All Forum Posts by: Account Closed

Looking in that area too. Just came back from 2 weeks down there, it's fantastic. 

I've only got data for Destin but you can DM me if you wanna chat about it.

@Bruce Woodruff Same as I said above. Great discussion. This is great. :D

You say no one would do that, but I think you'd be surprised! People with a LTR mindset come in from doing market research on a couple because that market is pretty dialed in. That market has been refined and matured to a point where someone asking for something per month is coming from a place of more time and information.

STR, on the other hand, is full of people with a spare place who are guessing about what to price stuff at. I don't think the market is that mature yet to where the majority are that confident. BiggerPockets users and more data-driven owners aside, I'd argue most people seem to ballpark it, or go off a handful of other users who are also ballparking it.

I wouldn't disagree that it can be overwhelming to the point of throwing your hands up like eh how much effort is this really saving me. But my point is just that searching for a certain week or weeks and looking at 20, 30, or even 50 places is going to take a bunch of time on its own. The data shows everything in a downloaded CSV done for you or in easy to view charts the second you purchase.

And when you take from the site in that way, again, you're taking ones that aren't booked and only from that timeframe. It's no use at all to calculate based on asking price, because we want to know what people are actually earning. It's just like comping a LTR investment off apartments in town with a sky-high vacancy rate. The data lets us know which properties are actually performing and how well. And when lumped all together, it shows us where most perform and where the best of the best perform.

There's also seasonality to consider. For a lot of places, you can split the performance into four seasons a year, because it fluctuates so much. How much hurt would you be in if you calculated for an investment off high season and assumed that performance all year? That's bad news.

So what I'm hearing you say is that you'd be okay collecting info from 50 different places. Are you accounting for seasonality? If you're doing that every month (50x12) just to get a better feel for the year round aspect, that's a start, but that's a lot of research. And you couldn't do that ahead of time accurately because everyone opens their calendar different days into the future. So you're collecting 20-50 places, every month at a month in advance, for a whole year to get a proper investment analysis?

So all I'm saying is, there's gotta be a point where it's easier to pay the $30-90, see the graphs, grab the monthly numbers (from all the properties across the last three years, not just the few you choose) it gives you in a spreadsheet in 10 minutes and move on. 

I love this discussion. Fantastic stuff.

@Michael Baum Yeah for sure more data is always going to produce better results. An area near me I looked into had about 250 units to draw from, which made the percentiles look odd. It looked like your area is similar, so I know what you mean. 

Well tell me what you think about this, because this problem fascinates me. I'm hearing you say - and correct me where I'm wrong - that even when you a) filter for how many bedrooms and b) how many guests you accommodate, what's left in your data are the couple of properties in your area with those details, but the spread of properties in your area is so different that it makes the data shown not very useful? 

Is this because there are too few properties with those stats? Do you have any other property areas you've explored that show this, and how many are listed in that one? The other thing I wonder is if the percentiles are any help. We can assume at least that if you get all the data and you can see what the median earns/books, and you know about what features are typical for your area, you can assume that by doing a little more than that you could be in the 75th percentile. I'd think the 90th percentile is going to be for those ultra-mega ritzy, great-view places inside your particular category of matching # BR. 

Last thing might be that you're suggesting under performing the stats means the data is wrong and can be given less weight, but (and this is more of a meta question) how can we as owners/hosts rule out that the data is fine and we're not the ones under performing?

We can't assume we understand the used Ford F-150 market because we saw one guy trying to sell his on the side of one road for $25,000. Just because he's asking that, doesn't mean he's getting it. The software and analysis is the same way. Just because you search Airbnb once and see someone trying to rent theirs for a certain price, that's not reflective of the market. Just that "street" at that time for that particular type of truck. 

But what these data sites do is tell you, "Okay, in October 2019, all the 2015 Ford F-150 extended cabs sold for an average $19,232." So when you try to sell your own, you can collect all the months, see the trend, see how many are selling these days, to know what is fair. To expand the analogy, these softwares even show you what the median is, as well as the top 25th percentile and sometimes the top 10th of listings. THOSE are the ones you want to explore. Not the ones that happen to be available for the couple of timeframes you chose. Those really good ones are already booked and aren't going to show up. 

And if you're looking to invest, you can begin to see how buying a bigger or smaller place is reflected when you see all the months and trends and for however many bedrooms you're looking to rent. Not many 1 BR in an area? Good to know. Most 3 BR homes feature xyz? Great. This area is actually decreasing in the number of total Airbnb listings overall for the last three years? Better see what's going on there before I invest. 

I can charge $10 a night and book every night, but that doesn't mean I'm making the most money. When we can see both how much everyone actually books for AND how many nights per month they book, we can see a much better picture of what's possible in the market without leaving a lot of money on the table. 

Hope this helps. :D

This is a good point. If you're seeing that everyone has Wifi, be sure you've got that. If no one has this or that, ask why that is and you can maybe get away with not having it (or get it so you stand out!). 

But also be aware that looking at Airbnb itself only shows what people are asking for per night, not what they're actually booking for. People can ask for whatever they want, of course. Another bonus that I think Michael alludes to is with the data sites like AllTheRooms, they show you the best performing properties in that area based on the data. So you know for sure what the best in the area looks like and what amenities they have and what their listing looks like. If you search for a certain weekend to gather info, you might not see the best properties in the area because those are already booked. 

I have tried Airdna and AllTheRooms and I like AllTheRooms better. It's like a fourth the price for what was basically the same thing for analysis. 

Huge bonus: ATR let me export CSVs, which let me plug it into Google Data Studio much more easily. 

With Airdna I had to manually copy each month's ADR and Occ Rate for the past 3 years. Because I'm looking at everything, when you're doing all bedroom options individually and separating by 50th and 75th percentiles, that gets really annoying really fast. So yeah. CSV exports are where it's at.

Great question. I might start by searching Google for best tourist areas of West Virginia. After a bit of time really familiarizing yourself with nature areas (outside of big parks, for example), you can check out places like Airdna or AllTheRooms free accounts for different areas. When you're ready to dive in further, you can buy the areas for more in depth projections. AllTheRooms is cheaper than Airdna, and in my experience do about the same thing for analysis like that.

I'm open to DMs if you like.

One of my favorite topics! A post I made that talked through how I do it: https://www.biggerpockets.com/...

There was a recent post by Dave Meyer on here too: https://www.biggerpockets.com/...

I'm partial to James Svetec's courses, as we're partnered up hahaha

As for estimating, Airdna works, but I found AllTheRooms nicer because exporting as csv made analysis much nicer for me.

Here's an example I put together recently with broad strokes on how I do it:

https://www.biggerpockets.com/...

And it's entirely possible to do it yourself with the right systems and programs. Otherwise you can expect 10-20%, depending on how much you have them do. 

DM me if you've got questions!

Congrats! The first week or two are crucial to a listing. Airbnb will be throwing extra traffic your way to test your listing. You seem like the type to already have all your ducks in a row though, so I'm sure it'll crush.