All Forum Posts by: Ryan Moyer

 I did the demo call with Hostaway the other day and it seems nice as a slightly less feature filled but maybe more intuitive alternative to Ownerrez.  The biggest problem was that the pricing really starts to get out of whack as you add properties.

So while it's somewhat price competitive for 1 or 2 properties by the time you get to 5 or 6 properties it's almost triple the cost of Ownerrez.  And that disparity only gets wider and wider as you add more properties as most channel managers discount very heavily once you have a lot of properties whereas Hostaway's discount is very minor.

30 properties on Ownerrez is $250/mo compared to $750/mo on Hostaway.

I think I know the place you're talking about.  This is the A-frame that was $850k but needs a total gut job inside?

If you have the money to do some upgrades, that place is a pretty screaming deal in the current market.  Hard to find 4br's in the Smokies at that price point now, much less one in a good location and with exterior charm that will drive clicks on Airbnb/VRBO.

I think this entirely comes down to your view on the broader market going forward.  In the current market, I think that place will do well.  Most of the struggles people are having right now are related to oversupply, not the economy.  A big falloff to the economy (definitely possible) is the only thing I'd be worried about with this property.  But as things are now, where only the mediocre hosts with mediocre properties are struggling, I think this property would do well if set up properly.  If it's the one I'm thinking of.

YES!!

Shaun Moore has a great quote about this on his podcast regarding the current market.  He says something like "people are quick to give themselves all the credit when things are going well, and none of the credit when they're not".  Essentially people succeeded when a blind monkey succeeded and they think it's because of something they did, and then when things start taking a reasonable level of competence they don't have they start blaming it on the broader market, convincing themselves it's impossible to make money in this market.

And it's not even that the market is poor now, it's just really good instead of really really really good.  So these people bought at the right time, they think "I'm freaking awesome at this", and then when things start to settle a little bit back towards normal they start blaming everything else.  "It's the economy!".  When in reality they're just saying they suck too much to do this when it's just easy to make money, instead of when it was super easy to make money.

I hate to pick on the guy, but Robuilt is kind of an example of this, though slightly different.  His returns are actually pretty poor relative to the market he bought them.  He basically bought at the right time, and now makes the majority of his money teaching and on social media.  His STRs barely bring in as much revenue in total as many of us here generate from 1 or 2 properties.  The dude bought a $3M Scottsdale mansion at the peak of the market that generates $12k-$15k revenue per month in the HIGH SEASON, and people are lining up to pay for his course on how to do it, totally blind to the notion that it only works for him at all because of the tax benefits it provides for his large teaching/social media income, and any of them would be bankrupt after making a purchase that bad.

 I stumbled on Quicken yesterday and it looked much easier but sadly they don't connect with my smallish bank which was surprising to me because Quickbooks does.  I don't really understand why they each connect to different banks through Plaid.

Intuit in general does a terrible job of making clear what the differences in all these software versions are and who needs what.  In reality I think quickbooks is more designed for professional accountants and large companies but a lot of consumers have stumbled upon it and Intuit is like "well if they're going to pay for it we're not going to tell them it's way more cumbersome and expensive than they actually need and drive them somewhere else".

"Simple and easy to use" is the last sentence I would use to describe quickbooks, at least for real estate.

I've tried out probably 10 in the last year.  Quickbooks by FAR the most annoying to use.  But also the most complete (and expensive).

Expensify I would say is the easiest to use and has the best interface, but it only does expenses (not income).

If you're in it for the long haul it's worth considering Quickbooks as you'll eventually get used to the (awful) interface and malfunctioning rulesets, and as you grow and need more complicated things it will have them.  But it's a long process to get comfortable in there.

It all depends on your goals, risk vs reward, etc.

Diversifying is generally safer, but you'll probably miss out on the potential for huge instant rewards like the people who bought 5-10 cabins in the Smokies pre-2022 and now swim in money like Scrooge McDuck.

Diversifying less also has the advantage of having more streamlined systems/workers.  You communicate with and train 1 or 2 cleaners, handymen, etc instead of 10 different ones.  And since you provide a lot of business they are more likely to prioritize you than if you just had 1 property with them.

On the flipside, my wife and I's goal has always been to get 12 STRs scattered around the country by the time the kids are out of the house, at which point we'll move around living in each place one month at a time.   A month on the beach, then a month in the mountains, etc.

 Burrito.

FWIW 99% of the time hosts put outrageous charges in their house rules they're just trying to scare guests into complying (likely because they've had a lot of issues with it) and they aren't actually going to charge it.  If it wasn't in the house rules on the listing (before you booked) then it's unlikely airbnb would allow them to collect it from you even if they tried.

The upfront pricing stuff has been solved, but I always thought it was funny Airbnb took so much flack for that when every company does the same thing.

Saving total pricing for checkout is an American thing, not an Airbnb thing.  In Europe Airbnb has had upfront total pricing for years, it was only in the US where every other website does the same thing that Airbnb followed suit.

Booking a rental car with Avis.  $40/day for 3 days = $120 total.  Whoops after clicking through 6 pages of checkout (at least Airbnb put it on the first page of checkout) it looks like that's actually going to be $235.

Airline companies show the price for the stripped version of sub-basic economy now, then upcharge for main economy, seats, bags, etc as you go.

Heck even Target I can try and buy a $5 coffee mug and it doesn't tell me it's actually $11.36 after tax and shipping until the submit order page.