All Forum Posts by: Jon Martin

There are a few destinations with good mountain biking, hiking, lakes etc and other outdoor stuff in Arkansas. Look for that kind of destination that is drivable from bigger metros in Arkansas and neighboring states. 

Incredible reading a story like this from someone at age 24!  

I think if you have gotten yourself this far in terms of assets and knowledge of various debt vehicles, that you can probably scour the country for niche markets where the revenue to price ratio works for you. You've managed to find yourself at this website with the capital to get in the game, so I know you are capable of researching the right markets where the numbers work for you.

STR is the same game everywhere, just different leagues in different markets.

I'd say about $10K for a 1 bed/bath. Add $4K for each bedroom from there, which in the addition to the furnishings of the additional bedroom covers the additional seating, flatware, towels etc that scale up with the additional guests added to each bedroom. I have an excel sheet if you like, feel free to DM me. 

That you are either 1 bedroom or 5+ bedroom. 2 & 3 bedrooms (and in most cases/markets 4 bedrooms) are the saturated and squishy middle. Too much space and high of a cost basis to compete with hotels, along with being excessive space for 1-2 person stays, while also not big enough for multiple families. You end up spending the extra money to purchase, rehab, furnish, clean and heat/cool the extra space for a return that doesn't scale with the added costs and often ends up underutilized. Which is not to say that the right property and location could not work great with that bedroom count, although you probably need an A+ location to really make that work given how many of them are out there. 

Even with what I said above, I would only invest in a 1 bedroom project if there were multiples of them on the same property like a hotel or group of cabins. You are directly competing with hotels at that point so you will have less lead time and shorter guest stays for a solid portion of your bookings. Whereas with 5+ bedrooms people plan much further in advance and don't mind 3 night weekend minimums. Which IMO makes 5+ bedrooms the winner. 

Great design! Love that rug in photo 3, did you get that from Revival? I did a reverse image search and it came up there sold out. 

Agree with not going the kitchy neon and mural route, I don't think that design trend will age well. A design like this is timeless, well done. 

I just dealt with this with Airbnb after noticing that views and bookings dropped off in the last 1-2 weeks. Somehow the lat/long changed in the Airbnb server and it was showing up in the middle of nowhere.

Why Airbnb prioritizes what they think is the lat/long over the physical address is beyond me . . . .

@Christina B. you have great taste haha! 

Guess my cleaners just grin and bare it, I'm sure it happens every now and then. 

No need to repeat what everyone said above (although I guess I am by saying that). Both Costco and Amazon have a similar Calphalon stainless steel set that is $180-200 for everything you need. I've bought a few non-stick here and there and all have gotten scratched and had to be thrown away. 

Only possible benefit of a nonstick is it might be less likely for a guest to leave behind a hard to clean pan for your cleaner, but I haven't heard that happen yet so it seems like a non-issue. 

This. The market determines the going rate, not your expenses. Econ 101.

If the price is per night, you can pretend to add it to your cost basis for the nightly rate. If it's per stay you can itemize it as suggested above or lump it in with the cleaning fee. Either way, you are competing with other units that don't have that expense, so the price guests are willing to pay is irrelevant to what your expenses are. 

 I would disagree. This is the same country where A & W introduced a 1/3 lb burger to compete with the Quarter Pounder, only for it to fail because the average consumer thought it was smaller.  

Consumers in general are tired of junk fees, especially with several years of inflation. Airbnb has been taking heat on social media for fees so they are now wrapping it all in, while VRBO still has itemized fees that are confusing. Smart move IMO