All Forum Posts by: Gary Ennis

@Aaron Thivierge thanks very much for the kudos. My wife and I selected all the furnishings and designed the look and feel of the property - although she is our Head Designer. It's the part of this business that we have the most fun with. 

@Lynn Burson AirBnB has definitely helped to boost occupancy, but they do charge a 3% fee for each booking. 

I'm a fan of Heather Bayer's Vacation Rental Success podcast. Would love to hear about any others that folks have found useful.

@Ashley Jackson thanks!

Yup - I know exactly which one. 

You are reading my mind regarding the Airstream idea. After being inspired by Liz Lambert's El Cosmico property in Marfa, we were actually kicking around the idea of buying some land in East Austin and installing 5-6 restored vintage Airstream trailers to rent out as VRs, with a common area and perhaps some type of arrangement for occasional live music. 

There's no way to get an Airstream into the back yard of our first VR. However, the property that we're currently rehabbing has great possibilities. We just came back from taking measurements over there, and found that we've got a pretty much perfect spot for one, and a way to get it back there. We're definitely going to move forward on this. Thanks for igniting the idea!

The house is currently worth about $325K. Un-rehabbed it might go for $260Kish. We got it for considerably less than that, since we bought it several years ago, before the Austin market really caught fire. But of course we spent about $50K rehabbing it, and another $12K or so furnishing it (we went relatively high-end). 

It is a matter of running the numbers to determine whether a prospective property will be profitable as a vacation rental. I can't remember who it was, @J. Martin perhaps, but someone has posted a spreadsheet to the BP Fileplace that they use to calculate the return on a VR property. 

You are correct - a property management firm will take a huge chunk, likely 25-40% of rental revenue, which could eat up most/all profits. 

Thanks @Kate H.!

@Naeem Kapasi Thanks for the kind words!

@Jon Klaus Occupancy rate was 70% for April, 55% for May, 50% for June, and 84% for July. 66% overall for the 4 months. 

We're happy with what we've been able to accomplish thus far, but we're also optimistic that we can raise occupancy rates significantly, primarily by building our own website (instead of relying 100% upon the listing sites), and starting an email marketing campaign to former guests/prospects.

Surprises thus far:
- At least in Austin, which is a 12-month rental market, the term "vacation rental" is a bit of a misnomer. "Short-term rental" is a more appropriate description, as we've had a significant number of guests who stayed with us because they were moving to Austin and their house wasn't quite ready, they were doing renovations to their house and needed a place to park their family for a few days, their child was graduating from UT, they were helping a family member move to Austin, etc.
- May and June were slow months. I would have thought that July and August, when it's very hot here and there's nice summer weather in the rest of the country, would be the slowest. But folks who are moving here who need temporary housing tend to move in the summer when kids are out of school, and there is quite a lot of activity around UT in August. 
- That we'd love being in the hospitality industry as much as we do. Being vacation rental owners enables my wife and I to combine our love of taking distressed properties and making them better, design (you've got to furnish and decorate the place to create an inviting "guest experience") and hospitality. We're very interested in the idea of managing others' Austin vacation rental properties for them, in addition to ours. 

Reinli St - wow! We are currently rehabbing our house on Broadview about three blocks away, which will become our second vacation rental property when it launches in late August. Is the property a commercial building? As far as I know there's only one little house left on Reinli; the rest are apartments or office space. 

@John Thedford As @Jeffrey Cervi mentioned, VRBO/HomeAway charges an annual fee, and does not take a cut of individual bookings. I highly recommend joining at their Platinum level; it's pricey at $1550 for membership that includes both VRBO and HomeAway and many of their other sites, but membership level is the #1 factor in determining your placement in their search results. Thus far we are getting the most reservations from VRBO/HomeAway, although we are gaining significant traction with AirBnB lately. 

AirBnB and FlipKey don't charge a membership fee, but take 3% of each booking.

Dwellable is another site we're experimenting with. They are a startup and don't have much traffic yet. But they are optimized for mobile (which is how many millenials are searching for VR properties) and optimized for large, beautiful photos. 

@Maura Paler Thanks! We'd love to host you guys for a future trip to Austin. If you have any questions about Austin, feel free to message me. 

@Eric Perez it's going well, thanks! I'd be happy to answer any specific questions you have - feel free to message me. 

Our property's back yard is fully fenced. And we do "screen" prospective guests' pets somewhat - I suppose if someone was looking to bring a rottweiler, german shepherd or similar breed, we'd think twice about renting to them. But we carry commercial insurance on the property, as well as an umbrella policy. You do whatever you can to minimize your risk.