All Forum Posts by: Jason Collins

@Boris Mordkovich

Thanks for sharing.

Have you or any of the other posters on here ever thought of starting a business to help non-tech savvy investors set these items up?

I’ll be honest, I tried experimenting in the past with some of these programs but had trouble synchronizing several of them and just gave up.

It would be great for the investors with average computer skills to have a go to company that sets everything up for a one time fee.

Then maybe give a short tutorial on how everything works and how to add new properties.

My co-manager and I try to handle everything positively and professionally. Sometimes our impulse it to fire back at a negative review, but I have never regretted waiting to cool off.

We now message the guests the night before check out asking if they had a good stay and if there is anything we can improve on.

This tends to let reasonable guests vent. We find they are less likely to leave bad public reviews if we address their concerns before check out.

The guests that really bother us are the ones that are: 1. Obviously digging for problems to try to get refunds or discounts. They tend to try leverage the threat of a bad review for a monetary reward.

2. Also, we have had problems with guests that break rules (illegal pets, parties, etc), then threaten/imply bad reviews if we ask them to abide by the house policies.

If anyone has suggestions on how to deal with these ‘guest diggers’ I would love to hear them.

No Limit Hold Em

To me real estate is essentially a math equation with som execution required.

There are a lot of parallels between calculating rent/ROI and calculating pott odds/equity in poker. Always leave yourself outs!

If I ever make the BP podcast, my out of the box recommendations for most helpful books would be Super/Systems and Dan Harrington’s Poker Strategy.

The government just passed $6 trillion in bipartisan spending over the last four months.

No amount of taxing the rich will ever pay for this plus the preexisting $20+ trillion deficit.

If US spending continues at this pace the country is on the road for bankruptcy/economic disaster no matter who is taxed.

@Cindy Coker

Thanks for your insight.

Sounds like a huge hassle. Sarasota is not nearly as strict in enforcement. Typically if there is a complaint from a neighbor they start to investigate.

We try to buy properties only in the area that allows weekly rentals.

@Joseph Bafia

Thanks Joseph. I had read some articles about North Carolina passing legislation making all short term rentals legal. But it looks like that may have stalled.

@Amanda Ferguson

Thanks Amanda. I hadn’t seen that. Definitely a good start to investigating areas.

@Alice Horn

Thanks Alice.

Great to know. I had read an article that MIami-Dade went as far as to shut off the water of short term rental and now that case is moving through the court system.

Orlando area seems like the place to be!

@Tim W.

It is my understanding Anna Maria and Holmes Beach have very few regulations at this point.

Manatee County officials have proposed contracting with AirBNB to collect bed taxes for them and possibly registering short term rentals but I don’t believe this has passed yet.

@John Underwood

Thanks John.

I agree that one of the drawbacks to investing in a short term rental is that a change in laws can wipe out your entire business model.