All Forum Posts by: Mark P.

Hey Pablo. I know a GC who has a team with everyone you would need to fix and run your rental(s). Feel free to DM if you are still looking for someone.

Hey Jessica. Feel free to DM for the info and I will provide you with a contact who is a real estate professional in Big Bear and knows about VR as they manage the entire complex with rentals up there; works under a broker who actually owns a few rentals.

Try contacting John Erwin

Office of Christopher Thompson

41656 Big Bear Blvd Ste 1

P.O. Box 1808

Big Bear Lake, CA 92315

but shop for coverage with other agencies too, be surprised the prices vary by hundreds

It sounds like you should be doing just fine if you are booked all weekends and some weekdays.

But a few things that can improve your rental, Lauren, and may be you could start charging more:

1. Make it unique and attractive - if you don’t do that, don’t expect great profits. Sometimes making it attractive means renovating the entire place, otherwise you compete with hundreds of rentals in the area. If you are that back in times “cabin”, old “wood style” home with ugly fabric couches and brown wooden walls, it is hard to charge good money no matter if you are long term or short term rental.
2. Consider accepting pets - only 40% of the cabins in Big Bear Lake do.
3. Provide a hot tub or see if you have space for indoor jet tub - only half of the listings have the amenity. These units are not expensive, for $2-3k you can get a very good indoor one, with like transparent walls and stuff, and make it a selling point.
4. Build a large deck, set-up a dining set and put creative outdoor furniture - people come to the area to enjoy outdoors. Help them to stay outside and have a chance to picnic with a nice setting.
5. Try to decorate the place nicely and in colors. All successful listings are vivid and interesting. Finance good looking stylish furniture and move old trash and antique looking pieces on Facebook at BigBearStuffForSale.
6. Raise prices for your weekends, most likely you are able to charge more than you are charging right now.

And lastly, do what a lot of people don’t like to do - research. Browse through the listings, those who are more prosperous Airbnb moves to first positions. Check what people do and what they offer. Borrow ideas from others. Check their calendars - what do they charge for the weekend for the home similar to yours? Read articles on designing and beautification of the space. Your rental must look appealing to pull people.

If you have a buck, get a report from AirDNA and analyze it. Learn when there is a slow season and when people make money. Adjust your prices accordingly. 

December, January and February will be the most profitable months - you got some time to get ready. Research and apply and hope you can pick up some cash during this coming busy period. 

I believe something didn’t go right with the service and now Airbnb is not offering help in connecting hosts and co-hosts. This is the email I received earlier today:

“Since you are a member of the co-hosting community, we wanted to let you know that we’ve decided to remove the marketplace feature that helps connect local hosts and co-hosts. As of June 27th, 2018 you will no longer be able to post to or receive notifications from the marketplace.

We are continuing to refine the co-hosting program, but this particular feature was not effective at connecting enough hosts with co-hosts. Moving forward, we’ll focus on developing better ways to support the co-hosting program.

You’ll remain as a co-host on any listings you’ve already been added to. And any host can still add you as a co-host directly to their listing on the co-host tab.

Thanks for being a part of the Airbnb co-hosting program,
The Airbnb team”

Even though this update will require extra moves now but the feature is still there.

Hi Susana! It will be different for everyone to decide the minimum stay. My cabins are oriented for couples so I choose two day minimum. I am looking for those who come to enjoy their time, who come up to explore Big Bear and have a mini vacation. I don’t want anybody to visit me for one day, have sex, abuse the cabin and leave the next day. I am trying to avoid this motel-like situations and careless behavior when they think “hey, we don’t care about the place, we are leaving tomorrow anyway”.

Most of my bookings are 2 day vacations. 3 day stays are about 20%, 4 day - 10% and yes, we do have reservations for a week which is about 3%. I don’t get 5-6 day stays may be because when people look to hang out for a while, they rather choose one week because if they book for 7 days then they save 15%. Airbnb has a feature allowing you to provide additional discounts for extended reservations. So when my guests book a 7 day getaway they receive 1 day back in savings.

I am sure you will also have 2 day stays most of the times. Even though my cabins are fully equipped for long term, I’ve never gotten a month long stays and although this is not impossible, I personally would never spend $3-4K (considering 1 bedroom hiuse) on a vacation in Big Bear :) not that I don’t like the lake so much, but for the money I rather travel to South America and explore mountains and have new experiences in Chili.

Quick tip to get your calendar solid and the cabin more profitable: when you have those weird one day gaps between bookings, offer those to your existing reservations. 3 out of 10 people will stay longer so I just send them a money request and they pay for one more night at 40% off. They just leave early in the morning and still make it to their jobs. You may ask them about it a few days prior to arrival and a night before checkout. 

To make your guest comfortable I would suggest not to host them in Sugarloaf, Big Bear City and Fawnskin. The first two are not very safe and Fawnskin is kinda too far. I know people have rentals in Big Bear City and probably do OK but I would prefer Big Bear Lake and nothing else if you are expecting good cash flow and not just want to park your money. Most of the houses are sold in Moonridge, and I like the area, but no cellphone connection and at times very steep winding roads don’t make me feel good when thinking I have to put my people through it. A lot of folks don’t even know how to drive on snow, can’t imagine how they will do it on icy slopes. 

The bottom line is if you can manage to get a rental closer to The Village - the more bookings you will have. Most of the times your guests won’t cook at home, so the closer to the restaurants they are located, the more happier they are. On the other hand if you create an excellent vacation home in Moonridge, you could probably compensate for driving to The Village. Moonridge is also close to the ski resorts. So I consider that as a second best area.

