All Forum Posts by: Daniel Denning

@Brett Boyce HOAs will typically include a lot. Mine covers cable, wifi, electricity, and water. They can range a good bit in Myrtle but mine is $830/month which is about average. I went and saw mine before buying. I knew I was going to do a significant rehab but wanted to see it first myself, however, I would probably just have my contractor take a look at it next time. I replaced all flooring, scraped the popcorn ceilings, new kitchen appliances, new paint and new furnishings except the mattresses.

@Brett Boyce I own an oceanfront 2 bed 2 bath condo at the Carolinian Beach Resort on the 21st floor. My direct booking site is denningproperties.com if you want to see it. I’m projecting about $5,000 in profit my first full year, but that is with blocking off a day in between each stay because of COVID. I started at the end of June and have about $23,000 in revenue and booked revenue for 2020.

@Brett Boyce cohosting is very similar to property management. Airbnb offers it, but it’s basically managing a property for someone while the owner still receives all payouts. At the end of the month, the cohost invoices the owner for the agreed upon percentage of revenue and any expenses incurred on behalf of the owner (cleaning, repairs, etc). I have a team in Myrtle Beach that I use. I schedule my cleaner in between stays, have handymen as needed, locksmiths, etc. I also manage all bookings, guest communication, scheduling of maintenance and repairs, digital guestbook creation, marketing, and listing creation as a cohost.

@Brett Boyce Hi Brett! I purchased my first property in Myrtle Beach in March and have been renting it out myself. Things have been going really well and I’m starting to cohost a property for a client in North Myrtle Beach in November. My client lives in Pennsylvania. While it’s definitely possible to manage everything from afar (I live in Atlanta), it does take some work and organization. If you’re going to use an on-site property management company, you’re going to be looking at them charging 40-45% of your revenue. Off-site companies may be in the 25-35% range. Cohosting is usually less and allows your property to get a lot more attention vs being 1 of 100 properties a property management company handles.

@Chris Haas Mine is in the Carolinian Beach Resort. It's about 1-mile from the center of town which is nice because it's a little quieter but still close enough to walk down to all the attractions. It's also about 1-mile from the Convention Center and Broadway at the Beach. Like most of the places in Myrtle Beach, mine needed a significant renovation to really stand out. I don't think I can post the link in here, but if you google "Myrtle's Peak Airbnb" it should come up for you.

The one I'm co-hosting for is at the Baywatch Resort in North Myrtle Beach. Co-hosting is Airbnb's way of doing property management but with some slight differences. The main difference is a co-host is added to an owner's Airbnb listing and given access so that all payments still go directly to the owner. At the end of each month or the agreed upon time frame, the co-host typically bills the owner for expenses incurred (cleaning, maintenance, etc.) and the agreed upon fee (i.e. 15% of revenue). This method allows many owner to save a bunch of money on property management as most on-site management companies will charge 40-50% of revenue which just makes it impossible to make any money as the owner. A co-host will typically have a much smaller number of properties to manage so you know you're getting the attention your property deserves. 

@Paul Enzinger I bought a condo in Myrtle Beach in March that I renovated and have been renting as a short term rental since the end of June. I’m also starting to co-host for a client next month in North Myrtle Beach. I’ve loved having a condo in Myrtle and things have gone really well! If you have any specific questions about the area or what to look for just let me know.

Hi @Adam Barr. I manage my own property in Myrtle Beach and have put my link below if you want to take a look. My property is a condo near the center part of town, so having an oceanfront property is critical there. Obviously, you’re going to get higher rent the closer you are to the beach; however, since you’re looking at a larger house big families may be more willing to walk a bit to the beach. Location comes down to a personal preference. I’d probably choose Surfside myself because it’s a bit less crowded and closer to Myrtle Beach and the activities it has to offer.

Property management can vary greatly. Onsite property management companies in the condos will charge up to 50% while many others will range between 20-35%. When I looked at companies, I decided to do it myself because they charge so much, and I found many negative reviews on listings focused on the place not being clean or the management not being helpful. I built a great team consisting of a contractor, designer (bought furniture at wholesale through her too), agent, and cleaner. If you’d like to talk about potentially managing your rental or using any of my contacts, please let me know.

https://www.airbnb.com/h/myrtlespeak

@Pete Schmidt good questions! I actually manage a property in Myrtle Beach. I use some tools to help automate a lot of it. Here’s my Airbnb link if you want to see it. https://www.airbnb.com/h/myrtlespeak

First one is Hostaway. You need a good channel manager that can handle a variety of tasks. For instance, this has a synced calendar so you can list on multiple platforms and your own website but manage everything in one spot. It also has automated messaging for guests which can save you a ton of time. I love the automated task creation that creates and assigns cleaning tasks to my cleaner upon every new booking coming in. A lot of systems do similar stuff, so you just need to find what works best for you. If you go with Hostaway, I can provide a referral code to save you some on it.

Next is Beyond Pricing. This is an automated pricing tool that is way better than Airbnb Smart pricing. It takes into account a ton of factors in pricing each day to help you maximize your revenue (I.e. seasonality, day of the week, market demand, etc.). I only manage a base price and it automatically updates all the days. It syncs nightly which helps show Airbnb you have a very active listing. This will help with visibility on the site. It also has tiered discounts so you can have discounts applied automatically whenever available days fall within a certain days out range. For example, give a 25% discount on days that are still available 7 days in the future.

Last one is TouchStay. It’s a Digital Guestbook platform that allows you to create an awesome guestbook for your guests to access on their phone or computer. You can just point guests to it and should answer a lot of their questions before they even ask (check in and out process, parking, local attractions and restaurants, etc.). It definitely beats physical guestbooks that just fall apart from wear and tear.

Thank you all! I will go ahead and DIY as most of you suggested, and if things don't go well that way, I will hire a VA. I really appreciate your responses! Thanks!

I'm purchasing my first STR in Myrtle Beach and am trying to figure out handling times when guests need me and I'm unavailable. I work another job full-time and travel between PST and EST, so there will definitely be times I can't handle emergency requests. Does anyone use an answering service to handle phone calls, or do people typically just drive communication through the apps? I'm doing my best to streamline the process since I'm managing the property myself from Atlanta, but I don't want to run into situations where my guests really need me and can't contact me.