All Forum Posts by: Jon Martin

I use duvets that are slightly larger than the comforter. Swap and wash with every guest. Might be overkill but it keeps things fresh and clean. 

3 sets of everything, that way there is always a clean backup on site, while one could be at the off site laundry. If your unit is larger than 2 bedrooms you will probably want to utilize a fluff/fold service unless you have large commercial laundry machines. 

IMO the bigger challenge is Quality Control at scale when it comes to cleaners. It's tough to instill that level of work ethic and enforce it consistently. Plus, once you get the cleaners to that level they will realize that they can simply start their own companies and take home more money. Similar to plumbers and other trades i would imagine. 

Using a 3rd party out of town manager when you live next door. . .. Sigh 

Houfy dot com is a direct booking site that uses a "Freemium" model. It's a clunky outdated interface (even when compared to VRBO lol) but you get what you paid for. Not a lot of properties on there (yet?). DIY website builders like GoDaddy have some templates that might work but I haven't dove into those yet. Otherwise you are probably spending a lot of money to have a contractor build out a direct booking site. 

You could try a reverse image search (right click in Chrome) which will find other OTAs where that property is listed, and the direct booking site if applicable. I've also seen hosts post of a photo with the direct booking URL on a sign, although I personally would not be comfortable doing that. 

Pretty soon here I plan to get a QR code to the direct booking site for my listings and put them on a fridge magnet or coffee mug. 

VRBO is flailing as ABNB continues to eat their lunch. Nebulous and seemingly redundant fees- what is a "Host" fee vs a "Service" fee? Painfully clunky and outdated interface for both guests and especially hosts. Pushes the cost of damage protection insurance onto the hosts and guests. Rewards program that killed the legendary hotels dot com 10 for 1 that doesn't even work on most of the listings when you try to apply it. Just an all around crappy UI for everyone. 

Expedia's stock price is almost exactly where it was 5 years ago YTD. The only benefit I see is that it provides at least some competitive counterbalance to ABNB. 

There's a major difference between community opposition and an HOA. With community opposition you can operate within the confines of the prevailing laws, and so long as you play by those rules they legally cannot shut you down. Any new rules will probably have due process and input from the community. Whereas an HOA can call a vote at any time and shut you down instantly with zero input or due process.

Plus with an HOA you will likely have retired board members who have nothing better to do but make sure everyone is complying with their rules. City/county governments don't have that kind of manpower.

You could also try cold emailing hosts who have listings with good bones and in good locations who struggle with the design. Also agree with suggestions above regarding facebook groups. Good luck!

Sucks but it happens. If you get another similar complaint you may want to post some photos of the surrounding area or mention the "eclectic transitional neighborhood with tons of character" in the description in order to frontload the expectation a bit. 

Otherwise I agree with the above comments about keeping after customer service. If it's not too late you do have a window where you can ask the guest to change their review. Either way, from this point forward provide the best experience possible to your guests so that you can bury the bad reviews with more good ones- most guests won't bother to search back that far. 

That's exactly the problem. When I go to the calendar to change the price, it tells me that I can't because I have MM on (even though it hasn't changed a single price). When I click to go to MM tab, the popup screen blocks the toggle switch where you turn MM on/off. It's stuck in a Catch 22 endless loop. Incredibly clumsy roll out on VRBO's part. 

Thanks @John Underwood  I was able to change the prices on the app! 

Trying to raise my prices in VRBO around some football games. Already raised them on ABNB & Houfy. When I try click on the dates, it won't let me change them because Market Maker is turned on. When I go the Market Maker tab, a pop up immediately goes over the MM toggle switch, blocking it, and says I need 5 comps for MM to work. So I pull up some neighboring comps, hoping that if I add the 5 comps to MM, that screen will no longer pop up and then I can then turn off the toggle switch. When I click on that link, it takes me to an almost blank screen with a search box for property ID. However when I try to add a neighboring comp, the search doesn't even work. Tried doing this on another web browser thinking it could be stale cookies and nope, same result!

While I don't have enough experience with either company to say one is better or worse for hosts than other, I've always found VRBO to be the far clunkier and less user friendly by miles. This is further confirmation of that, because MM never even adjusted my rates in the first place and now it's impossible to turn off. Sat on hold for 20 minutes only to be told that it has to be escalated to IT. 

VRBO needs IT serious help in the User Interface and Experience department. Thanks for listening to my ted talk.