All Forum Posts by: Michael Greenberg

Sending you an intro email to a good friend of mine that might lend some assistance to this question.

@Ryan Hilbun Google me at thejetsethost (all one word) and you'll find my website, my number and the email address at the top of the page redirects to me.  Look forward to hearing from you.

Mike

@Ryan Hilbun Hi Ryan and thanks @James Carlson for the intro.  I have two properties in Scottsdale and it's been quite fruitful.  Good timing for you as well since it's high season.  You can sync this two.  On Airbnb under availabilty settings scroll all the way down and select sync calendars.  You can also do this the other way with VRBO.  Pretty self explanatory but just hit the "help" on both sites if you're still having trouble.  I then sync them both to Google Calendar so I have one place to view my calendar.  Works like a champ.  PM me if you want to connect and chat more about AZ.

Mike

@John Arendsen That's great John.  I spoke to Matt about a month or so ago and presented an idea that your daughter, as CFO, might also be interested in.  I'm working on creating a KPI (Key Performance Indicator) for VR owners.  I am a relatively strong financial guy (though not all indicators are financial) and had developed a set of these indicators for my prior life IT services business.  Upon presenting this to Matt he was pretty excited and felt like he could pull together a number of his Inner Circle folks to help carve this out for those that want to track their business in this manner.  BP is blocking my email address so I'll send you an email in two minutes if you want to pass it along to your CFO :-)

Mike

@Monika Haebich Yes, excellent point.  Any additional blogs/forums/conferences would be great!  Thanks

@John Arendsen Have you checked out the VRBM blog.  It's run by a guy named Matt Landau.  He also has a group of VR owners called the Inner Circle (I believe is membership is around 400).  Worth look and it's only $35 per month.  I'm joining this month as soon as I wrap up my year end.  If you don't decide to join, sign up for his news and video feeds.  He's a very smart VR owner and creates some really good content and ideas.

Mike

There's an up and coming new option called slice.is (not .com).  They are providing insurance on a nightly basis, what they like to call on-demand insurance.  I like this model because it's inexpensive enough to pass on to the guest and will replace a "damage deposit" which I've had mixed results.  They are in beta testing right now and I'm not 100% sure about their liability level, but check it out.

Mike

@James Carlson Great stuff, good luck and let me know how it turns out!  

@Michael Rutkowski  Your site looks great!  Agree, short term vs. long term nightly rates, however because my places are in Scottdale, AZ with long term guest "snowbirds" from MI, WI and Canada,  my total revenue for the months of Jan, Feb, Mar and Apr are much higher than rentals of 3-4 nights.  Totally in agreement on all other points.

Mike

@James Carlson It's hard to say what will happen in the future with Independent Listing sites, however I am confirming this:  

1.  My longer term stays (14 - 30 days) are booking directly because they don't want to pay the booking fees/commissions.  

2.  I am capturing >20% additional nightly rate on these direct bookings over my nightly rates on Airbnb, VRBO, and Flipkey (useless).

3.  I am building a loyal clientele of repeat guests - many of them filling Sunday - Thursday for business.

I believe but can't confirm these "associated" factors:

1.  having your own listing site creates credibility that this is a business and not a hobby. 

2.  That I am serious about what I am offering likely so my guests experience is likely to be very good.

3.  I am creating value for my business that maybe someday someone will want to acquire.

So if you think that this list is valuable enough to create your own presence and you want to have a VR business, then by all means, forge ahead.  Feel free to let me know if you want details on the tools and resources I used for my site.  I now have a lot of marketing work to do.... not in my realm of expertise.

Cheers