All Forum Posts by: Marcus Jones

Quote from @Jessica Venetis:

Hi there! I am an experienced LTR investor but this is my first go at STR. Located in a popluar fishing destination, there is a decent amount of traffic, but I am not getting any actual bookings....Any insight, tips, or tricks? Here is the link to the airbnb profile: airbnb.com/h/riverwalkretreatpulaskiny

I would say just be a little more patient. Your rankings are going to take time to build as you only have 2 reviews and don’t get the listing rating until 3 reviews. You could being offering gift cards to get more reviews. The golden number to beg, kick, and plead to is 20 reviews. At that point youre shieled from the one off guest giving you bad reviews for no reason and ruining your rankings

Quote from @Sarah Kensinger:

Quote from @Marcus Jones:

Quote from @Sarah Kensinger:

Quote from @Jack Lindstrom:

Quote from @Sarah Kensinger:

@Andrew Steffens answer is the best way to handle payments from clients. You don't want a fixed rate retainer because depending on the seasonality of a property, you could be under cutting yourself and then other months overcharging the client. Cleaning fees are a pass through from the guest, so you would be receiving the payment from the guest within a short time after check-in and then you can directly pay the cleaner with the cleaning fee you received. There shouldn't be a need to pay a whole month's worth of fees, before you have the cleaning fees in hand. 

 Hi Sarah, 

Yes that is what I have been doing with the two properties listed on Airbnb. My concern is I can't figure out how to get those instant cleaning fees for bookings on sites like Vrbo and booking.com. Once I integrate to a channel manager like Hostaway, how do I collect the fees from Vrbo & booking.com? 

Airbnb is straightforward because I get the automatic payments. I am unclear how to proceed with the other two platforms. Thank in advance for any insight!!!

Oh yes, you need to become the merchant on record. Lynnbrook is a great option since they understand and were built for STR hosts. Stripe is ok but has been a complete headache the last year holding payouts, etc. But Lynnbrook would handle your money just like Airbnb would and payouts come within 2 days of check-in. But it would be your responsibility to make sure the guest has paid in full before check-in.

 How does this work? Do you just link lynnbrook to the owners VRBO account?

I'm not exactly sure if that's possible, it may need to just be your VRBO account.

 Could we connect possibly if you had the time? Looking for advice on growing my co-hosting business down here in Florida and there's alot of things I'm trying to figure out right now

Quote from @Sarah Kensinger:

Quote from @Jack Lindstrom:

Quote from @Sarah Kensinger:

@Andrew Steffens answer is the best way to handle payments from clients. You don't want a fixed rate retainer because depending on the seasonality of a property, you could be under cutting yourself and then other months overcharging the client. Cleaning fees are a pass through from the guest, so you would be receiving the payment from the guest within a short time after check-in and then you can directly pay the cleaner with the cleaning fee you received. There shouldn't be a need to pay a whole month's worth of fees, before you have the cleaning fees in hand. 

 Hi Sarah, 

Yes that is what I have been doing with the two properties listed on Airbnb. My concern is I can't figure out how to get those instant cleaning fees for bookings on sites like Vrbo and booking.com. Once I integrate to a channel manager like Hostaway, how do I collect the fees from Vrbo & booking.com? 

Airbnb is straightforward because I get the automatic payments. I am unclear how to proceed with the other two platforms. Thank in advance for any insight!!!

Oh yes, you need to become the merchant on record. Lynnbrook is a great option since they understand and were built for STR hosts. Stripe is ok but has been a complete headache the last year holding payouts, etc. But Lynnbrook would handle your money just like Airbnb would and payouts come within 2 days of check-in. But it would be your responsibility to make sure the guest has paid in full before check-in.

 How does this work? Do you just link lynnbrook to the owners VRBO account?

Quote from @Allen Duan:

We use Hospitable and Hostfully. Hostfully is more robust and a more complete solution to Hospitable. I recommend Hospitable if you're starting out with 1-3 properties. It can definitely work for more, but I made the switch to Hostfully when I needed more features. Happy to answer any specific questions about both apps. I like them both.

I’ve now committed to the up to 11 property annual subscription on Hostfully even with 1 property I’m basically giving myself no option other than to make it work.

Quote from @Andrew Steffens:

I am quite happy with Streamline, and it is the legacy provider of many larger scale STRPM companies.  Have you looked into them?

Interesting!

No I haven’t  looked into them. Is there any unique features of it that help with overall operations? My three main things are being easily able to integrate my team with the software, robust owners portal for my hosts, and utilize AI for dynamic auto messaging.

Looking to see what the best recommendation for a Channel Manager/PMS for running this as a business. Here's what I got going on so far

Created my Company "Coastal Sunrises" which focuses on STR Management/co-hosting, and am in the building process right now for my systems and I'm essentially looking to build every one of them to scale with so I am okay with taking a hit to profits immediately if that means paying employees/va's while I'm not managing a ton of properties. The focus points for me right now are deciding what to include in my tech stack that's not going to break the bank in the future as well as includes professional features not just a user friendly interface like some other PMS.

I'm between these 3 currently. 

- Hostfully(seems to be most cheap)

- Uplisting(seems to be the most professional)

- Hospitable(most friendly UI & the only one I currently have experience with)

     Biggest con for me is lacking in ai for messaging which they've denied integrations with developers. I'm looking to lean into automations with AI using either Host Ai or getbesty AI.

Thanks for your help!

Quote from @John Underwood:

Quote from @Ryan Moyer:

In the case of selling a business you're not transferring the account, you're transferring ownership of the business.  The structure of the business is changing behind the scenes, but the ownership of the accounts by the business remains the same.

IE if the guy who created the "Vacasa" account on Airbnb/VRBO leaves Vacasa, they don't have to start over with a new account just because the guy that initially created the accounts left.  The account is "Vacasa"'s, not his.

Likewise, if Elon Musk decided to buy Vacasa and tomorrow, I'm pretty sure he would retain the accounts as they are assets of the business he's buying, not any particular person.

 You would be violating Airbnb's terms of service.

I really appreciate your experience and how long you’ve been in the space, but it’d be a disservice if I didn’t tell you that these very short, non-productive, blunt responses add no value to this conversation. Maybe take a note from Michael Baum’s book and actually provide some value. A motto I like to abide by is “find the yes”. Just pointing out all the negatives with no solutions comes across as “i’m a complainer”

Hello all! I’m just curious on how some of you pros would start out if you had a stable dual income household $135k/yr, a 3 month emergency fund, and 15k saved up. I'm going to be stationed at NAS Pensacola but my wife will probably be working at Hurlburt Field or Eglin AFB. 

My thoughts are find a house that doesn't need rehab because I'll be extremely busy with training. I want to get a 3/2+ or 4/2+ and rent out a room to 1 or 2 roomates with furniture/utilities included for $8-900 each. After I move again in 1.5-2 years I would love to just LTR but I think I need to convert this to a MTR and fully furnish because I'll be coming out of pocket $500+ a month if i LTR because of reserves & mortgage. LTR rental rates I'm seeing are roughly $1700-$2100. I'm feeling apprehensive about making a mistake and not sure where to start and really want to get specific on my strategy. 

I would say make sure you have an agreement with your terms first.

something fair would probably look like 1-2 weeks a year each in the off season. You could even have a time where you vacation together an could even double down with your time by making renovations!

Josh,

All I can say is wow. Just wow. Everything I thought of when I read the first section of your post you have already thought of and then some. I appreciate your passion to really make your property an experience. You’re going to absolutely SMASH it when you get up and running. Thanks for the quality post dude!