All Forum Posts by: Cliff H.

@Dan Thomas hit the nail on the head with data dashboard’s broad inaccuracy in rural areas like New England. I’ve see exactly the same pattern of wildly optimistic night rates and occupancy claims 2x what they are in real life. The worst thing is that states and municipalities are using wildly inflated data that AirDNA and their ilk are pitching to create more and more restrictive zoning laws based on the perception of windfall host profits, further creating challenges to supporting our mortgages in a region with an already long 4-6 month shoulder season. How AirDNA and others get the data so wrong I can’t say for sure, but I suspect it’s because they can only assume that unavailable days equal booked nights versus any number of different, non-revenue reasons, such as owners’ personal usage, repairs, etc. 

Looking over Hospitable’s features/pricing page it’s clear they’ve added a few more features from when I looked at them a few years ago. Basic pricing seems reasonable at around $30/property/month, but that’s clearly their basic pricing with a bit of nickel and diming as you add in additional capabilities: 

1. They’re only supporting the Big 4: AirBnB, VRBO, Booking.com, and Google Rentals. No Expedia, Travelocity, or others, correct? Suspect that’s sufficient for most US-based hosts since other channels are more popular with the globally channel managers like BookingAutomation, Lodgify, and others but is a gap for attracting international stays. 

2. The direct booking capabilities offer a choice between charging hosts 1% or 7% of a direct booking, with the primary difference being payment processing and insurance policies. Those guest protection policies for most other channel managers are simply priced as a flat rate <$100 per stay insurance policy. More percentage-based fees are a bit disappointing since on larger homes or longer bookings of, say, $10k a 7% processing fee would equate to $700 in channel fees for bookings hosts effectively created on their own. 

Still, the addition of an API and ongoing development of the solution over a time where many other channel managers have been sitting on their laurels is encouraging. 

Circling back on this topic, curious on others' strategies who are having success on Booking.com concerning how you're handling payments. For the second time, I've had a guest cancel a reservation, initiating a refunding through my payment provider that brings with it significant transfer fees because Booking.com heavily promotes their "book for free, pay on arrival" policy, which is not aligned to my management platform policy. @Julie Gates I see you're listing with a no cancellation, how is that working out for you? Is that something you're offering on other platforms as well? I know Air/VRBO are strongly pushing for hosts to offer non-cancellable bookings at a 10% discount. 

@Tom Green tons of posts on this question in the forums. Try the search for some more in depth conversations around this topic. 

@Dominic Battaglia or @Amit Shukla what are you guys paying for Hostaway per property, per month? Hostaway's lack of transparency in their pricing makes them pretty hard to recommend to anyone since these types of "custom" pricing schemes are often used as a means of upcharging new customers. 

As of 10/11/24, here's some quick compares of various service prices for providers I've checked into myself: 

@Stephen Fydenkevez Mt Snow area being the southern-most large mountain has a saturation of rentals that drives prices down. You’ll want to do more than look at nightly rates, your most critical metric is actually occupancy rate, which the pay-for dashboards like AirDNA notoriously misrepresent. In many areas of the state you’re realistically talking about a 6 month max rental season (winter + summer) due to Vermont’s significant shoulder seasons, something I’ve shared about a bunch on other posts.   
If you're serious about buying a property in VT for mixed personal/rental use, consider it more of an expense offset than true investment property. And do yourself a favor and join the VTSTR(Association), which tracks state and local STR regulations, which there are many. VT just passed a 3% tax on STRs, in addition to the existing 9% lodging tax and 1% local options tax, making it one of the highest taxed states for STRs.

Vermont is also considering a state wide occupancy requirement for STR operators which, if passed, would decimate the market. That's something VTSTRA is understandably very active in monitoring, but they can only do so much.

https://legislature.vermont.gov/Documents/2024/Docs/BILLS/H-...

@David N. I don’t have any XP with the Berkshires, but I would agree with your assessment of there potentially being more to do in the summer. The more I talk to investors in other parts of the country the more it seems clear that this is the Achilles heel of New England: too short a tourist season. It’s also the thing that seems to make the Smokies really stand out as a rental destination (among many others): a long season.

Here in New England you just can’t assume a ski season of 2-3 months is going to offset 9 other months of carrying costs; you’re already starting in a hole. And yes, anything looks good for folks paying cash, but at that point why buy anyway? You’re competing with an endless array of other investment opportunities that will generate far better return with far less risk/overhead than real estate. Don’t get me wrong, I realize there’s a class of folks out there with too much money to burn, but if anyone reading this is sitting on a spare $1m they’re throwing into 3 month/year New England ski house because they don’t know what else to do with their money let me know. I have a few startups to pitch you. 😀

@David N. Vermont is fine for expense offset. If you’re chasing ski resorts for some kind of cashflow pipe dream you’re in the wrong state. Chasing a 3/12 month season is fools gold.

@Nicholas Frugale yes. However if you’re using Zillow for 100% of your screening you’re missing the point: it’s lead gen, not full service screening. You need a 100:1 ratio of inquiries to acceptance. Zillow is one piece of that funnel.