All Forum Posts by: Garry C.

I now have 2 ski rentals in Grand County. I rent them all year, mostly via VRBO and a bit through AirBNB. I will not rent long term, for the ski season. This is the peak season for ski rentals, obviously. Long term rentals means not as much revenue. This is where you get into the black for the year. Not to mention, I find that longer term renters become much more comfortable and don't always treat the property well, which means more handyman and touch up expenses.

My advice? Stick to short term rentals all year round, and if/when you want to use it just block the dates out ahead of time.

I'll echo what I've seen above, in that a lot of it depends upon what interest rates you're looking at with each loan, and other terms. What's more favorable to you, and why?

I can tell you that I have done this, it made sense in my case. I paid cash for my first rental, used a HELOC on my primary home as the down payment for my second rental, and then put a mortgage on the first rental when it (more than) doubled in value. That mortgage was then used to pay off the HELOC and put a down payment on my third rental.

I'm now looking at another HELOC, as rates are even lower than they were on my first one. Although because those rates are so low (1/3rd of the last HELOC), I might choose to pay it off over time rather than getting out as soon as I can.

As usual, @Bill S. is spot on. Management companies can take a large chunk of your profits. Luckily, self management is easy with VRBO, a little bit of AirBNB, and putting a few templates and systems in place.

If you know of places that are 'sitting on the market', I'd love to hear about them. Sounds like those are ripe for price negotiation. If the numbers work, the numbers work, don't worry about what everyone else is (or is not) buying.

@Anson Young and @Dan Mackin host some great meetups in Denver and up North. Myself and @Bryan O. just began hosting one on the South side of town. There are others, and I don't believe they overlap. You should be able to find one if you are in town for anything longer than a few days. When will you be visiting? If you're here now, PM me, I'll tell you about a great one coming up on Saturday. 

I buy the holders that stock 3 rolls below the one that's being used. So there is always 3+ rolls per bathroom.
Always done it this way, to my knowledge no one has ever stolen any toilet paper.

My guests aren't paying for a place to stay... they are paying for memories of a great vacation. I hope one of those memories is not having to run out to the gas station in the middle of the night because one of their children had GI issues and ran out of TP.

I met a guy that does this at an RE meeting once. Happy to share his contact info, if you want to PM me.

Check out his web site, Telecom Bird Dogs.

This is a practice that's done all the time, and perfectly legal, as long as the landlord is OK with it and allows it in the lease. See BP Podcast 229 for more information.

If I were in your shoes, and depending upon how good the friendship was, I would ask her for a portion of the profits she's made thus far, since you gave her a "friend's rate" on the rental and she's technically violating the lease, it's only fair.
However, since you think she's not going to be honest about what profit she's made, I would assume you really aren't very good friends, just very old acquaintances.
Regardless, I would terminate her lease at your earliest opportunity and begin short term renting it yourself. It's a very lucrative business.

I doubt you can find out from AirBNB what rent she has grossed on it. However, you can have the listing shut down. I've seen links to do it, so you should be able to find the information you need. You may want to ask AirBNB if they can transfer the listing to you, since you own the property, but I doubt this will happen either. They are all about the management, not the property. Booking sites don't like to transfer listings to new (or original) owners.

We'll have to agree to disagree then. I'm firmly in the 'of course' camp. I want control over my business. Even more, I don't want someone else to have control over aspects of my business. What if all of a sudden VRBO wants to double their fees? (Which is essentially what they did last year when they started charging guests as well as listing owners.)

The reason that these businesses are multi-billion dollar is not because they can do it better than me, but due to scaling and fees. "Fees for you, fees for me, let's charge everybody! If they don't like it, who cares? It's not like they are going to go and build their own web site."

Well, why not?
I disagree that these systems are too complex for the average person to hook together. Wordpress and the various plugins make it fairly simple. And, if it is too much, then yes you might want to hire it out. But that's what we do here, or at least what I do. I'm not looking for more work for myself. I'm looking to build systems that work without my input. If I have to pay someone to set that up for me, that's exactly what I'm going to do. Because in the long run the payoff will be much greater than the up front costs.

@Bryan O., are you aware of this, possibly planning to attend? Road Trip! It's a 12 hour drive, or less than 2 hour flight.

The best way to 'push down' a bad review is with more great reviews! If you aren't asking for a review after every stay, you should. Even if the booking platform does it for you, reach out and personally ask for one. I think people will ignore the stock communications from the big companies, but if you ask them directly for their 'help', they will. I ask for them when I send back security/damage deposits (as long as I didn't have reason to keep the deposit, which I hardly ever do). Add a little note that says "Great reviews help keep us booked, so your rental costs don't increase over time." Works very well, I have far more 5 star reviews than most of my competition. Plus a 4 star and a 1 star.

As @James Carlson stated, be sure to respond to the reviews (the good ones too! it shows you're engaged with your clientele). But take a few deep breaths first, make sure the snark stays here.

Also keep in mind that a few bad reviews can actually be a good thing. It shows that you're human, and more importantly that the reviews are from humans, not all generated by a bot or written by your Mom.