All Forum Posts by: Carlos H DeOliveira

@Cliff H. I'm going to create those additional schedules, good idea.

thank you

@Joe Splitrock thank you. What I mean was if I allow a guest to set the temp to 62 and then they leave the sliding door open, it creates problems for the unit. Most of vacation rentals in Florida don't allow you to set the thermostat below 70 degrees, we were locking it at 66 degrees.

Nest thermostat would of solved it if it switched from heat to cool by itself while being locked.

@John Underwood thank you, I'm going to check out the offset feature. Honeywell T9 as far as I know does not have a min / max temp setting.

I'm struggling to find the perfect solution for a thermostat in my STRs and wanted to hear about how everyone manages through this.

Do you lock your thermostat and manage the temperature remotely? Do you leave it unlocked so guests can set it at any temperature? I find that in Florida if you set your cool temperature too low, and leave windows/doors open it ends up freezing the unit or creating some type of an issue. My houses have pools so guests often leave the sliding door wide open and blast the A/C.

Features I'm looking for: Ability to lock a temperature range for cool, another temperature range for heat, allow the guest to adjusting within the range but not able to change settings in thermostat. Also the thermostat needs to move between cool and heat by itself.

Nest Thermostat - I currently use it in a couple of my STRs, has a range lock but when using the Temp range lock I can only leave it on Cool or Heat, and in Florida depending on the time of the year guests want Cool during the day but need Heat at night. The other problem I have with Nest thermostats is that every guest thinks they are a Google Nest Pro, they take it off the wall, try to reset it and eventually the clips that hold the Nest break and it doesn't stay on the wall.

Honeywell T9 - I can lock the system so guests can't adjust settings or temperature that's a full lockout that isn't ideal for guests, the partial lockout let's guests adjust temperatures but it doesn't allow me to limit the temperature range.

Am I missing something? Sounds crazy to me that I can't find an ideal solution for this.

@Eric Schroeder you can always get the loan, self manage for 30 days and then change your mind. It's not like they are going to recall the loan.

Also keep in mind that you even with a 10% second home loan, you will most likely have to drop 30% down as almost all homes are selling above appraised value and you have to come up with the difference

@Leon Lee I have a similar issue. I've an automated message going to the guests on trash day, but it doesn't always work.

I've had multiple PPM companies and none of them take the trash, My cleaners won't take it, and for everything else they do, it isn't worth firing them over it.

I've been trying to get a small group of homeowners in my community to just pay someone on trash day to stop in and take out all the barrels.

You can start small in a market that has a low cost to entry like Ohio, Arkansas, Alabama or Indiana. You can find properties for less than 130k in these states. If you use leverage you should be able to get 3-4 properties, these markets have high cashflow and low appreciation.

Mashvisor, Airdna and Data.Rabbu.com   all produce very good estimates.

I would stay away from just taking a flat number for occupancy, there is a lot more involved in managing a short term rental. 

I chose to keep my properties at 95% occupancy, I take extra risks with 2 night bookings, leave instant book on and etc...

I could easily fall to 70%, by raising rates and not allowing shorter bookings, adding age limits and etc..

@Nick Jacaruso  I have Airbnbs and Long Term Rentals.

Like someone mentioned, an Airbnb can be a lot more profitable than a long term rental, as an example my 3 Airbnbs bring in as much as 2x the rental income as 6 of my rentals but the Airbnbs are 10x the work.

In my opinion it's tough to compare Airbnb vs Long Term, there is so much more work involved in an Airbnb. Long Term rentals you have lower returns but much less work and much easier to scale.

You can definitely make a business out of it, just keep your emotions out of your decision and don't start buying short term rentals where you want to take vacations, run it like a business and pick the most profitable locations
 

@Justin Kamm If you are looking to go the low cost way, you can go on fiverr.com hire a freelancer and get the website built for less than $200 and the only expense you will have is the domain.

There are countless ads for real estate websites there.