If calling a plumber to fix a real leak is going to kill your reserves, this is a bad deal on a property and bad cash flow.The first thing to learn as a landlord is that everything is your responsibility to cure.

If your cleaner forgets to leave one out for the next guest then they could leave a bad review because they were expecting it. 

I can give you a crash course on the good, the bad and the ugly of Binghamton.Binghamton is something of a unicorn market at the moment; it's a rust belt city with a history of low incomes and low property values.

Treat your family private lender like (or better than) any other private or HML: promissory note and lien recorded against the property.

Hey @Robert Carmody, we are only on AirBNB and VRBO and they work just fine.I have been reluctant to do a Booking.com listing due to the negative reviews I have heard from other hosts.Booking.com was geared towards hotel stays, which means your STR gets treated like a hotel room.

After arrival they're disappointed to find it's not a private bedroom, which leads to disgruntled guests that search for way to get a refund and leave bad reviews.

You will get a bad reputation because they already have lawsuits.Hey Katherine, have had amazing experience with them, just finished my second padsplit and it’s really nice!

note none of my local STRs have this good a revenue ratio; if they did I would have good cash flow on them which my cash flow on the STRs the last few years has been modest.I am still shocked my underwriting shows the COC to be this bad, but I have decent confidence in the underwriting.  

I always thought that in need to invest where I lived and for may years invested in bad areas that I thought I needed to.  

One more reason why long-distance management is a bad idea.