All Forum Posts by: Cliff H.

@Rachel Jones welcome to the wild world of landlording Rachel! My advice would be establishing a system intended built for volume. That’s more than simply posting an ad on Zillow, but having a sales funnel that will allow you to filter out that junk spam and ask people the clarifying questions that will implicitly confirm they are human beings with a heartbeat and income to pay for your rental.

Capture the most accurate photos and video walk-through of the space as you possibly can. If that’s not an option you’re comfortable with, pay the couple hundred dollars to have a professional photographer/videographer grab the walk-through so you have it as a permanent going forward. Allowing people to “know the space” before they come out will save you an enormous amount of time by prescreening people who have no interest in that rental’s layout.

Have a system that does not involve you meeting people for a showing. 50% of people will either be window shoppers or know immediately upon entering the door that the space does not work for them. You don’t want to waste your time with these folks or plan 1:1 people thinking they’re “the one.” You need at least 10-20 people walking through a space to find the one that both wants that space and set your written qualifications.

That brings me to the most important piece, I have formal written qualifications well before you ever advertise the space. This will save you enormous amounts of time and legal liability down the road.

Hope this helps!

@Nathan M kiefer did I see you say your STR hosts 13 people and you've been running with 3-4 rolls of TP per stay? Holy smokes! Are you renting single night stays or just hoping guests BYOTP? As others have said, there's plenty of way to make up this marginal cost that saves your guests the embarrassment of asking upstairs to toss down a half used roll or make an unexpected run the gas station with a dirty bum. 😱

@Damein White some great points by others concerning increases in rental rates and/or lowering of energy bills than a guaranteed increase in resale price.

That said if you’re paying the utility bills you’ll need to train your tenants/guests how to use a split. Too many people run them like they drive their cars: stomping on the gas, slamming on the brakes, then complaining about poor MPG. Once installed, best to have them on predefined schedules, as they’re only 3x as efficient as gas/oil when they’re working to maintain constant temps versus changing it up/down over time.

Fantastic options for STRs when you control the space (and costs).

@Carolyn Yates the Airbnb page seems to break down the types of rentals you can do in Boston fairly well (pasted below). Having seen earlier proposals for Boston ordinances it seems a pretty reasonable compromise proposal to allow residents to offset Boston’s sky high prices by renting out all or part of their homes, while preventing non-local investors from further removing already limited housing supply (the ultimate fear of all housing departments).

From the AirBnB link above:

Home Share Units: Entire primary home listings where the host is not present during the stay

Limited Share: Shared/private rooms where the host is present during the stay

Owner-Adjacent: A full unit in the same 2-3 unit property where the host also resides

 Great question Andrew. Yes, Vermont towns have the option for a 1% local options tax in addition to the 12% combined tax above. 

Contrary to multiple letter writing campaigns and already being historically the 4th highest state an overall tax burden according to the Tax Foundation, Vermont‘s legislature has apparently just increased the state M&R tax to 12% which appears to bump it up to the 4th most taxed state in the country for short term rentals, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures: 

1. DC - 15.95%
2. Connecticut - 15%
3. Hawaii - 14.25%
4. Vermont - 12%
5. Maine - 9%
6. New Hampshire - 8.5%
7. Arkansas - 8.5%
8. Delaware - 8%

Assuming there's additional nuance here with states like California and Alaska handling taxation at local levels, but what are you all hearing in your neck of the woods? 

@Gary Campanaro some great points here. And I’d have to agree with it coming down to how you value your cleaners. For me, my cleaners are part of my team. I want them to be successful as I grow. Others may see or treat cleaners as simply hourly contractors.

Your business, your choice.

However, as others have said, cleaners deserve recognition of holidays as well. So you can either block the day or pay you pay them what they’re asking to be away from friends and family on major holidays.

@Yamin Htet just make sure you don’t leave the building if you’re looking to rent less than 28 days. Boston allows STRs in owner-occupied buildings only:

https://www.boston.gov/departments/inspectional-services/short-term-rentals

Just a questions since this comes up frequently on these forums: why in earth do you care about cash flow if you’re buying a $600k property all cash? You’re already $600k in the hole.

@David N. Been in this market for a number of years. Let’s start with some basics of realistic expenses offset versus unrealistic gold rush paradigms in a high cost, high tax, low occupancy state:

You're not getting 20% CoC.

Vermont is a STR region with a massive 4-6 month shoulder season.

AirDNA et al are publishing occupancy data that’s wildly inaccurate because they cannot account for owner versus rental occupancy.

# listings have exploded post-COVID: too much NY/NJ capital with no where else to go.

Both state and local town STR ordinances are exploding. VTSTRA has a (slightly outdated) list of town ordinances: https://vtstra.org/regs but that does not even get into some of the crazy proposals being tossed around at the state level, like an additional 10% STR tax (atop the 9% M&R + 1% local options tax already in place in many communities).

https://legislature.vermont.gov/Documents/2024/WorkGroups/House%20Ways%20and%20Means/Short-term%20Rentals/W~Kirby%20Keeton~Short-term%20rentals%20draft%20language~3-13-2024.pdf