All Forum Posts by: Melissa Bovee

I own in Tahoe City and I currently self manage from Florida. There are management companies that will act as your local contact, but this service can come at a high price. I have been able to manage just fine contacting the renter directly if there is a problem and using my local service providers as the backup for any in-person emergencies. If I get a call from the STR office at 10pm for a noise violation (which has only happened once since I started in June, by the way), I call my renter immediately and tell them they need to comply with the house rules. My backup is to call my maintenance person or my housekeeper. I would go with my maintenance person first because they are already set up for a potential unscheduled maintenance callout and I we have pricing set up for that. I don't have anything worked out with my housekeeper for unscheduled events, but I know they would help me out in a pinch if needed. My recommendation if you decide to purchase would be to prioritize finding a trusted local maintenance person before you open for business. You will need this person for maintenance well before you will need them for this purpose anyways. Find the person you like and trust and work out pricing for the different types of needs you may have (maintenance emergency, scheduled maintenance, guest noise complaint etc.), then you are set. I am happy to recommend my maintenance person - just send me a direct message.

Best of luck!

Melissa

I have been changing some processes at my STR and it has come out more and more that my cleaner is not the best fit for me. She has been open about things she won't do (change duvets every clean, spot clean carpets when needed), which I think provides a great opening for me to gracefully switch to someone else. She has a process and several clients and doesn't really deviate from her process, which I totally respect. Now that I have sourced a replacement, I'm wondering how much notice I should give my current cleaner. On one hand I like the idea of giving a couple weeks so she can plan and take my future jobs off her schedule. On the other hand there is always the chance that she doesn't show to the last job or two, or doesn't return the linen she carries away. I am not local, but I'm planning to be at my STR in 3 weeks to check in on the place, reset some things, and walk through with the new cleaner who will do her first clean when I depart.

Thanks in advance for your input!

Another idea (that you would need to get ok'd by the HOA) is to have a lock box on the gate that holds the gate opener. Your guests could open it with a combination to access the opener and any keys they need.

I considered purchasing a cabin on land owned by the forest service. The downside is that there were restrictions on what types of improvements could be made and what materials could be used. Also the lease was up for renewal every 20 years or so. Numbers looked great for a STR, but my RE agent said they are hard to sell and always sit for a long time on the market. She said it seems risky to own since they could end the cabin program or change the rules. I bought a condo instead.

Hi all! I really appreciate all the feedback and this incident initiated me looking into updated processes.  I want to share the research I found digging through previous forum posts and the decisions I have made so far. 

Washing all Bedding: Several people wash everything every time and several say they don't. I deiced that I want to start washing duvets each time at least during this COVID pandemic.  I am remote from my unit so just having this on auto-pilot will give me piece of mind.  

The cheapest way to accomplish this is to use triple sheeting to make the bed: http://blog.americanhotel.com/triple-sheet-your-beds-in-6-easy-steps/ (from @John D. Rental Property Investor from La Quinta, CA) It saves in labor making beds and laundry cost as there is one less layer to wash in comparison to duvet covers.  The downside of triple sheeting is that for longer stays, it can sort of fall apart, exposing the duvet or blanket.  I also read that it is not great for kids who are known by all parents to sleep in all sorts of contorted ways :). 

For these reasons, I chose to eat the extra cost of changing and cleaning the duvet covers each time. The duvet covers I'm using came with my unit and they do have some spots here and there that don't come out.  This is never going to review well (although knock on wood I haven't gotten anything but a 5 yet, but I'm still very green at only 11 reviews. The guest from this incident did not review me!) I decided to purchase new white duvets that could be bleached if needed and washed in high heat. @Denise H. mentioned Ikea for nice looking but inexpensive duvets and I went with this one for all 7 of my beds.  I got 2 sets of course!

Laundry: In my research I found that there are different ways people tackle this issue and I am happy to realize all the options I have. 

