All Forum Posts by: Jason Collins

The reason the host ‘buttercups’ are upset is not because they took a calculated risk and lost money, but because AirBNB unilaterally intervened and changed the contract structure without consulting owners first.

I agree that lawsuits will not solve the problem.

However, I think that a much better policy would have been to allow individual hosts and guests to work out the situation on their own terms.

For example, I would have offered my guests a 100% credit for a future date of their choice OR a 50% rebate.

Going forward, I believe the best way to resolve this would be for AirBNB to allow hosts to offer their own travelers insurance.

For example, for $75 extra dollars a booking, I will allow guests to cancel with full refund in the event of a documented medical condition or a natural disaster, state of emergency, etc.

AirBnB argued in a major European lawsuit that the reason they should be regulated differently than Uber/Lyft or other similar companies is because AirBNB only provides a ‘platform’ to connect consumers and does not set or interfere with pricing or individual contracts.

By acting only as a middleman they have been able to avoid millions and possibly billions of dollars of regulatory red tape.

However, by stepping in and canceling contracts I believe that Airbnb has stepped outside the bounds of being merely a platform connecting consumers.

I think with some legal pressure AirBNB would much rather settle with hosts than have to potentially re-litigate cases they have already won.

This is the underlying reason I believe they agreed to cough up the 25% back to hosts. I’m sure by accepting the 25% rebate hosts will have to agree to forego any future legal action.

The question I have is, is it worth it to ruin a previously prosperous relationship with AirBNB over hopefully 6-8 weeks of rental income?

Would they go so far as to downgrade the visibility of host listings that have complained or joined a lawsuit?

My strategy is to sit tight. Weather the storm. In the meantime I am actively looking into adding VRBO as well as converting a portion of my properties to long term rentals.

Had 6 months in reserves but unfortunately closed on our largest deal on March 16th.

We thought about backing out but in the long run I think it will still be a good investment.

We now have 3 months of reserves, 5 empty short term vacation rentals in Florida, and our newest acquisition on hold in terms of the repairs/upgrades before renting.

Temporary plan is to wait this out for 4-6 weeks and see when the short term rentals may resume. If not we will shift the properties to long term rentals with attractive tenant rates so that we can at least pay the bills.

Thankfully, my partner and I have personal savings that we can tap into if needed and my day job is in the medical field. Would also consider tapping into my home HELOC. So we have some back stops but still have some healthy anxiety I suppose.

Thought we were being conservative, but never could have imagined a situation where our rentals went from 20-30% annual returns to 0 occupancy in two weeks while also potentially jeopardizing my day job W2 income.

It didn’t help that Airbnb pulled the rug out from hosts, lol.

Any thoughts on what the best buys will be in if the real estate market follows the stock/jobs market?

Office vs retail?

Apartments?

Short term rentals?

Predictions for the timeline for the bottom of the real estate market?

Any thoughts on the lending environment in 3-6 mths?

I know BRRRR is one of the key strategies on BP. I just wanted to play devil's advocate and see if my line of thinking makes sense.

I have a professional job that pays well, so I have been taking my extra income and purchasing single family rentals and more recently delving into multi family/commercial properties.

My issue with BRRRR is that there are significant transaction fees, closing costs, stamp taxes, etc every time I refinance a property.

My strategy instead has been to form a relationship with a local bank. They give me loans through a unique LLC that my partner and I guarantee through the equity in our other properties, as well as our relatively high personal income.

Rather than refinancing each property, after every rehab we just have a significantly higher percentage of equity in that property. In the future, the bank will lend to us for new properties based on our existing equity with very little personal money down. That is essentially my ‘repeat’.

Our goal is to pay the properties off in 15 years to lower costly interest payments over time.

In my head, this is synonymous with owning a low cost index fund. We pay less transaction fees up front, less interest over time, and eventually make a higher ROI.

The downside, it seems ,is that I may not to be able to scale as rapidly with new properties. In all honesty I don’t mind being a little more conservative because I look at this more as a long term investment rather than a quick ticket to financial freedom.

Hi Everyone,

This is my first post on BP forums.

I am a physician in southwest Florida with several small vacation rentals as well as a duplex.

We just had our offer accepted on a residential property with just over 4 acres of land. This is located on a main road very close to a large new hospital that will be completed next year.

The area is rapidly growing and the property is less than 2.5 miles to the beach.

We are in the due diligence phase and I have already had several preliminary conversations with a local land planner/zoning expert.

My hope was to use the house as a vacation rental to cover my overhead while rezoning the front 2.5 acres into a commercial lot.

My goal would be to eventually use my medical connections and pair with investors/developers to build a medical office complex.

1. Any thoughts on the ease/difficulty of splitting and rezoning into commercial?

2. Could I possibly rezone the entire parcel with the house into a commercial property to give me more flexibility in the future?

3. We would like to make extra temporary revenue by either using the land for wedding receptions or boat/rv storage. Any thoughts on legal/liability issues this may create?

Thanks,

JC