All Forum Posts by: David Bergmann

Thinking about it creatively, maybe you could do a profit sharing agreement with a manager?  Let's say your expenses are $2,000 after everything each month... Manager would get 50% of every dollar after $2,000?    This way you always make at least your expenses back, and PM is highly incentivized to maximize revenue.  

PM owns the listing.  It's much easier from a management perspective.  Manager can then collect the revenue, subtract cleanings and management fees, and distribute funds to owner at the end of the month.  If owner owns the listing, owner would have to distribute funds and maintain their own reporting bc co-host cannot access.

I don't think that number is necessarily outrageous if you are furnishing a 3-4 bedroom place, getting input from a designer, and also she is doing the work of actually staging and getting it ready for pictures/guests.   But it will depend a lot on how the furnishings are being sourced and how high end she is going.  If you want to stick to a lower number, I would just be honest with her and ask her what you would have to sacrifice in order for that to work.

For me, streaming services are all about how many streams can be going simultaneously under the same account.  We just switched to Hulu + Live TV for this reason.  It's $65 / month to get live tv like cable along with limited ads for Hulu library, but for an additional $10 you can stream on Unlimited devices.  I just set it up on all 12 of our Roku TVs and I think it's great.  You can also add other streaming channels like HBO within it and extend those streams to unlimited devices as well.  

Highly recommend "Airbnb Automated", "STR University", and "STR Success Stories", on YouTube. If you watch/listen to all of these guys, you'll be a pro in no time! Good luck!

@Collin Hays I can definitely sympathize with the issues you mentioned with the cabins.  We are constantly handling something at our units.  It's usually me over my lunchbreak or after work.  Today's lunch break was a door that sticks in the frame and I had to shave a 1/8" off the door before an upcoming check-in. We primarily buy & renovate older homes (1920-50s) that have some historic charm, and that charm also produces a lot of issues with heating & cooling, electrical/plumbing problems, pest issues, door issues and the list goes on!  I can only imagine how many more calls you get for a cabin type property!  

I am actually not surprised at all on the low margin for property management.  We manage units for 2 other people, and we've looked at the effort involved and really been asking ourselves if this is worth our time or if we should cut these from our portfolio.  Compared to our own & leased properties, it is just so much more time consuming to manage someone else property.  Perhaps its a system issue for us, but we currently just aren't set up to efficiently track & invoice and communicate to the owners as expenses are incurred.  On top of that, we have preferred ways of doing things (pricing, door locks, auto messaging) that not every owner may buy into and I absolutely hate the inconsistency & inefficiency that this creates.  I think I'd MUCH rather have a portfolio that I have 100% control over that is consistent with our current operations and brand, and also not have to justify our decision making to each owner at each juncture. 4% is definitely not worth that extra headache :)

@Collin Hays - Hey Colin - thanks for your input. I probably was a little vague in our current situation so that may have implied we want to offload everything to a magical person who can manage everything for us, but that is definitely not the case. My wife and I are very much involved on a part time (and sometimes full-time) basis daily. My wife is an architect and quit her formal W2 job, and is consulting part-time with clients while also support the daily operations of the STR business. I have an actuarial & economics background, and my focus in the business has been pricing & revenue management, as well as technology integrations (PriceLabs, iGMS, SmartThings Hub/RBoys, Lodgify, website). The issue we have is that if we continue to shoulder the bulk of the calls/emails/restocking/and other administrative task as we add new units, we will eventually be limited in our abilities to work ON the business, because we will always be working IN the business. Even if I personally quit tomorrow, I don't think it would be worth my time to do these tasks, there are higher value items we can both work on to move the business forward (marketing, pricing strategy, furnishing new units, meeting new owners, etc.). Based on your response, it sounds like you have two FULL TIME people for 30 properties. Can you share a little more about how you established that ratio? Is 1 admin per 15 properties something you landed on intentionally, or is that just what you found is currently working? When did you hire the first, and when did you hire the second?

@Justin Anderson  Thanks Justin - I totally agree about having standard operating procedures.  We are working through this now in order to be ready for the new hire.

@Erik Stenbakken  Eric- I think you hit the nail on the head here.  I think the list you made is part of what makes it daunting for any business to make the first hire.  With all of the cost involved, you want to be damn sure the value is there to support the investment.  One idea that we are currently exploring is hiring a part-time person from the local university from the hospitality department.  We reached out to the department head, and seemed enthusiastic about offering this opportunity to a responsible student who wants to get some experience make some money while they are in school.  The biggest issue here is finding a responsible student and being okay with the turnover as students graduate and land a full time gig.

Hoping to get feedback from other STR operators. Has anyone hired an admin role that can help with the small operational task like purchases, re-stocking units, checking after cleaners, and any other small task that happen fairly regularly across a portfolio of STR units? We have 13 units to manage, days jobs and always furnishing new units. Hiring this out seems like the best way to get some of that time back to focus on higher priority items.

We are new to hiring someone into the business, so hoping to hear how others have approaching finding and hiring the right person for this type of role?  This would be our first hire (our cleaners are contractors), so any advice appreciated!  

The CDC has recently clarified that the virus is primarily spreading from person-to-person contact rather than contact from infected surfaces.  Hotels have shared hall, elevators, lobbies, parking lots, etc and much more likely to come into direct contact with other individuals or groups.  Entire homes on AirBNB will have self-checkin with no interaction at all.  I know which I would choose.

We have 4 duplexes and in all of them we have a single router that will broadcast a wifi signal for both units to save the $50 / month.  Its a bit more expensive but I like to purchase the Google Wifi router.  It has strong signal and you can monitor & reset the router remotely from the Google Wifi app.  Also, it is a mesh router, so you can always add another one to your network if you need to extend the signal.