1. Commercial Service - (from Bill Higgins Investor from Austin, Texas, John D. Rental Property Investor from La Quinta, CA)
2. Carry Away (many do this)
3. Extra washer/dryer (at least one mention)

My small town (Tahoe City) does have a local wash and fold that will turn laundry around next day for $1.45 per lb.  You know I calculated this out for the standard weights... with queen single sheets at 800g, twin at 250g and pillow cases at 150g, the cost of my 5 queen beds and 2 twins with duvet covers (4 sheets per bed) works out to $69, and the cost with triple sheeting (3 sheets per bed) works out to $55 per turn.

Most people seem to have the housekeeper either do laundry on site or carry it away depending on the size of the crew and their optimal timing at the unit (and number of loads per turn). I have a new housekeeper coming this week to walk through and I asked her to give me one quote including doing the bed laundry (knowing at least some would be carry away) and one for using the commercial service.  I imagine it is overall cheaper for the housekeeper to do it, but I am open to whatever option the housekeeper prefers. Either way, I want towels done on site because they are heavy and I don't have a full second set just yet. When I do get more towels I will go with Costco Grandeur Hospitality which get a lot of love on this forum. 

That is it for now on my progress and research report.  I hope everyone is doing well!!

Best, Melissa

@Daniel Chun sorry for the delay.  I am using pricelabs to export pricing to Airbnb. It is now all up and running with igms as my pms which I primarily use for automated and manual guest communication. 

Hi @Daniel Jodrey, I purchased a condo in Tahoe City that closed the first week on March. I have been doing well with it as a STR over the summer (I think COVID has really increased the number of people headed to Tahoe for vacation the summer). I went with a condo because prices were way less than single families but commanded similar rents. Even accounting for the HOA fees, the numbers worked out much better for condos. I also like the HOA taking care of snow, trash, the pool etc. as I am out of town and those are things I can take off my list. One attractive thing in Placer County is that they have already put a STR ordinance in place. I agree that there are mixed feelings about STRs, especially in this very busy tourist summer. However, the county has already put their rules in place which are fair and not very restrictive to STR owners. I find Placer County is very in tune with their reliance on tourism. I have no beef passing along a 10% tax to them to keep up the free buses, the bike path from Tahoe City to Squaw, and other projects.

Prices are up now, so maybe watch for what remains on the market in the approaching shoulder season.  Also, if we don't get a ski season this year due to covid, there could be people letting go of their STRs. Or who knows, maybe people will continue to leave the Bay area in droves and prices will continue to climb.  So hard to predict, which is why no matter when you buy, you have to be sure your numbers work out to cash flow. 

Best of luck with this! - Melissa

I would not take it up with the guest, but I believe that if you need to do a deep clean to remove smoke smell or damage you can report that to Airbnb and they may cover it in the host protection plan. Take photos, save receipts etc. 

Thanks for all the feedback, all. Does anyone do “sheeting” to basically make a duvet out of flat sheets? It seems like this would significantly speed up the process and allow for easier washing each time. 

Ugh - not the morning I was hoping for! A guest sent a note last night (after I went to bed) that the toilet was not clean.  I was very responsive to her this morning (at 5am her time) and sent $75 through the platform.  Then after I sent the discount, she sent more complaints about bedding, stating, 
     "It was also brought to my attention the bedding had stains on stains in almost every bed and some of us decided to sleep on the floor. I’ve attached pictures for you to see.

She is right, there are some spots on the bedding - nothing that would have made me sleep on the floor for (especially since there were spare comforters for each bed in the closets), but still disappointing and fair feedback.  I have asked my cleaner to change out the duvet covers.  I realize that I need to get a process in place to make sure the comforter covers are getting cleaned on some frequency... 

My questions for you folks are: How do I respond to the guest now?  She is checking out right about now and was only a one night booking - so not much chance to make it right.  Do I refund her the night?  What should I say?  Should I have waited for her to check out to give her the $75?  Part of me wonders if the bedding stuff surfaced because she was looking for more refund $... (Either way I'm happy to have the feedback on the bedding so I can fix it going forward, just not sure if I handled this as well as I could have) .  Also, what is your cleaning protocol around comforters / duvet covers?  How often are they cleaned?

Thank you for the help and moral support here on this bummer host day! - Melissa