All Forum Posts by: Brian Barch

 This is true.  One can only induce demand so much.  At some point, people either want to travel to that location, or they dont.

The anti AirBnb media buzz has been going on for at least a year. I stay off the media as much as humanly possible so the narrative doesn’t really effect me.

my STR is also my vacation home, and it caters to family's and couple that want an intimate mountain getaway. These types of guests stay at my cabin because they DO want cleaning fees. They want their own space with own amenities, all clean upon arrival. They don't want to cram in a hotel.

As a renter, cleaning fees never bothered me.
mostly because I never confused staying at a mountain cabin with a hot tub with staying at the Hampton inn.  

Frankly I don’t care if the fee is broken out or not, I’m always going to compare on final price. 

The idea that some people could demand a spotless place, yet be appalled about a cleaning fee is ludicrous to me

Awning is my favorite (cleaning fees excluded!!!)airdna is also good and free at a basic level. From there it’s just market research and the enemy method

I could have asked OPs same question 2 months ago. 

The prior owners of our cabin priced it the same price every day of the year. This led to being booked well out into the future, and a 79% occupancy in a market that averages 67%. It also keeps things simple and predictable. That said, we had to inherit a booking for thanksgiving at less than half the rate it should have booked at.

we have a PM that uses Pricelabs and checks it daily. The idea behind pricelabs is to maximize revenue, not occupancy. I think this can sometimes run counter to an STR owners intuition. A "desperate" guest will pay more than a planful one.

it’s hard for me to compare which strategy is better. Pricelabs netted me 2X+ per night on the days between Xmas and new years. But the booking lead time is perhaps 2-3 weeks, which is more anxiety inducing than having bookings come in 2-3 months ahead of time. Pricelabs strategy almost guarantees I won’t get a booking 3 months out, it prices the days so expensive, once again trying to book a desperate guest over a planful one. 

my guess is pricelabs leads to more $? Sometimes I wrestle with the moral component……do I really want to gouge someone at $600/night on a holiday? Do I really want to penalize the planful people? I’m currently alienating any guests that leave my place happy and want to book the same dates for next year

I found that smart TVs are soooo much simpler that trying to figure out weird TV/receiver setups that demand 3 controllers to operate. 

I almost assume/expect an Airbnb to have a smart tv setup now. We stayed at a cabin that had the 3 controller/cable setup, and my kids were super lost, and even I found it difficult to navigate. No comparison to having 1 Roku remote and picking up right where you left off

Expenses: I grab all the relevant info from the MLS (PITI), then manually add in utilities, pest, hot tub based on tribal knowledge and getting quotes.

You can also use turnoverbnb to get cleaning quotes.

As a quick and dirty, utilities and services (like pest) are about $500/mo in my area.

I like awning for running pro formas, they have a plugin from Zillow that will instantly run the numbers for you as a starting point

I didn't even realize these were still a thing.  I associate them with cheap, hourly, roadside Motels.  So for me, it would be a hard pass.

Honestly, there is enough pressure on hosts as is. I don’t think the designation is needed at all. There’s already reviews