All Forum Posts by: Brian Barch

A highly personal question.  

I don't think distance from property needs to weigh too heavily in your answer.  This is really about preference.  Also know that there are a lot of modern PM options that are more in the 10-15% fee range (as opposed to 30%).  I'm talking about places like awning.com, key bee, etc.

I'm fully capable of managing myself. however I really like having a buffer between me and all the guests.  The discount asks, the back and forth on checkin times, etc.  I had much more peace in busy season and holidays just not having to worry about that.  That's worth something to me personally.  

I totally get that someone may hear that and say it's absurd to give away 15%, but my W2 job is still my main focus, and having a PM makes it feasible for me to keep my focus where it needs to be, and allows me to scale easier should I want to.  It keeps the business fun for me, and not tedius.  YMMV.  I don't think you NEED to do one or the other.  It's personal preference.

I just pulled up my area on Rabbu, and it pulled my actual listing in as a comp. The revenue listed for my actual cabin was about 60-70% understated. 

Quote from @Brooklyn McCarty:

Use them all! Average then out. You always want multiple data points. 

Agreed. I work in forecasting for a living. Asking what the one correct answer is, is the wrong question.

you want to understand a probable range of outcomes, and if you can live with them.

I bought my STR in Nov 22.

I compared rabbu, awning, and airdna.

Note that airdna includes cleaning fee revenue, awning does not.

Rabbu was laughably low. AirBnb was 10% low, awning spot on 8 months in. 

I will say, total revenue is spot on, adr was way high and occupancy way low

Quote from @Blake Novotney:

Quote from @Carlos Ptriawan:

Quote from @Bobby Paquette:

If you could only pick one type of location to invest in STR's for the rest of your investing career, which type of location would it be? Near the mountains(Like Gatlinburg), near the beach(Like Destin), or in a city(Like Vegas) and why?

*Doesn't have to be the locations I used as an example just wanted to give an example! 

beach, from statistical perspective, beach STR is 100% occupied and I'm a proof of that LOL

 Maybe some others here could also chime in to share their experiences with mountain STRs in the off-season because I am in a beach town so my market stays occupied year-round easily as well. I really want to purchase a mountain property (Western NC) but I have no idea what to expect there in the  November-March months.

 I’m in Clayton GA mountain market. It has very good year round appeal in my book.

There is no month that is below 65% occupancy for me. in general, June and July are strong, along with Oct/Nov/Dec due to fall colors and holidays. August is the slowest month because 8/1 is BTS in Georgia.

That said, there is no dry period as people like the winter mountain coziness, yet it’s still warm enough to go on a waterfall hike.  I have a smaller cozier place (as opposed to a huge 5 bed), so it also holds appeal in Jan/Feb/Mar for a quick getaway.

Do these markets matter so much because this will be your vacation home? Or is this purely an investment?

id follow others and invest in a $300k market. Find a home for $250, put 10% down, and put $50k of interior/exterior design into the place to make it the best place in that market. 
then learn for a few years. Start small and build equity. Then leverage for your next place. Long and slow game here….

Southern Appalachians. Year round appeal, driveable to cities, no condos

I think it’s tacky to specify how they need to rate you, that would be off putting to me as a guest.

I do think it’s wise to say you strive for 5 stars, you would love for a review to help your business, and to let you know of any improvement opportunities privately

Quote from @Lane Kawaoka:

Just wanted to mention that STRs are discretionary spending items and don't do that well in recessions. We are selling a couple hotel assets in New York.

I don’t believe so. Most data I’ve seen supports that even in a recession, there is little variability in vacation spending 

Quote from @Carlos Ptriawan:

If I do manual data search for booking Sevierville for future 30 days booking in July for host that has the highest feedback:

This home has 8 days booking only
https://www.airbnb.com/rooms/5...

This cabin has 6 bookings only
https://www.airbnb.com/rooms/2...

This cabin has 13 bookigs
https://www.airbnb.com/rooms/6...

It seems to more Reventure data is more accurate, how could superhost only have 40% future booking in summer is beyond me but I guess the answer is the double inventory, that's the key!

I wouldn’t go cherry picking a few cabins out of an entire vacation destination to determine how the overall market is doing. There could be 1,000 reasons why these cabins don’t have more bookings (location, price, decor, etc)