All Forum Posts by: Selena Walsh

@J-Ryan Stewart I'm watching the demo for Ciirus. The demo itself seems heavy on direct bookings from guests via property manager's website. Based on your experience using the tool, would you say it is geared toward direct bookings or are you happy with the channel manager / integration with booking platforms?

@Tyler Work Would you mind sharing who you use for your commercial liability insurance and if you would recommend?

I use smartbnb.io for automated messages (booking, check in, check out, review) which has been a big time saver...but doesn't solve for addressing questions or issues sent by guests. It looks like smartbnb has some functionality for auto-responses when they detect keywords but I haven't tried that yet and still respond manually to these myself. I'm interested in eventually getting VA assistance for this type of work in the future.

@Jordan Moorhead Mpls and St. Paul recently approved Airbnb with appropriate rental licenses. I know Mpls starts taking applications Dec. 1.  

@Daniel Kurkowski I think this is an interesting concept - thanks for starting this thread! My partner and I are Airbnb operators in the Twin Cities - of both our own properties and on behalf of investors who are our clients. We've looked into the master lease idea but found similar results as you mentioned above. We've come across CFD opportunities but the properties haven't been ideal for Airbnb or would have needed additional investment to get them in the condition we would need them for Airbnb. If you know of investors willing to do CFD for properties suited for short-term rental, we would definitely be interested!

What is working for us, so far, is partnering with investors who have existing properties (or units) in desirable Airbnb areas. We provide them with turn-key management and charge a 20% fee. So far, we are consistently earning the the investor 1.5 times market rent (after Airbnb fees and our management fees). Our biggest hurdle with this is the initial start-up costs for the investor, mostly related to furnishing the unit.

It seems like investors would soon get wise to the fact that they may only be getting “slightly above market rent” when they could potentially have a larger upside by bringing on a short-term rental management company and paying a percentage of revenue generated. Have you also considered working with investors to find and purchase properties specifically suited for Airbnb - locations or types of properties with a proven track record based on data available?

I have recently started a short term rental management business in Minnesota and have worked with an attorney to establish our LLC as well as a property management agreement we can use with clients. We are actively using the co-host feature on Airbnb, but upon reviewing the actual Airbnb terms and conditions we found the following terms:

As a Co-Host, you may only act in an individual capacity and not on behalf of a company or other organization, unless expressly authorized by Airbnb.

If we need to act as a co-host in an individual capacity we lose the protection of the LLC. I wrote to Airbnb to inquire and received the following response:

Unfortunately, we do not currently support registration of business entities as co-hosts. You are, of course, welcome to sign up to co-host as an individual, and we hope you will still consider doing so. While your direct relationship with Airbnb will be as an individual and your interaction with other users will be in your individual capacity, this is not intended to restrict your ability to otherwise operate your business how see fit.

Definitely not seeking legal advice here as i have an attorney... just curious if other co-hosts or property managers have run into this obstacle with Airbnb?  I have seen several threads on BP members starting short term rental management companies so I've got to think you all have worked through this in some capacity.

Thanks!

@Andrew Wong I have 4 listings using smartbnb right now and expect that to increase in the next few months to 7-8.  Averages to be about $8-9 per listing per month.

@Michael Greenberg I've been happy so far. I had a lot of short stays in May and June and keeping up with messaging was becoming too much to do manually. I'm using automated messaging, reviews as well as the market report and "heartbeats" feature.  The only thing I'm not crazy about is the automated message for a new booking is sent immediately which probably gives the guest the feeling that it is an automated message and also doesn't allow me any time to adjust the message if there are specific circumstances or questions mentioned in the booking message.  At this point though, not enough to change to a new service or to disable the automated message.

I'm using smartbnb (smartbnb.io) and have been happy so far.  Using automated messaging for 1) new booking message, 2) check in instructions 3) check out instructions 4) reviews

I have one duplex up and running with both units used for short term rentals and currently rehabbing a second for the same purpose. We have really solid bookings so the revenue generated from STR is about twice what we would get if we did long term rental on both units. That said, it's also more work on a day to day basis and guests seem to be more "needy" than tenants and will raise even minor issues to your attention. If you do one unit long term and one short term, I think setting expectations with your long term tenant and making sure they are on board with your approach is important - and vice versa setting a "house rule" for short term guests to be considerate of the long term renter. We rented one unit for 3 months to a young professional and we ended up getting a fair number of complaints when the other unit was turning over more frequently - people coming home late at night, noise, parking in her spot, etc. etc. Here's an interesting blog article comparing Airbnb with traditional long term rental: http://affordanything.com/2014/11/04/the-airbnb-experiment-42-guests-1-police-visit-and-19000/

@Jon Crosby I spoke with someone at Evolve last fall but decided to self-manage my rentals...however, my parents just bought a vacation rental in FL they will be managing remotely for most of the year and I think it might be a good fit for them, so doing some more research.  Is the 10% fee Evolve charges in addition to booking fees charged by each of the platforms? I think I remember they also charge a 2-3% or so credit card processing fee, is that right?