All Forum Posts by: Bryant Xavier

Michael,

First off, congrats on closing on the new rental. Hope everything goes well for you guys. 

I am a short term rental owner / operator and manage some properties for clients. I always recommend hiring local property managers over big management companies. I may be biased, but also have had various awful experiences renting from Vacasa especially, and once with evolve. 

Some questions I’d ask and get asked often

1.) like others mentioned, a major question I’d  ask is how many rentals they currently manage to see their current workload and see if they have the bandwidth to take on more properties. Another good question along the lines is how long they’ve been managing properties. Could always ask them to give them contact information of some other property owners they manage properties for and chat with their clients and see their strengths and weaknesses, etc. 

** I’d ask for their Airbnb or VRBO profile link to review their reviews, years hosting, etc. to ensure it lines up with what they’re telling you*

2.) with you guys being out of town, I’d make positive they have a team of maintenance guys for whenever something along the lines pop up. Something will pop up, and it’s important that they have team members to handle a majority of the repairs, and or have recommendations for local companies that can handle what you need

3.) I'd get clear outline of what they cover and what they don't cover. For example, we offer full service management but we don't do STR taxes due to liability and complexity… but is always a good idea to make sure you guys are on the same page on what's covered and what's not to avoid any miscommunication.

A huge key to a good relationship with your PM is vetting them properly, like you mentioned. “Trust but verify” is a great motto when it comes to PM’s in my opinion. Trust them and trust their work and their word, but when you can, verify it has been done and lines up with their word.

I think something that sets PM's above and beyond from others (especially in STR) is a group that is resourceful and has good local connections. Being in STR, there are all sorts of things that pop up and being resourceful and creative in problem solving is huge. You don't want a PM that can't do creative thinking and think outside the box, or else they'll be texting and calling you every week with problems.

Hope this helps! 

Hey, Madheshwaran

Fellow short term rental owner/operator here. I have 3 pieces of advice to consider. 

1) I’m unfamiliar with the specific condo you mentioned - but as a general rule of thumb when it comes to condos.. I would always check the condos fine print rules and regulations and see if short term rentals are allowed at the building. Sometimes condos have stipulations in their deed restrictions that go against doing short term leasing, so I would definitely get your agent or do the research yourself to ensure this isn’t the case at the building you’re looking at. It seems like the condo you linked is almost geared towards short term rentals, so you should be in the clear on this specific situation. 

2) I would take a look at some STR data either via a dynamic pricing software (pricelabs, wheelhouse, etc.) or take a look at Airdna to take a look to see what is the "sweet spot" is in terms of size of rentals in your market. I personally am in a college town and my target audience tends to be single travelers, and or couple(s) traveling to visit campus or visit their student at school.. so for me in my market the 1 bedroom / studio units are the best ROI in terms of occupancy and revenue per sqft, I believe.

3) I'd open up a convo with a few local hosts and see what their experiences have been and chat with them about their journey. Ask them what has brought them success, what works and what doesn't, etc. Most markets will have some sort of local STR host group on Facebook you can join, or I would even do a quick search via Airbnb and find a host that way and message them and ask them to lunch or coffee to pick their brain. Chatting with local hosts will do wonders in terms of advice and insights.

Hope this helps and have a great weekend! 

Hey, BP community!

Looking to connect with investors familiar with buying tax liens/deeds. I have been in real estate for about 4 years now and I study and mostly focus on short term rentals. I have a company in College Station, TX. that owns and operates almost 20 doors as vacation rentals (18 exactly.) and has really been my only experience in real estate so far. I am looking to diversify a bit and learn some new methods.

I have started hearing various discussions and have started doing research on buying tax liens/deeds. Does anyone here do this in TX? Would love to get some advice and connect with others who are familiar with the strategy.

Thanks in advance!

@Oladimeji Sonibare

I started this exact way. It's not equity, but it's a start for sure. My advice here would be to check with the apartments lease and make sure nothing prohibits STR.

I saw another comment you made regarding 30 day rentals. I’ve seen a huge increase in 30+ day rentals in my market (College Station, Tx.) From travel nurses, to displaced students between leases, and most often folks who are closing on a property and their appraisals and funding is taking forever so they need a place for a few weeks/ sometimes months.

If you’re looking for 30+ day rentals a good way to find this is your local travel nurse Facebook page. Most cities have them and it just takes 1 connection. When I get a travel nurse to stay they usually refer other travel nurses needing 30+ day accommodations.

Good luck!

@Allen McGlashing

I do the same a lot of the time. A lot of the time during work hours I am working on my business and working on automating things where I can.

I’m located in TX; I’d love to get more info on the private lenders/hard money you mentioned. Would be much appreciated!

BP Community,

I’ve been struggling with dreading my 9-5 every time I wake up. I work in local government specifically in Parks & Recreation and the job is a lot like the show; very uneventful and there are countless hours of downtime. I find myself counting down the hours until I get to go home and work on my projects on my investments.

Financially, I’m at the point where I have almost entirely replaced my W2 income with my income from my STRs. Every time I go to put my 2 weeks in, I catch myself over complicating things and end up putting it off. This has been going on for 3 months now, and my main issue I’m running into is trying to figure out how will banks make loans to me if I don’t have a W2. Who has experience finding loans without W2 income? How different is the loan process without the W2?

Thanks in advance.

Hey, BP Community.

Vacation rental owner / property manager here.

I have always liked the idea of hosting content creators in our vacation rentals in exchange for some posted content advertising our properties.

Has anyone had any experience doing this? What’s the best place/way to approach these types of people?

Thanks in advance.

@Richard Tran

What does this management fee cover?

@Dylan Hunter

What’s up, Dylan! I’m located here in Aggieland, too. I’ve been an Airbnb host here in the B/CS area for about 2.5 years now. We’re looking at having about 11 units under management by this fall. I love short term rentals because of the high cash flow, flexibility with the property, and I love showing people how special Aggieland is.

If you’re ever curious about short term rentals, or want to bounce any ideas off of me, I’d love to connect and help where I can. Looking forward to it!

Bryant X.

@Kevin Young I really like Pricelas for helping me with dynamic pricing. I have 5 properties to price and with them varying in location and size, it’s very difficult to manage the pricing and stay competitive. I appreciate how much you can adjust settings in pricelabs. I have adjusted my settings very intricately and it’s served me well. My suggestion would be to watch as many YouTube and tutorial videos as possible to fully understand and get your money’s worth. Otherwise, worth the subscription I’d say.

I use TurnoverBnB for scheduling, communication and I pay my cleaners weekly via TurnoverBnB. Cuts down a lot of communication with the cleaning crew.