All Forum Posts by: Valerie Rogers

@Dave Meyer, congratulations on the purchase of your new vacation rental property! Where in CO is it located? My husband & I have a condo in Dillon (Summit County), our first STR. We love the area!

Regarding Evolve, they are huge and do a pretty good job overall, from reports that I've seen. I don't use them personally.

One thing you should understand if you decide to use them is that THEY own your VRBO/Homeaway/Airbnb listings, you do not. If you should ever decide to leave their service you'll have to start from scratch building your own new listings on VRBO/Homeaway/Airbnb and you'll lose all of your reviews unless VRBO/Homeaway agrees to transfer them to your new listing. (I'm not sure that they will.) I doubt Airbnb will transfer any reviews since reviews on Airbnb belong to the Owner Profile, not the property listing.

My service (VRAssist) is a marketing & booking service similar to Evolve, but my clients own their listings in their own VRBO/Homeaway/Airbnb accounts. 

Best wishes!

I have 2 suggestions....

1) Consider hiring a marketing/booking service like VRAssist to handle your guest inquiries/bookings/listings. It won't cost as much as a full-service property manager but will free up a lot of your time since handling inquiries/bookings is the most time-consuming part of managing your STR. We already have great systems in place so you don't have to find your own or incur the expense of subscription or commissions for such systems.

2) Check out ClearlyBooked. You can sync your VRBO/Airbnb etc calendars to your Clearlybooked calendar. They use an API instead of just an ical link the chance a of double bookings is eliminated...much more dependable. They also can provide some great insight into your property's revenue and can give you a comparison of how it is performing to past years (as long as that information has been imported into Clearlybooked.) 

They have some free services ("Track and manage your guests, bookings, cleanings, tasks, and finances in one place") and a paid plan ("Automate the routine and simplify the rest. Your virtual assistant ensures everything gets done and nothing gets missed"). 

Very interesting and worth a look.

If you'd like to spend more time living and less time handling reservations or administrative tasks for your vacation rental property VRAssist can help! We offer a marketing and booking management service for vacation rental property owners.

VRAssist fills the niche between owner-managed properties and full-service property managers, handling all of the time-consuming tasks related to short term rental management. Our clients are able to spend their valuable time on the more meaningful aspects of their lives while having the confidence & peace-of-mind that their vacation rental business is in professional hands.

My career experience at VRBO.com/Homeaway.com is what I can offer that others cannot. Because of my background in the vacation rental industry you will have the assurance that your property is being handled competently and professionally allowing you to spend more time on the things that you love to do.

Feel free to contact me for more information or with any questions. I'll be happy to speak with you about my service.

If you'd like to spend more time living and less time handling reservations or administrative tasks for your vacation rental property VRAssist can help! We offer a marketing and booking management service for vacation rental property owners.

VRAssist fills the niche between owner-managed properties and full-service property managers, handling all of the time-consuming tasks related to short term rental management. Our clients are able to spend their valuable time on the more meaningful aspects of their lives while having the confidence & peace-of-mind that their vacation rental business is in professional hands.

My career experience at VRBO.com/Homeaway.com is what I can offer that others cannot. Because of my background in the vacation rental industry you will have the assurance that your property is being handled competently and professionally allowing you to spend more time on the things that you love to do.

Feel free to contact me for more information or with any questions. I'll be happy to speak with you about my service.

@Brian Warren, congratulations on the purchase of your first vacation rental? What location did you decide upon?

Hi @Traverse Zink, l agree with @Villy Ellinger 's suggested locations. Destin is well-established vacation rental destination as is the whole area. I own and manage several properties on Okaloosa Island and we love visiting our condos and also sharing them with other guests when we are not there.

I get the majority of my bookings from VRBO/Homeaway and about 24% of our bookings from Airbnb. One website you might consider advertising on is Emerald Coast by Owner. It specializes in the Panhandle area and so far this year we have received 15% of our bookings from that site. I think it is gaining in popularity for travelers because it is like the "old" VRBO before they started charging travelers a service fee. 

Don't limit your research for a booking manager to Evolve, there are other options out there. It just depends on what you are looking for and what is important to you.

Best of luck in your property search! Let us know where you end up choosing to invest.

I don't think the "companion unit" needs to  "get around the limit" since it is included in the provision allowing an owner to rent such a companion unit.....as long as the owner lives in the primary residence on the same lot.

How To Rent Vacation Rentals by Owner : Christine Karpinski 

It has everything you need and want to know:

https://www.amazon.com/Rent-Vacation-Properties-Owner-Third/dp/0974824976/ref=mp_s_a_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1533302783&sr=8-1&pi=AC_SX236_SY340_QL65&keywords=how+to+rent+vacation+rentals+by+owner-by+christine+hrib-karpinski&dpPl=1&dpID=51PLtmSgxSL&ref=plSrch

@Alex M.

-What about the hotel lobby which is paying politicians hundreds of thousands of dollars in campaign contributions to protect their interests? Is this not unethical?  

It is business; you can't blame a business for doing what is necessary to protect their investment. You may say that is what your original post is about, but at least the hotel lobby isn't operating in an underhanded, outside-of-the-rules method. 

-What about the KBG tactics employed by law enforcement to infringe on privacy and harass people at their homes?

I don't really know how this relates to STRs. Are you saying that law enforcement is infringing on privacy and harassing people in their own homes by responding to noise or nuisance calls? That seems pretty far-fetched. 

-Is the world not better with AirBNB allowing people to travel and have a better experience with their families? 

I can agree with you on this. I just don't agree with your suggestion that people use subterfuge and dishonesty to circumvent the rules. If you don't like the rules then get involved in the process to try to change them, don't just ignore them.

If they want to restrict my rights as a property owner, they will do so, but I will always find a way to exercise my rights and go to court fighting it. I feel that strongly about it.

That's a great idea...spend your time and effort on that, not on all of the other things you suggested. 

@Alex M. I am surprised you are openly offering "advice" on how one can circumvent the laws and regulations of a city authority to get around proposed restrictions. The actions you described in "Getting around the rules" and "finding loopholes" could be prosecutable at most and are  unethical at least. Hosts that would do such things are part of the problem cities are facing and complicate the matter. 

Personally as a traveler I would not want to stay in a property that is not operating within the restrictions set by the governing authority.