All Forum Posts by: Tim Schroeder

You have to be able to receive the postcard. I have friends in the Smokies who have done it when they are in town by asking the local post office to hold their mail then showing up there a couple days after Google sends it.

It was a painful spring. Lost over 18K in bookings on each of two large cabins in the Smokys. But summer is filling up nicely. However, I think my big places suffered worse because they are targeted at large family gatherings that book well in advance. Those multi-family gatherings are harder to reschedule after the lockdowns ended. Got a lot of 3-4 day weekend stays and I still have mid-week gaps I'm trying to fill. Profit this year will be perhaps 1/2 to 2/3 of usual. So I'm not complaining. 

Gas, piped to the house natural gas, if you have it. Of course that didn't stop some dumbass from building a charcoal fire in my gas grill once upon a time. I charged his deposit for a new grill, so I didn't really mind in the end. 😁

A 24-hour gap between in peak summer season is a killer. With an average stay of 4 days, that's a loss of SIX DAYS revenue per month, which is a 20% loss. After losing over $35k due to the pandemic, this feels like a kick in the stomach while I'm lying on the ground.

I am setting the rates on my Smoky cabins high right now. I don't see a reason to wait. I just had someone cancel for the 4th of July. I just smiled, then added 50% to the nightly rate.

I'm watching for a dip in prices and more inventory as skittish owners flee. Ready to buy another 2 cabins. (This is assuming the RE market is not in freefall and we're not diving into a recession). BUT, even if that's the case, I'll just have to wait a little longer to buy.

I don't see the point in loans. My losses for March and April and probably more are permanent losses, so what good is a loan? If it's to cover the mortgage, then that implies I have no reserves, and I'm a fool and have no business being in this business. 

That doesn't sound like short term help, it sounds like cheap money people will use to invest in more properties -- not at all what the goal is. Of course that's the problem with blanket stimulus bills, money isn't always used in the way they wish it was. They can't control it

Hell no. Why should my taxpaying neighbors and countrymen bail me out because a bunch of my guests cancelled? There are risks to being in business. There are ups and downs. If there's going to be bailouts it needs to be at places where a systemic failure has widespread implications to the nation. Use my bailout to get the millions of blue-collar workers sitting home back to work once this crisis passes. AirBNB knows this is not going to happen. They are just showing off for us to make us feel warm and fuzzy and that they "care".