Overall, I think you should concentrate on your cabin more. The more attractive you make it, the more people will be staying with you. Even if it is a remote cabin, but it is nice, surrounded with woods and feels private - that will be a win for your business. Your guests will love it and you will enjoy it a few of times a year too.

Hey Susana. Nice to see you and wish you do well renting in Big Bear. 

It is a great area you are targeting to cash flow year round. The slow season is in March, April and in September, October but still profitable. Otherwise I am booked all other months with 2 day min stay and over 90% occupancy using just Airbnb (3-9% being weird one day gaps between the bookings).

At the beginning I signed up with VRBO and Flipkey but never got to list there. Bookings started coming in just from one platform and that I also found more convenient afterwards, to manage everything through one app. Doesn’t hurt to try others, but if you like to see your listing successful, I believe you should choose one. You don’t want to have split ratings and ranking otherwise you won’t make it anywhere. It is not officially disclosed by the company but no doubt Airbnb will give a priority to listings that offer all or most days on the platform. They appreciate those “super” hosts who do rentals professionally and do as much business as possible with them.

Some would say to create two listings though, one on Airbnb and one VRBO, so if one goes down you have a back up. I think if you do everything right, there is no reason why the system will decide to take yours down.

Before you start renting, make sure to create a good guide book for your guests. You should include all the nuances about the house, tips and any additional info you think will help to make guest’s stay a pleasure. Include as much details as possible, some things may be obvious to you but not to others. They are not familiar with your house at all. I also leave the manuals for appliances. 

The other day my guest contacted me about needing help with a coffee machine, said cannot find the manual for it among other manuals we have at the cabin (I need to double check that by the way when I be there). The easy solution was to send him to YouTube. Be surprised there is a video on YouTube about how your model of coffee machine works. Get help from other users who simply upload 2-3 min video showing what buttons to press, not biggie, but that requires you to be on top of your rental. At the end the guest left extremely happy and had a good cup of coffee that managed to do it himself. I am sure he did enjoy it.

So yes, you need to stand by for questions and fix issues when they come up. You are about to create an experience, not just throw them in your house and have them figure stuff out.

I believe 25-30% of the gross amount is a lot though. But this is what they charge to manage your rental from A to Z. No need to keep an eye on supplies, deal with clogged toilets, replace dirty towels and broken dishes, answer (sometimes) dumb questions, manage check-ins and arrange cleanings. What you can do though, if you don’t want to run the business yourself, is to send a request for help from other hosts in the area. Speak with a few people, see what they can offer you. By sending a request, Airbnb alerts all hosts in Big Bear who are offering managing services about your interest. I am sure you can cut your expenses that way. They should also provide you with a check-in person to comply with rules.

You may find all the rules and regulations here:

https://www.citybigbearlake.com/index.php/code-compliance

It is very hard to pick up a VR business from distance unless the house is a turn key home. Otherwise I don’t see how one would put all the pieces together. You need to be here to begin with, put management in place and then go do your other business.

If you do it on your own, you just need two key people: contractor/maintenance guy and a cleaning lady. One of them can be your check-in person when you establish good relationships with him/her.

I love hosting people and see them being happy while enjoying the home I created. Getting started in this business is a lot of fun and requires your time. It took me 6 months from closing the deal on a cabin, going through entire renovation, then furnishing the place and decorating to get the first booking. The booking came in the next day after listing the place, that’s not a problem, but getting the home from a dump to the place that people can’t wait to spend their vacation at is a task.

Once again, unless you find a turn key property which will be a unique place and have some character, otherwise you just gonna look like most of the houses that don't rent as good. No reason to invest so much money and time and not even make 5% ROI. Standout with your home - the key to success in VR industry. It can be very profitable when you do.

Seatch for articles on Google about making it right. You may also do some reading here:

http://www.destinationbigbear.com/blog/big-bear-cabin-homeowner-information/

Go over their articles under Homeowners Information. Hope this helps!

Hey Susan, what Jared can be very helpful with is if you need any water heater installation services. Da best man in town! ) I will always use Jared for all our plumbing needs.

Love Tracy Hagman, spoke with her last year and this year. Last year the price was 10% higher than Christopher Thompson could offer, but now Mr. Thompson wants 50%+ more compare to the previous year. Tracy's statement for this year is they do "not have a market now for this location". "This location" meaning the location Susan needs for. As far as I know Susan is by the Big Bear Elementary School and Tracy won't be an option.

I got quotes from all brokers I was referred by local professionals and contacted other local brokers I was able to find online, but looks like Big Bear companies want a good cut or have no providers to write in the area.

Also still shopping, but what works for me is when searching "vacation rental insurance", in the results companies like CBIZ provide great and better coverage for less money compare to local brokers.

Need to call around because looks like it could be different for every house located in different areas of the valley, meaning what works for Jared may not work for Susan because they are far apart from each other.

If any other short-term rental insurance agencies see the message and feel like they can provide us all with a reasonable policy, please join the conversation, would be glad to see you in here))

Hey Susan!

Is your house in $350k area? Expect to pay about two grand to get a reasonable coverage for your VR. Another headache for Big Bear short-term rental investors starting this year. The Holcomb Fire took place last June made insurance companies worry and a few providers decided to not renew their policy at all. Those who can insure your home take wildfires into consideration and offer high premiums due to the risk.

You should Google insurance companies (not necessarily "big bear insurance company") and contact providers to see who will come out the cheapest. Prices between companies and brokers fluctuate 30-50% so get a list and shop around to find the cheapest policy.

Be safe!