All Forum Posts by: Joseph Bafia

@Kelly McCormack      We are in Mars Hill within the Wolf Laurel Community.

Rentals do fantastic and we’re already searching for another one in that area. About 50/50 split with renters who want complete solitude and just want to stay near home and maybe hike and another group that want a remote place to stay but want close enough to Asheville.  We also are a ski/snowboard family but Ski the Wolf is not much of a place if you’ve skied “real” mountains.  

Take a look at small mountain towns surrounding Asheville.  We have 2 properties in Mars Hill that capture the remote feel guests looks for, but still driving distance to Asheville for activities, restaurants are more.  Weaverville, Mars Hill, Candler, etc. to name a few.  Those areas put you just over 4 hours from Charleston.

I wish I researched market prices and strategies a it more when we jumped in.  I went the route of shopping a few places near us and priced close to them with really no rhyme or reason.  We were renting at $100-$125/night to start.  We started booking quickly and over time started increasing rates.  Once we were doing it for a few months we started doing more research on COMPARABLE properties and now a year later we rent the same house $175-$265/night.  

As for VRBO/Airbnb, we use both.  Hate doing it for reason of multiple platforms and 95%+ of our business comes from VRBO, BUT I will say Airbnb hs filled in gaps during odd days like midweek, so love having the higher occupancy.

Regardless, I don't think you can just pick one and "hope" .  You have no idea which platform will be more relatable to your market or guests.  Its interesting on these forums when I first got involved hearing someone say "I only get AIrbnb bookings", and I was thinking I was doing something wrong.

Best of luck and happy to help with any specific questions.

You're right about Asheville proper...very strict. WIth not enough homes for locals, investors buying things up and prices skyrocketing, STR is not a good word there. However, surrounding areas have great value. At some point, Asheville needs to expand (already doing that into Weaverville) so appreciation in outying towns will be good. My STRs are about 45 mins north of Asheville and do well (in a community that really favors and thrives off STRs).

you hit the nail on the head with the observation of being a good communicator.  You should be very happy that the other VRBO owner gave you such a poor reply as that's your competition and will only funnel more business your way!  We too follow Avery's advice of making imperfections known.  We have a steep driveway, you need 4x4/AWD in the winter months, No AC, etc....all disclosed and we'd rather lose the deal over the renter knowing the facts than fight a bad review later.  It just happened yesterday that a renter inquired if we allow pets and if so, how good we clean after renter leaves since they have a pet allergy.  We responded politely but accurately that it may not be best to stay at our place and take a chance for their health reason.  

Keep up all the great research and education!

I just started working with Jason out of Charlotte on my refinance in NC:

Jason Andrews 
Owner | Dolfin Home Loans, LLC

Rachel 

Congrats on being under contract. Your story is similar to ours in that we bought our first place as a true 2nd home getaway and it wasn't until we found we didn't use it all the time, that maybe we could try and rent it. The rest is history. Once we listed (March 2019), it's been booked solid all year. Only hiccup has been Covid where county stopped STR from April to Mid-May. Once restriction was lifted, back to full occupancy (at even higher rates).

I will tell you we are north of Asheville at 4400' elevation.  I don't discount what other mention about AC, but we don't have it.  70%+ of home in our community don't have AC as the few days in the summer it gets hot don't outweigh the cost and windows open and fans get it cool enough.  

AirDNA also tells me that that in my zip code, AC is the #1 amenity...yet we have 49 reviews and a 4.9 Star rating.  Not sure where they got their data on that one.  My suggestion is to determine what the others home have.  Ask questions of permenant home owners with how hot it gets and if they have AC.  Just do your homework.

Its always interesting to hear how various owners get their bookings.  We are 95%+ VRBO (listed on AIrbnb).  We price manually.  We had no idea what we were doing this first few months (really first year), but we've got our groove.  We know weekends are higher, holiday are big, make sure you have minimums in place for busy periods.  We've seen the pattern where our bookings are 80% 1-2 months in advance, I don't panic until about 3 weeks out to start adjusting rate.  My son and I periodically peek at them and adjust as needed to maximize.  

Good luck with Banner Elk as we love that area too!

@Roland O'Brien I will tell you when I tried getting one 6 months ago, it was covert difficult. They are very busy and can take top dollar and turn down work. Anybody that’s good is very busy and the one that was cordial enough to get me a quote was 6 months out.

Luckily my property was north of Asheville so I was able to find a freelance guy that was out in the country. It was just him and occasionally a helper. Did great work, but slower as a one person operation.

Asheville is booming and construction workers are hard to find. A suggestion is to go to Lowe’s or Home Depot early in morning and just strike up a conversation with someone getting materials. Maybe that person works for someone and can do side project for you.

Best of luck!

I agree on market research piece. As an example, our downtime for our 2 cabins in Western NC was April to Mid-May. Once they opened it back up, we've had our best ever June & July (and August/September trending that way). We'll make enough in June and July in excess of last years numbers to offset lost revenue from Covid. However, we are in an isolated mountain town and not a socially active area like a beach. These may play into things as well. Also, we rent ours very steady all 12 montsh, and I assume much less demand outside of summer at a beach. I think everyone's suggestion to research all data, rates, etc is good. The STR forums on BP are amazing and I have learned a ton. If you simply search the forum for your key terms, you'll get tons of hits!

Good luck