All Forum Posts by: Shelby Pracht

We keep crazy high occupancy in our "local mountain" in Mammoth. Yes, we're busy with skiers all winter but in the summer we're slammed with tourists visiting Yosemite National Park. Our prices drop a bit in the spring and fall, but definitely not that much. 

Yes, Arwen and her husband Jason who's on the maintenance team there. They are both phenomenal. It's just a difficult business to really scale large and still give the personal touch and quick assistance that people expect these days.

(we're always hoping for that dump too, but the snow conditions have still been amazing! Mammoth does such a great job of keeping the groomers in top shape)

@Andrea Cole

I pay 80-90 for a 2 bedroom unit, which I'm pretty sure is about average for what cleaners get paid. On airbnb all the fees are higher because we have to pay local taxes on them, plus most management companies are skimming off the top of the cleaning fees as well. That being said, I'm also in CA so I would expect the cost of living and wages in NC to be lower.

@TJ Watson I'm so glad to hear that you are happy using Vacasa (I've got a couple friends that work for them locally). A few of my clients now were formally on MRB and had some mild horror stories.

@Brian Tustin @Mark H. Porter @Sean O'Dowd

Depending on your area, 28% is totally reasonable. I manage properties in a ski area and charge 27%, which is significantly lower than some of the other companies in town (average 38-40%, a couple as high as 60%)

Vacasa is a large company, its here in my town as well. I havent heard much from the owner side but all of their reviews for their properties on Airbnb are pretty poor.

Hey BP, I wanted to see if anyone would be interested in doing a meetup here in Mammoth. I know most of the people that invest here live in Southern California, Los Angeles, Orange County, San Diego, etc. I'd love to start a meet up if there is any interest though. For long term investors or short term rentals, airbnb or vrbo. Maybe on a Friday or Saturday evening so you can still get a full day of skiing at Mammoth Mountain?

(Sorry so wordy, trying to get as many keywords out there to find all our scattered investors!)

@Brian Gerlach

I've been using a service called AvivaIQ.

@Rachel Hughes over the last five years and close to 2,000 guests, I've had one guest lose a key, and probably three or four lock it in the unit. I keep a spare key to each unit in the same place with all the linens and cleaning supplies, so my cleaners will just go run back and grab the spare when that happens. Personally I'd recommend starting just with that and making sure to remind guests to replace key in the lockbox when they leave. It's part of the checkout instructions they get messages the night before and also posted on a checkout instruction sheet just inside the front door, so it makes it easy for guests to know what to do.

Does anyone know how these third party software companies will be adjusting?

Will ownerrez, etc, still be able to access guest emails in order to send the messages, or are we going to be doing that manually now?

@Rachel Hughes

We have 10 units with lock boxes and three with smart locks, and I actually prefer the lock boxes. I get calls about how to lock the door with the smart locks all the time, even though its incredibly simple and self explanatory. Everyone knows how a key works, haha.

My favorite tech that we invested in is actually a messaging software. There are a lot of them out there, but I chose the one I did because of an after hours feature. I was getting woken up to check messages at all hours and now when a guest messages in the middle of the night, they receive a message saying that I'll get right back to them in the morning, or if it's an emergency, to call me. Then I can turn my notifications off overnight and actually sleep well! Worth every penny :)

Best of luck!