a year now. Customer service is no help. Have tried re-sizing to every possible size. Have tried on multiple different computers, multiple different browsers, phone app. I recently gave up and accepted I wouldn't be able to get it uploaded. Fortunately for me its just a seasonal exterior photo, so I don't really NEED the photo in question.

In your case it seems pretty important to have a photo of that bathroom in your listing. My only thought would be to take 5-10 different photos of that bathroom from different angles and just keep trying until one works.

So Guesty just rolled out their new Guesty Locks Manager system. We previously used their automatic code generator but they updated to a new system. We've had 5 guest codes generated since and every one has been wrong and it keeps adding these 3 random "backup codes" with codes I've never added before. I delete them and they show back up the next day. We have a Schlage Encode

Anyone else have this issue? We are probably just going to try out AirBnBs new code generating system and hope that solves the problem.

It really doesn't make any sense to use a HML to buy a house to house hack. The whole point of house hacking is taking advantage of the low down payments and good interest rates for owner occupied loans.

If you want to live in the property and it needs work try a 203k loan.

Try another lender and reach out to the appraiser ahead of time. Try not to insult them by telling them how to do their job, but present them a few comps you believe are accurate, and provide them with a list of the repairs you did to the property and the cost of each.

Just because the appraisal came in at $250k originally doesn't mean the property is worth that. Appraisers make mistakes, especially when there's a purchase price involved since it may bias their number. 

Unfortunately it sounds like you bought a bad deal and then spent too much on rehab on top of it. Good Luck

I have yet to find a lender that will let you refinance or HELOC to under 25% equity. With these numbers it sounds like you have about 21% equity, so pulling money out via refinance or HELOC is probably not an option for you right now.

BRRRRing is very difficult to do with a 5% down owner occupied loan. It doesn't mean its a bad deal, or that you didn't do a successful rehab, you just start with too little equity on those loans to make quick BRRRRs realistic.

Been on market for 162 days and price cut over 50% with 1 month on market since price cut and no interior photos.

Almost certainly unlivable with non functioning utilities.

Don't mean to come off as an a-hole but if you couldn't see the issues with this listing, or were about to jump on it before even seeing the inside then you have a lot to learn before jumping on a deal. Spend more time in the forums, reading, listening to podcasts, etc.

 This definitely plays a factor. I have been debating taking our listing off Instant Book but its tough to do starting out since there's so much competition in this market and having instant book on boosts your search rankings.

@Bruce Woodruff Right there with you, just about done with AirBnB and their anti-host BS. Had an outrageously unreasonable review this past week from a guest who smoked weed in my cabin and they wont remove it. Asked the woman on the phone how often they actually side with their hosts specifically superhosts and she said "basically never".

Had a guest just check out who smoked weed in our cabin (besides the point but thought it would help our case) and then left a 2-STAR review. I couldn't believe my eyes. We had a 4.92 rating through 13 guests with no major issues reported by any of them, just 1 guest who was very very particular. 

This guests reasons were that the cabin was "smaller than expected" and "the pictures were deceiving". We have tons of very recent pictures of every room, square footage listed, bed layouts detailed, and I even drew up a floor plan to scale on our listing for even more information on the layout. 

We took it up with AirBnB and even though the review is totally unreasonable, they refuse to take it down.

Wondering if anyone has ever actually gotten a review removed from their listing before and if there is another way I should be approaching this with AirBnB. I am ready to be done with them and go VRBO full time after this.

It depends on how often you book and what the demand is in your area. For my cabin almost half of all bookings are guests with no reviews. Most of them have been fine. If I rejected everyone with no reviews my occupancy would go down a lot.