All Forum Posts by: Jon Martin

10000%. In addition to everything John said, they aer great for intelligence gathering. I found out that my contractor was slow paying his sub (the guy doing all the work, and high quality at that) because the sub was bitching about it while on my front porch. I called out to him through the camera, got his phone number, and now I have a direct line to the guy doing the work without the finders fee!

Also nice being able to keep an eye on packages and any unwanted visitor activity, the latter of which you get much less of because of the deterrence effect of the cameras themselves. 

If you were well booked in December, then I doubt that there was some sudden flood of new units or other market changing event that would be to blame for the slow January. Seems that this is quite common in most markets where winter is the slow season. There is always a collective "belt tightening" in January as people come out of the holidays, check their credit card statements, and promise to spend less, only to go back to their old behaviors a few months later. Plus, most people take time off in the Thanksgiving through New Years stretch because that is what we are accustomed to culturally and we already have some free days off to combine.  Plus employers expect us to return to work raring to go in January, so people tend to travel less now anyway. 

Either way I would recommend squirreling away money into a separate reserve account and be sure to put at least some of the profits during the better months into this as well. Even better, consider using any extra cash to pay down your principal so that you can chip away at your monthly. Every bit helps, good luck. 

 I don't doubt it. It's finding that crew that's the challenge. 

 In California that would be expedited service!

Struggling with how I will handle this as well as I approach my launch, and mine is a 2/1. My best guess is that having spare sets of everything that the cleaners flip immediately, then they go off-site to a commercial laundromat or use a fluff n' fold service.

The independent could still have a leg up with price, design and service. I look at this like the old faithful hole-in-the-wall mom n pop vs the investor funded celebrity chef restaurant. The independent investor that bought at the right time will probably have a lower cost basis than a well-funded new build. If you buy right and keep a lean operation you can weather the storm with lower prices, whereas a high dollar new build with high overhead will have a much higher cost basis per night and can only operate at a loss for so long. Then you have the inevitable homogenization that comes with scale, so the professional operation will either have to spend more to design and furnish their units uniquely or they furnish/design at scale for the cost savings and become just like the boring hotels that drove people away in the first place. 

This isn't to say that there won't be successful operations like you mentioned, because I'm sure there will be some. Question is will they really be much different than a bunch of ski in/out or beach condos or cabins that all look the same. We keep hearing about uniqueness being a selling point, which is where independents will always have a leg up IMO. 

From the limited research I've done, it seemed that the cost of going from a plunge to a proper-sized smaller pool was marginal. Seems like the kind of thing where the cost for something basic is so high that you may as well spend the extra dough for something the whole family can use at once. YMMV

It is. The “cable box” system is redundant, clunky and a forced revenue stream for the benefit of the cable companies. They all have their own web based app now, thankfully, and is what i use at home and in my rental via Roku. Best of both worlds because they can still watch the local ABC, CBS etc stations.