All Forum Posts by: Michael Sjogren

Merry Christmas!

@John Taylor what are your investing goals? If you're looking to maximize cash flow then short-term rentals are BY FAR the best method for this compared with traditional rentals. There are property management companies for these which may also be called co-hosts. Happy to discuss any questions you have. You're in the right place and doing your homework before you start putting your money out there. 

Use www.turnoverbnb.com you can get quotes from numerous cleaners and add them to your team in Turnoverbnb. Any time you get a booking on Airbnb or VRBO/HomeAway it notifies your cleaners and the first one to accept it gets that cleaning. This allows you to build in backup cleaners for your properties. You can build out cleaning checklists with photos and require them to submit the photos to you when they're done. They have to check-in when they get to the property and when they finish. If you use smart locks like August and a Ring security camera you can double check to make sure they showed up and left when they said they did. Then Turnoverbnb pays them automatically with your card on file. Super simple and easy. We built out teams in 5 different states with Turnoverbnb. 

@John Seitz use the rentalizer tool at www.AirDNA.com to plug in the address and get the estimate for your potential property. The key to your success in Kissimmee will be how you differentiate your property. What perks can you offer to help you stand out, from the furnishings & decor to the amenities (pools, gyms, etc., arcade games, TVs, etc). It is absolutely possible to do it. I just helped a friend buy a place in Kissimmee and in the last 2 months they have enough reservations to cover all their expenses including mortgage for the next 5 months. 

@Thomas Zamora If you plan to have 10 or less go with August, it is extremely user friendly and integrates directly with Airbnb & VRBO so each guest automatically gets their own unique code which only works during their reservation and automatically expires. If you have more than 10 DM me and I'll walk you through my system. 

Ring doorbell camera on all of our properties plus a NoiseAware sensor in the properties so monitor noise levels. Guests who get upset about an exterior camera are not guests you want anyway. We have properties across 5 states and these two tools plus our wifi locks are non-negotiable and give us control and peace of mind over our properties. 

We use dishwasher pods and laundry detergent. We used to do the laundry pods and found they didn't clean as well. Plus at the end of the day, 99.9% of our guests are not looking to take extra supplies and we charge a premium on our cleaning fees to cover all of our supplies plus a profit anyway; so if someone decides to do some extra laundry or even take my $12 laundry detergent, we've already charged them more than that on the cleaning fee so we don't sweat the small stuff anymore :-)

I will be launching a podcast in 2020 called Short Term Rental Secrets. Stay tuned :-)

@Matt Grubb I would start with what your goals are with this business? Do you want to own a vacation home that pays you a return, launch a few units and make $2-5k/month or scale it to 6 figures+. Then figure out who you want to serve, i.e. who is your ideal guest/renter. Where do they want to go and where would you like to operate. Then buy the Market Minder reports for some of the local markets there and see if the numbers make sense for you. We operate in 5 different states now and that is the basic methodology we've followed. Keep it simple and keep it moving.