All Forum Posts by: Mark Miles

I have a cousin who self manages several Airbnbs but he doesn’t have much free time and several clients trying to decide how to use their multi family properties. STRs do well here in Alaska, but that’s also when we want to enjoy the sunshine and fishing!

If you self manage your STR (as most people do) or just set everything up on the front end, do you record how much time you spend on it? How much is your time worth? I'm not asking that to make a point- literally- what number goes into your spreadsheet? .

When trying to decide if you want to use a rental property for a STR vs MTR vs LTR you need to know these numbers, because the time you extra you spend working on the STR could've been spent earning money elsewhere. If you add this time into your expenses for the investment (instead of working for free) it brings the cash flows for STR vs LTR closer together.

When you scale, this becomes an even bigger issue. Also, if anyone on here hires someone to run their Airbnb I’d be curious how they structure their fees. Meeting a new colleague who is just getting started managing and curious how others approach it or think about it. @Jamie Rose @Tyler Cobb @Kaiden Foster

I am very close to listing, maybe 1-2 weeks out. Directly across the street from my place is a massive condo complex, which is an old textile mill that's been renovated into high end condos. Most of the residents look like millennials and young professionals, and they've seen my place transition from something quite unsightly into a very nice place. I'd like to create a mailer/flyer with the URL for the direct booking website and a "good neighbor" discount because I imagine that many of them have friends/family who would like to visit and be super close but would appreciate not having to share the same space. 

I went into the leasing office and it was no dice. They won't place mailers for me, which is no surprise. Is there a way for me to get the names and unit numbers of the residents? 

Thank you all in advance for any feedback. 

Hey all, I own an STR near a university and grad week / MDW is a big time to make money. I had someone reach out on Vrbo to book for 2 nights that weekend. I'd hate to decline a booking, but I am pretty confident we'll be able to get a booking that lasts longer than 2 nights. What is your take on this? Should I decline and be transparent or let the booking request expire in 24 hours?

Thanks! 

I've had the opportunity to use chat GPT for a few different things, and let me tell you, the ability to fine-tune its responses is absolutely amazing.

Hey STR Family,

We are self managing an STR in Joshua Tree, and one of the most frequent inquiries I get is late checkout requests. Especially during this time of year in JT, we have A LOT of same day turns, and I simply do not want to offer late checkouts when our cleaners have such a high volume of turns. Our checkout is at 10am and I have backed checkin time to 3pm (from 4pm), which helps for 1-night stays. My thought is to charge a $50 fee for every 15 min past 10am checkout. My hope is that $100/hr will motivate people to wake up and check out. Have any of you done this? Have you built something like this into your AirBnB or VRBO pricing? I'm using Guesty and most of my pricing is coming from PriceLabs. Thoughts on this is appreciated.

Happy New Year, 

Rob

We use a combination of our handyman and an errand runner for small tasks.

We do not have Task Rabbit in the area our rental is located. We connected with our errand runner over Instagram. She's been great and to our surprise, she has a hospitality background so that has been a great fit. You could Google search "errand service Charlotte, NC" and locate someone. 

Trash - Usually, our cleaners are coming in the day before trash pickup so we have them bring the cans out to the curb. Then we schedule our errand runner to bring trash cans in and perform a quality check on the property the next day, after cleaning. This has worked out very well for us and quality control.

Our cleaning fee is $200. 

$160 goes to the cleaning service and $40 goes to the Errand Runner.

Hi everyone, This is a little bit of a different question around communication, but thought this is the right chat for that. I am managing my first STR. I set my communication up through Guesty so I have automation around calendar and task notifications for my cleaner. My question is about the day of cleaning communication. My cleaner sends me texts and pictures of all the things that may be dirty or damaged. I feel like it's nice to have the insight, but I feel like it's too much and stressing me out far more than I need to be. She's sending me pics of a dirty outlet, sticky stuff in a cabinet, games that weren't put away, etc. In the bigger scheme of things, minor items like that are not important and she should just clean them and not notify me. A torn blanket that I need to re-order is something I should know. What are everyone's thoughts and advice on that?

I've had so much trouble getting contractors to just get CLOSE to what their job time line estimates were. Any tricks or ideas to put into a contract to incentivize a realistic time line? Some kind of money incentive? Some kind of legally binding contract? How do you do this without pissing off the contractor, or making them simply disappear if they go over the time frame? 

Good day everyone!

I wanted to run this creative deal by folks and get some input as to whether or not it seems fair for both sides.

A partner and I are going to invest in a short term rental together. We are looking for a property with a large house to be the rental as well a small unit for her to live in (adu, cottage, etc.).

She will live on the property keeping an eye on everything, as well as doing all the cleanings, assisting with check in/ check out if need be, and any light maintenance. Since this will be her primary residence we will utilize an FHA loan at 5% down.

I will be supplying the capital for all down payment, closing costs, furnishings, and reserves.

Instead of rent, she will pay me back for half of the down payment and closing costs over 2 years at 0% interest.

After 2 years we will both be 50% owners of the property.

With this arrangement, does it seem fair to split the profits of the rental 50/50?

Me: --All start up costs  --listing, web based messaging with guests  --good income and credit

Partner: --FHA loan --looking after property --cleaning --listing, web based messaging with guests

Of course there are many other factors to keep in mind but these seem like the major ones.

Thanks for any insight, advice, or concerns.

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