All Forum Posts by: Ryan Moyer

I haven't heard of AirReview so can't comment on that.

I'm not sure if you're looking in Ogden or through the canyon in Ogden Valley but the story is similar in both. Home prices have exploded over the last decade as people have moved into the area in droves, well above what would typically make sense for an STR investor. Occupancy rates are low, nightly rates aren't great, and the market is insanely seasonal.

Granted I don't own any here, so I could be totally wrong.  I've talked to probably half a dozen realtors and almost as many PMs trying to make the numbers work because I'd love to own one here locally for a change.  They've all made it very clear upfront that subsidizing the mortgage for part of the year was the goal here.  Would love to hear differently from someone that's made it work.

I'm not sure how AirReview calculates its numbers.  I think there are a lot of properties here that open their places seasonally and block it off the rest of the time, and that confuses the automated revenue projectors into thinking they have a lot more bookings than they do.

I live in Ogden. It's awesome. But it is not a good STR market if you're looking to make money or even break even.

As a fellow avid skier/boarder, I've sadly come to accept that there are very few, if any attractive STR markets that are good for skiers. Especially out west.

There are just too many people willing to buy homes in those markets primarily to use for themselves, for way more money than make sense as a pure investment. So I've settled on buying STRs in better STR markets and using some of the profits to pay for baller ski vacations in houses that cost 5x as much as my STR but barely generate even half the revenue.

 Is there such a thing as cash flowing properties in the Eden area at current rates?  I've got some great properties down in Southern Utah but I live in Ogden and would love something over on the Ogden Valley side, but seems like inflated prices and meh rental revenue there would make it pretty impossible to cash flow.

It does not replace your current router.  It works along with it and creates a SEPARATE network.  That means all of you devices like your rokus, video game consoles, video doorbell, can stay connected to your current network that you have now.  Then StayFi creates an ADDITIONAL network, and you just make sure you give the guests the login info for that network.

So it doesn't interrupt your ability to use your rokus, etc at all.  They can remain on your old network.

HOWEVER, one thing that it can interrupt is the guest experience.  I have had pretty mixed results so far.  I've gotten a good handful of emails but I've also had several guests complain.

By default StayFi doesn't even put an opt-in checkbox on the splash page they create.  So most StayFi users are probably violating some laws, collecting emails for marketing purposes without actually giving the guest the ability to opt out of it.

I used the option to include a checkbox, but the software very stupidly still requires the guest to enter all of their info even if they've opted out of marketing.  This creates a lot of distrust as the guest becomes suspicious as to why you're still collecting their info even when they've unchecked the box allowing you to store their info.  I've received this feedback from multiple guests.  One even refused to connect to the wifi because of it and left a bad review.

When I brought this up to StayFi they were pretty dismissive of the issue.

Do a search on Vacasa on this forum.  Rent shifting, neglecting your property, using their extra fees to market their own company (rather than your home), etc.  Very poor reputation.

Regarding the payout/host structure, it is true that the most common way is that they host it and collect the money and then pay you out.  But there's a reason for that.  It's because it is great for THEM.  Terrible for you.

They own the listing.  They own the photos.  They own the reviews.  They own the bookings.  They own the guests.  That means if you ever want to move on from them, you lose everything and have to start all over.  They like this because if they're doing a mediocre job, it's usually easier for the owner to just let them keep plugging along than give up all future bookings, all past reviews, etc and start over from scratch.

Seriously, read through their contract before you sign on.  Forget the percentage.  Look at how easy or hard it is to actually move on if you're not happy.  And as Colin said, watch out for rent shifting.  When they control the listing much of what they're charging is obfuscated to you, so they can use that to shift the cost of your place out of the nightly rate and into fees (booking fee, heating fee, etc) that they take 100% of rather than the 15% or whatever they are claiming they take from your "revenue".

But ultimately, the one thing most people overlook is how hard it is to move on.  There are still hosts that operate under your account so you own everything if you decide to move on.  Just think about it, would you rather their strategy to keep you onboard be that they have to keep you happy and keep doing a good job, or would you rather it be to make it as difficult and costly as possible for you to leave them?

There are a ton of bank accounts that have either no minimums, or low minimums.

A lot of online banks (some real estate specific) like Stessa, Baselane, SoFi, Relay are set up to handle this with virtual accounts.  You can create unlimited virtual accounts, with separate accounting and account numbers, separate debit cards, etc all with no set-up fees or minimum balances.  And you can create/delete them in about 5 seconds with the click of a button.

I can't comment on Stripe, but Airbnb/VRBO will let you assign a separate bank account to each property so deposits from that property will go into that separate account.  The only annoying thing with Airbnb is any money collected after the booking (payment requests for upgrades, pass-through taxes, etc) are deposited into the master account, which is very annoying.

Most people here self manage, so we're definitely going to tell you that you can do it.  I'm not a particularly bright gut but I manage it just fine.

Evolve only does the front end stuff anyway, so you were already scheduling cleaners, scheduling maintenance, etc?  All of that stuff is the hard part.  Managing the listing and pre-check-in messages is the easy part.  So if you've already been handling the other stuff, this last little bit of it will be cake.

I think this is probably happening everywhere.  Here in Salt Lake City STRs are essentially illegal, but tons of people operate them anyway because the city doesn't really enforce it.

I imagine one day the city will decide to start enforcing it, and then everyone will act shocked and caught off guard that they can no longer operate their illegal STRs.

Go Gators :P