All Forum Posts by: Justin Knighten

I'm new to the STR game with 2 rentals, and they've gotten to where they are requiring a fair amount of input. One is in our front yard, the other is about 45 minutes away. I'm a firefighter, and can generally handle any non-emergent maintenance (and don't really mind doing so), and the accounting/paperwork sides of things aren't a problem, I can find a few hours a week to take care of that. The burden at this point is being responsive to messages, booking inquiries and the like. My wife was helping, but she starts a new job this week. Days I'm off work, I can handle it, but if I'm at work, I shouldn't be spending the day on the phone dealing with rental issues. My sister is a stay-at-home mother and is open to being what it looks like most are calling a "co-host". She'd be the person that answers messages and such when we're unable to. Does anyone have any suggestions or tips on how we could set this up to get us out of the business? I'm unsure of how the pay would work for this as well. It doesn't seem that it would take a lot of time from her, just a few minutes here and there, mostly being available when something comes in. Thanks in advance for any help!

I'm new to the STR game with 2 rentals, and they've gotten to where they are requiring a fair amount of input. One is in our front yard, the other is about 45 minutes away. I'm a firefighter, and can generally handle any non-emergent maintenance (and don't really mind doing so), and the accounting/paperwork sides of things aren't a problem, I can find a few hours a week to take care of that. The burden at this point is being responsive to messages, booking inquiries and the like. My wife was helping, but she starts a new job this week. Days I'm off work, I can handle it, but if I'm at work, I shouldn't be spending the day on the phone dealing with rental issues. My sister is a stay-at-home mother and is open to being what it looks like most are calling a "co-host". She'd be the person that answers messages and such when we're unable to. Does anyone have any suggestions or tips on how we could set this up to get us out of the business? I'm unsure of how the pay would work for this as well. It doesn't seem that it would take a lot of time from her, just a few minutes here and there, mostly being available when something comes in. Thanks in advance for any help!

I have my personal phone with Xfinity mobile.  You have to be a Comcast customer, but it’s the same flat fee for up to 5 lines.  I only need one for the wife and I so I used a 3rd one on an old phone to use for listing vacancies and such.  Not ideal, I can’t have them come to the same phone on a different line, but cheap enough and fairly effective.

I think some of your numbers are off. We have a 2 bed “cabin” in Luray, near, but not on the river we paid $165 for in December.  Put about 5 into furnishing and outfitting it (a lot of used stuff) and we’re at about $4900 gross for July.  I think we had 2 empty days.  Most other months have had similar occupancy.  Your utility cost is likely high as well.  I think your replacement and big ticket items are also high.  Our place is hardly luxury, but we are catering more to the river floating and hiking crowd, so it’s a little more “low end”, but we’ve not had any real complaints on stuff.  I don’t have tons of experience with Massanutten, but I think you can make money in there.  There are also some lower priced properties than $500 as well.  
I suppose there are advantages to owning a vacation home, but for what thought I’ve put into it, I’d rather own good rentals and just pay to go wherever I wanted.  I love the river, and planned on using our cabin this summer, but the fact is, when I’m there, there’s work to be done AND I’m losing the rental income.  So it literally costs me as much as it would to rent the neighbors cabin for myself to stay in…

I have two properties in different areas, one has 2 cleaners that share the work, although it looks like one is stepping down.  The other is in our front yard, so sometimes the wife cleans it.  I’m really happy with the cleaners we have, I just want a “cleaner” (ha!) way of making sure that I have someone scheduled for that day.  Right now, the most stressful/time consuming part of this whole thing is arranging the cleaning, I’m nervous that one is going to get missed at some point, but I feel like I have to check the schedule daily to stay on top of it.  
is pricelabs worth it for smaller markets?  

I now have 2 Airbnbs that I'm operating.  With the money they're bringing in, that may go to 3 or 4 in the next year.  My biggest headache thus far is ensuring that I have cleaners scheduled for turns (one gets mostly 1 night stays, so it's almost a daily thing).  I just set up a YourPorter account, and it looks like that should simplify some of the cleaning things.  I don't see a way that the cleaner can "accept" a cleaning job where it will show me that they can do it, am I missing something there?

My question is, what else does that platform do that I should set up?  I don't want to "waste" services that I'm paying for, but don't want to spend a lot of time setting something up I don't need.  I currently have automated messages set up through Airbnb's page that go out on booking, before check-in, the day after, and before check-out.  Is there a compelling reason to set that up through YourPorter or just stick with what I have in Airbnb?  I currently use Airbnb exclusively, and set my own pricing so I don't need to consolidate listings or link other sites to it.  

Thanks in advance!

I bought one in Luray in December and got it running in February. It's been great so far. I can't speak to the others, but we've had 25+ days booked almost every month since Feb. Luray (and I think Page County) is very friendly to STR's, but they do require you to create an actual business and have inspections done before you start, that probably wouldn't be an issue with new construction.

 If anybody that has any in the area has specific questions or wants to share info let me know, I haven't gotten it all figured out yet but I'll share what I know.  

The bank that did the loan is holding it in house.  They do have a sister business that I've always used for conventional mortgages, I'd use them for the refi.  I'd certainly run whatever I was planning on doing by my loan officer before I did it, just looking for how folks generally handle this.  I know the mortgage company won't touch it until 6 months out at a minimum.  

We bought a house in March using a loan through a local bank. The balance is about $145,000 on a 25 year loan, at 4.24% but that can adjust every 5 years. This wasn't a total BRRR deal, but we have fixed a little and got a good enough deal that we probably have ~$10-15,000 in equity. The question is, should we try to move it to a conventional loan once we're able to (seasoning period and such), or keep it with the bank? It's a local bank that I could see us working with a fair amount in the future to take down other deals. Is it generally considered poor form to have them finance a property and then get out of their loan ASAP or is that just something that they generally expect people to do? If it matters, the property is being used as a short-term rental, and it's cash flowing like crazy right now. I hate to "throw money away", but I don't want to burn a bridge with the bank either. If I've missed any key information I can fill it in...

We have a cabin in a wooded area that we're Airbnb'ing.  The cleaner let us know that she found mouse droppings.  If it were my house, I'd set a trap and deal with whatever we catch.  I'm hesitant to do that here for fear of kids snapping a finger, or someone freaking out over a dead mouse in a trap.  I'm a little hesitant to use poisons for fear of one dying in a wall and stinking the place up.  What are some solutions you guys use?  

I'd love to pull a Paul and just put a rifle in the corner and charge extra for the entertainment value of shooting them, but the insurance guy said "no".