All Forum Posts by: Johan Erikson

Thanks for all the feedback. I did get a demo of Smart Host yesterday and it seems like a very useful tool. They are starting up, they are small, and there is more functionality to be added, but they seem very flexible and accommodating to your needs, so I signed up for the service. I still have not analyzed all the data they sent over, I'll be pouring over that this weekend. Over time as they build their historical data the tool will only become more useful (I believe). I also signed up for beyondpricing.com. I'll keep you posted on how things work out and hopefully I can report back on higher overall revenues in a while. The key is to drive higher revenues, just not more bookings, that's the easy part. Thanks, Johan

Anyone tried any of the pricing tools for your vacation rental (smarthost.me, beyondpricing.com)? Any feedback on how they perform? Do they increase your vacation rental revenues (and not just occupancy)? Thanks in advance for your feedback!

I came clean with my Farmers agent on my vacation rental in Lake Tahoe and he came back with a landlord policy, surprisingly it dropped my rate in half. I have another homeowners policy with USAA on my primary, and an umbrella policy through on of USAA's intermediaries. It's complicated, some don't like Tahoe due to wildfire risks, some don't like the rental aspect, so hard to get it all under one company (and affordable). It took some time to piece together.

Is it a residential mortgage or a commercial loan? Did you get the bank to count future income from this rental, or does the financing fit within your current debt/income ratio? I want to add a few high end properties that I would not afford without the income from those properties, and I have not been able to find any lender willing to look at future income from vacation rentals.