All Forum Posts by: Troy Radtke

I started from scratch in a brand new town where I knew no one (except for my wife). It can be done but it will take a while to get properties, unless you already have connections.

You already manage 2 STRs so you have some experience with the management. Now you need to do a lot of marketing/sales to get your name out there. I put on a monthly vacation rental meeting, social media posts, cold-calling realtors and STR owners, joined a business networking group, went to real estate and other community events, sent mailers (email and snail mail), created a website and Google business profile, started a Facebook group for STRs in my area, etc.

The major lesson I learned - Initially, it's all about marketing/sales. Quantity matters most - your marketing doesn't need to be perfect. Mine certainly wasn't.

By the way - I'm in Superior, WI. Medium-sized market. Solstice-properties.com

Good luck!

No regrets for me. I think a lot of the regrets come from people who didn't do their homework before buying a property. They just got caught up in the Airbnb craze and bought something, anything, just to get into the game. 

And most of the people that have regrets probably aren't on BP...

Is there a way to just search the posts on STR forum only? I can figure out how to search all forums.

Thanks.

I've used Schlage Encode and Yale. In my experience, the Schlage is better and it isn't even close. 

I do 90 day notice and 10% commission for all bookings outside the 90 day window. I haven't had a cancellation yet, but I probably won't always take the full 10%. However, if I spend a lot of time and effort getting a property up and running and then, after a few months, the owner cancels, I'm probably taking the full 10%.