All Forum Posts by: Eric A.

Neil, I would not buy a condo as your first STR. Condos have so many variable costs and buying one in a hurricane prone area is a recipe for disaster. If your goal is to have a vacation home to go and you don’t care about cash flow then it’s fine, but I can tell you buying a condo with all the fees and expenses can’t cover itself. It’s a general statement and there are definitely deals to be found, but you can’t negotiate HOA fees, assessments, and hurricane expenses and loss of income. Best Regards, Eric

Angelo, Unfortunately, this is such an arbitrary situation depending on your threshold of work. We will not touch a property unless we can legitimately clear, again CLEAR $2000 per month. Yes, this may seem like a high figure but that’s our target. Do we have properties that do less? Yes. Do we have properties that do better? Yes. Making anything less then that is a waste of our time and effort. Best Regards, Eric

Karen,

We have looked into our own web site for direct bookings and we found it not necccessary. Our concerns were if Air BnB decided to drop us for some unknown reason. We know of a host with 40 properties who got dropped for no apparent reason. Now, there are always two sides of the story and I’m sure there were several warning signs. 

I would go direct to Air BnB at first to gauge your pricing, target guests, and overall effectiveness. You and only you will have the ability to conduct an honest assessment of your properties. Lastly, we found the building of a web site, maintenance, and ongoing monitoring didn’t make sense cost wise. Even the best SEO directing traffic to you is expensive. Very expensive! Plus, people trust the Air BnB platform much more then a personal web site by you. It’s unfortunately reality. Take care. 

Best Regards,

Eric 

Karen,

We had so many issues we made an organizational decision to not list with them any more. Our markets are much more conducive for Air BnB. We had so many issues with correct payments, insurance fees, etc. They are really a second class company at this point. 

Best Regards,

Eric 

I personally would never buy a condo again. I know people have successful condo air bnb’s but any condo in the possible path of a hurricane after hours of analytics and numbers crunching is a no go for me. Too many variable costs with outrageous spikes - insurance, assessments, and high hurricane deductibles. Just my two cents and unfortunately, I have experienced this several times in Florida. 

Hi Eric,

Setting up in an LLC at this point is really not needed. I would make sure you have a hefty umbrella liability insurance policy and that should suffice. An LLC May be a correct choice down the road but right now your LLC won't be owning the property. Try the app Hurdlr to track your expenses. Take care!

We get all our sheets off EBay through commercial liquidators. Top quality and the best prices, and if we are in a hurry we go through Amazon and select highest thread count that are dropshipped directly to our turnover crew. We try to never handle packages or deliver them. Thanks! Best Regards, Eric

Russell Gronsky Air DNA is a good tool at first to judge saturation of a neighborhood or bedroom quantity, but after that it’s useless. Try Air BnB smart pricing at first to get immediate bookings. Send me a PM and I can give you some other tips on how Air BnB algorithms work. Best Regards, Eric

Hi Ken, We have rentals across the country and find some sites are better then others. That being said we are deriving 80% of our revenue from Air BnB. We find it to be so much easier to use and the fees are 1/3 of the HomeAway group (VRBO, HomeAway, Vacation Rentals,) All that being said some markets are much more conducive for the VRBO crowd. I would really do both sites and yes, you can get them to sync calendars. I would not spend money on a web site for one property. I would definitely get the domain name you want and keep it in case these platforms get screwy and you need an internet presence. Getting a photographer is a great first step! Make it look as professional as you can and you will be the first to rent. People select properties with great pictures all day long. Good luck and come back if you have any questions! Best Regards, Eric

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