All Forum Posts by: James Carlson

Have you considered self-managing? Most of my STR investor clients in Colorado are smaller time and so managing 1-3 properties themselves isn't that hard. There're a lot of automation tools that can streamline the Airbnb listing and management. Turno, Pricelabs, Guesty, etc.

Just a thought. I hate giving up 20% or more.

I'm not an Airbnb-hater like some -- I think the platform offers the broadest exposure to people who want an STR or MTR, and hosts avoid Airbnb at their peril -- but your question does speak to the inequity between guests and hosts on the platform.

Airbnb has made a strategic decision to give more weight to guests' happiness than to the hosts'. Because reviews so strongly inform your listing's search ranking, and because Airbnb makes disputing a review so onerous -- damn near impossible -- hosts are over a barrel and have to comply with sometimes absurd request from guests or, in your experience, just consent to outright theft of small items. 

I'm not offering any answers. Just griping a bit.

Totally depends on the market, right?

My client's cute A-frame STR in the Colorado mountains isn't going to attract remote workers who want to be near essential services. But our 1br condo in a downtown-adjacent neighborhood in Denver is prime real estate for an MTR.

I do think, though, that even the medium-term rental market has felt the effects of saturation. The Airbnb downturn from a few years ago pushed a lot of short-term rentals into the MTR game, which drove up supply and has driven down returns. 

Okay, I'll bite ... What are you going to do with the air rights?

And excuse my ignorance -- it's been nine years since I took the Colorado real estate exam -- you can't buy air rights separate from the land, can you? 

Quote from @Mike Grudzien:

Quote from @James Carlson:

 James provides a great initial summation.  Next, make sure you have pile of money....

Yes, forgot the "pile of money" step of buying. ;)

Yep, what Collin said. I'd interview a few realtors and ask them all:

-- What percentage of your deals are short-term rental investors?

-- Do you know the STR laws in and out? (Here in Colorado Airbnb laws are city to city, county to county. So, for instance, you can't do it in Denver but you can in Wheat Ridge right next door.)

-- How do you run your numbers on STR revenues? 

-- Along with all the other normal questions you might have for a realtor. 

Good luck!

I don't know if 1/1 is a thing or not, but I do think unique stays have huge upside on Airbnb now. 

So yeah, if you can into a small space -- with a low mortgage -- and then blow out the design, your cash-on-cash will be outperform the market. (As an example, my clients' STR in Colorado is crushing it in the first few months with their 700sf A-frame because it's unique.) 

Good luck!

Same here in Colorado. My STR investor clients are seeing improved numbers over last year, and the new short-term rentals just going online are having outsized success compared to clients who went live with their Airbnbs last year.

AirDNA has been talking in the last two of its annual reports that the growth in supply of STRs was shrinking and the demand was increasing slightly. Those two trends should mean higher occupancy, ADRs, gross revenues, etc. in the coming year. 

Quote from @John Underwood:

FYI,

New listings get artificially pushed to the top of search results to help new listings get traction.

 I appreciate the Airbnb 101 lesson, but they're outperforming their competition and AirDNA by a wide margin. Even with the new-listing bump, that's a lot of room to lose some traction and still have a well-performing asset.

Because I've also seen some people's mediocre listings go live and they perform ... eh, just fine. The algorithm can push a crappy listing to the top. It can't make people book it. 

Quote from @Andrew Steffens:

Good job! Thats a nice place for $400k! How are you marketing it, just Airbnb?

Well, it's not mine. It's my client's property, but I believe they're exclusively on Airbnb right now. They're getting a social media presence going soon to try to capture direct bookings as well.

(I've been critical of direct booking sites on BP before, but for the truly unique property, I do think building buzz can allow you to charge beyond what competition would otherwise charge.)