All Forum Posts by: Jason Collins

Things still slow in Florida.

We had a good tourist season earlier this year so we have reserves left. Had almost all existing reservations cancel at end of March. A few scattered bookings since then help with the bills.

I do agree with most of the posts that Airbnb has allowed the pendulum to swing to far towards guests and away from hosts. Hosts take all the risk and liability.

Definitely shifting to vrbo and student rentals to diversify.

In terms of giving refunds for neighborhood activity,I think Airbnb goes too far. If hotels did this every Hilton and Hyatt in New York, Chicago, and San Francisco would go broke giving ‘safety refunds.’

Thanks for the input everyone.

I agree with pretty much everything people are saying.

I have tended to error on the side of safety and giving guests the benefit of the doubt which in the long run has worked out well.

We will probably add security cameras to the front of our properties. I think this will add to guest safety and give us an objective response if we do get complaints. We haven’t done that yet only because of the expense for adding them to single family homes.

I agree that mid to long term rentals are risky with Airbnb. I love it when they work out but to get burned on short notice on a 30-60 day booking really stings.

@Joe Splitrock

It usually happens once every few months. These were just the two most recent examples.

The reason it hurt more this time and I decided to post was that it was early in a month rental and bookings have been very slow lately (not to mention AirBNB’s controversial Covid refund policy).

I didn’t mention this before, but AirBNB customer support told us that the guest who cancelled had left another hosting one week before with similar complaints.

We always strive to keep the guests safe and happy and have taken the approach you suggested in the past.

Was mainly interested in seeing if other AirBNB hosts have had similar events happen to them and if anyone else had alternative ways of handling/preventing these situations.

@Stephanie Simmons

We agreed to cancel the stay. In my experience if they cancel early and we agree to the cancellation Airbnb does not post the guest’s review.

My concern is that if we enforced the strict cancellation criteria we would be paid but the guest would then be inclined to leave an inaccurate, scathing review out of anger.

We have tried asking Airbnb guest services to not allow reviews for guests that have tried to manipulate the cancellation policy, but my understanding is that if a guest pays they can write a review, accurate or not.

It puts the host between a rock and a hard place.

Just had an AirBNB guest cancel after day 3 of a 30 day booking (we always use strict cancellation policy) because he said he drove by a grocery store 3 blocks away and saw ‘homeless people doing drugs.’

The guest called AirBNB and pressured us to lift the strict policy and allow them to cancel for ‘the safety of their family.’

A few months ago we had a guest cancel early because they ‘saw someone in the yard at night.’ They did not file a police report and didn’t notify us until the next afternoon.

Our rentals are all in middle class neighborhoods and have 4.9 stars or above with super host status.

My concern is that guests are changing their vacation plans and make up excuses to get out of paying.

Normally, we would not refund their money unless they document the encounter with us immediately or file a police report, but they always go through AirBNB support in a non urgent time frame.

Is there a way to enforce our cancellation policies without getting a scathing 1 star review from the guest claiming we forced them to stay in unsafe conditions? Thoughts?

Thanks for the responses.

I understand that it is impossible to accurately predict interest rates in the long term.

More of just an opinion poll of where things may go.

I think there are a lot of interesting factors at play:

-Fed lowering lending rates to 0 and potentially negative levels with massive amounts of government and private debt.

-an increase in the supply of money through QE type activities

-changes in supply and demand for mortgage loans due to aftermath of COVID

Just wanted to see what everyone thinks about where interest rates will be in the next 5, 10, 20 years?

Can the Fed hold down interest rates in the long term as the money supply increases exponentially?

Personally, I have a mixed portfolio of 30 year mortgages, ARMs, and commercial loans with variable rates at 5/10 year increments.

I don’t want to be trapped with adjustable rates in the setting of runaway inflation...

Thanks guys.

That was my initial thought as well. I definitely want to continue investing so I think it will be well worth it.

Just was a little confused with mixed advice.

I have a few single family rental properties.

At some point I was hoping to move some or all of them into apartment complexes via a 1031 exchange.

My question is, at what point is it not worth it to bother with setting up a 1031 exchange?

My accountant seemed to think that for a single family property, by the time you spent the legal fees to set up the exchange as well as paying for a qualified intermediary, it would just be easier to pay the capital gains taxes....