All Forum Posts by: Yitzchok Carmen

have you considered diversifying your risk and standing up your own booking site? I am slowly starting to get traction on my site. It’s been a lot of work but the peace of mind that comes with it is worth it.

I have thought about it but for only 1 (soon to be 2) properties it just doesnst seem worth it. And I figured that to build and esp promote such a website would cost far more then the security its worth. If airbnb and VRBO decided to ban someone they would have to have a really really good website to stay afloat. So for 3% of your revenue is it really worth it to deal with the money and headache?

Id love to hear your prespective!

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@Luke Carl

Confused, I think Avery mentioned at the top of the post that your Destin property gets mostly VRBO. Is she just uninformed?:)

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Thank you all for the responses, greatly appreciated!

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Hi All,

So I have a cabin in the smokies on both Airbnb and VRBO. I have so far had about 30 bookings and every single one has been from airbnb. Not a single one from VRBO despite the fact that the VRBO prices are significantly lower and that I had eight 5 star reviews that were transferred over from Evolve. (I used to use Evolve before switching to self managing. interestingly with Evolve I got more VRBO than airbnb). I suppose it doesnt really matter as long as the dates are getting booked but I am uncomfortable with the fact that airbnb has so much control over my property, (esp in light of the last couple months), I feel like I need to diversify where the bookings are coming from somewhat. Does anyone know any tips to get VRBO bookings/ boost the listing or any other decent platform that will actually get bookings? I am not paying the $500 annual fee on VRBO as officially that doesnt make any dif in the ranking of your listing but I am starting to wonder if that is really true....?

Any thoughts on this would be greatly appreciated,

Thank you!

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Does anyone know of any bank in NJ that would do a HELOC over 80% LTV? Its for my primary residence, I have excellent credit. If you know of anyone please share Id love to know!

Thanks so much!

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@James Wise

It may not be a vacation destination but it certainly is a medical destination. I would imagine that running apartments on Airbnb to attract visiting nurses and doctors could work out very well assuming that they are allowed by the city

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Originally posted by @James Wise:

Originally posted by @Erin Spradlin:

I'll try to limit my rant here, but since the Wall Street Journal published a somewhat nasty article about Airbnb investors in late April and I represent a lot of Denver Airbnb Investors and Colorado Springs Airbnb investors, I think it's important to point out a few things, and see if my fellow BP-ers are of the same opinion or a totally different opinion.

Airbnbs (and short-term rentals) have classically been a good investment, with returns that were often 2-3 times that of traditional long-term investments. By that standard, even with the downturn, you have a 2-3 year pocket against a long-term investment
Yes, a lot of short-term investors leverage their properties to buy more properties (utilizing a HELOC), but that's not any different than what many standard long-term investors do

This situation is awful for a lot of reasons, and may keep short-term rental numbers depressed for the next year- but a lot of short-term investors already know what a depressed season is like because rentals don't do as well October-March. In that case, they get converted to medium-term rentals, and that can and has been happening here as well
We're a little vulnerable right now, but not making decisions because a once in a lifetime pandemic might show up does not seem like a wise investment strategy to me

It's never been a question of "if" Airbnb would fail, but rather "when" Airbnb would fail. A business built on operating houses illegal hotels has no legs. On top of that you've got all the schmo's out there convincing people to rent 100's of houses and sublease them as Airbnb's....Good God that's a ticking time bomb............And it just went BOOM!

Your argument has zero to do with Covid 19. If airbnb fails now it will have nothing to do with its business structure. The traditional landlords can get messed now the same way as the STRs. But regardless I do not think its gonna fail. Its too beloved and too used by too many travelers worldwide. Maybe some changes but it will work out in the end

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@Matt Jones Thank you for this post! I really agree with everything you are saying. Especially point 3 about the news. I listed to Darren Daily and one episode he was discussing how the media needs to intentionally be overly sensational to get us addicted to listening. Why? So they can sell us advertising!! Its all a big business of monetizing OUR brains without us even realizing! That really struck me and I have cut down on talk radio and media tremendously bc of that. In today's day and age especially when everything is politicized and a lot of it is outright fake, you will be much happier turning off the media.

Try it and you will see!!

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Originally posted by @Leora Merrell:

I have mixed feelings on this.

1. This is a brand new situation to all of us, Airbnb included. When I did my research and ran numbers before investing in a STR, I certainly did not include pandemic in anything.

2. Airbnb competes with hotels. Hotel chains all offered 100% cancellation, no questions asked. Surely Airbnb had to do the same. I am currently battling with a VRBO reservation I made last September for a family reunion. We are all military with orders not to leave the area we are assigned to before June 30. Of course that is right in the middle of the planned reunion. I offered the owner to keep our deposit and reschedule for next summer. It took a ton of negotiating and honestly begging to get him to agree. But it left a terrible taste in my mouth and made me not even want to stay in his home we reserved. I'd hate for any of my guests to feel this way. I don't want to book on VRBO ever again.

3. I have chosen to list my STR on Airbnb. We all did. No matter what policies we choose, we are at their mercy. I understood that going in. Until I have my own booking platform that I can drive traffic to the way Airbnb does, I have a hard time getting upset when Airbnb is literally not my business. It's a tool I use to rent out my cabin and until I control all the tools, I have to understand that crap is going to happen.

4. Last, (sorry this is long) the number of upset guests had Airbnb allowed their hosts to keep their policies would outnumber upset hosts exponentially. The media coverage and outcry would have been INSANE. They had to choose between two crappy choices. No guests = no platform. Hosts will always be there no matter how upset some get. When vacationing starts again, hosts will come back because the money will be there.

Anyway, I probably don't make any sense. But if another platform comes up, I'll join that too.

You make 100% sense. Airbnb is looking at the larger picture. And they know that you need them a LOT more then they need you. The hosts are not going anywhere, we are will use whatever it is that will fill our places up. We are not "customers" that are always right. Thats just the truth of the matter.

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Originally posted by @Nathan Gesner:

This is the problem. You essentially hire AirBnB to market your rental and they start acting like they own it.

All because of a virus with a 99.9% survival rate, but that's for another thread.

That is because unfortunately they do own it. The proof is how scared everyone is of this.

1 Vote

All Forum Posts by: Yitzchok Carmen

Yitzchok Carmen has started 7 posts and replied 48 times.

Post: My STR only gets booking from airbnb

Post: My STR only gets booking from airbnb

Post: My STR only gets booking from airbnb

Post: My STR only gets booking from airbnb

Post: New Jersey HELOC question

Post: So What If Airbnb Is Crashing Right Now...

Post: So What If Airbnb Is Crashing Right Now...

Post: What have you learned from COVID-19?

Post: Will a new STR platform rise from Airbnb's COVID Missteps?

Post: Airbnb To Require 24 Hours Between Rentals