Tell me about your short term rentals especially if your hire out the management, but feel free to tell me your self managed experience.
Do you find that there is a ton of damage all the time? A lot of stress? What things to do you do to make it a better experience? For example, we plan to lock an owner's closet with our belongings.
For reference we are considering a beach condo that we'd rent out but also use quite a bit. Almost certain we'd hire it out to a property manager. How does that work for you if you do it? Do you just need to pay the cleaning fee on the weeks you use it to get it cleaned up before the next renter or do you just clean it yourself those times?
We're also considering allowing pets since we have a dog. Is that a recipe for disaster?
Our neighbors rent through a company. They used to have 2 houses, the bigger house was regularly trashed and furniture rearranged. The smaller house tends to have just 1 family and is better kept by the renters. They are pet free, so no clue on that.
Across the street does AirBnB. She seems to like it ok. She's a widow and they only get the bottom floor, she gets the top 2. No pets there. When she used to rent the whole house out it was regularly loud and noisy. Several times there were rugs hanging over the railing because I'm guessing someone got sick.
I would check the laws for rentals. DH's coworker has one and they can only have owner weeks for X time. I think they pay for cleaning no matter who is staying.
Our neighbors rent through a company. They used to have 2 houses, the bigger house was regularly trashed and furniture rearranged. The smaller house tends to have just 1 family and is better kept by the renters. They are pet free, so no clue on that.
Across the street does AirBnB. She seems to like it ok. She's a widow and they only get the bottom floor, she gets the top 2. No pets there. When she used to rent the whole house out it was regularly loud and noisy. Several times there were rugs hanging over the railing because I'm guessing someone got sick.
I would check the laws for rentals. DH's coworker has one and they can only have owner weeks for X time. I think they pay for cleaning no matter who is staying.
Good to know. We'd be looking at a 3 bedroom under 2,000 sq feet and we'd probably say it only fits 4 adults and 4 kids. So not huge.
We have a condo in Asheville NC. We live four hours away in Charleston.
We bought the place and it was already an active rental, thank god. They had all of the furnishings and kitchen supplies etc and a handful of guests pre-booked. We were able to use the same manager that they were already using and she was a god-send as she knew the property and the area better than we did. I have experience working in real estate and was familiar with VRBO and Airbnb from the hosting perspective; that part is almost completely automated. Because the unit was in good shape, there's not a lot of response needed while guests are staying there. The manager answers questions potential guests have pre-booking, schedules the cleaners and inspects the turnover, and handles regular maintenance and supply ordering and pays the condo bills. She charges 20% of gross income.
In five years we have had very few guest problems; the only thing that comes to mind is a carpet stain from a dog getting sick and we collected extra money from the guest to pay for cleaning. We keep our price point as high as we can and have a three night minimum which helps. Typical guests complaints are street noise (condo is in the middle of downtown so not much we can do); the internet has gone down a handful of times and the property manager has had to deal with a service call to the provider which isn't fun. We shut down for two full weeks pre-COVID when the AC went out and we had to wait for a replacement. But generally, it has been pretty smooth. We also allow pets since we bring our own dog; not many guests do (or if they do they don't reveal it).
We are also lucky because our cleaning lady has been with the unit for years and is close with the manager. They sit down at the beginning of the month and go through the schedule of cleans. We had one incident where we couldn't accommodate a last minute guest because we didn't have cleaner availability and that sucked but we had to deal with it. Make sure you have lots of extra sheets and towels; when you have a same day turnover it is difficult to get all the linens washed, dried and replaced (depending on size of the property and quality of your machines); it is easier for cleaners to take them offsite.
After saying all that and talking about our great experience; our manager retired in September 2021, she was a realtor and was getting super busy and couldn't handle it anymore. We went to a large group - Vacasa. They charge less at 18% but the quality has gone down big time because they have a bunch of rentals and don't have the history with our property. They aren't willing to do a lot of the special projects and customized service that the original manager was. When we made the switch I should have gone with a smaller local company, but the transition was going to be rough either way.
We've made good money each year and used the condo about 4/5 times a year with friends and family so we are definitely happy with the purchase.
I self-manage our tiny beach cottage. We do allow dogs of all sizes which brings in more revenue than we have had unreimbursed damages. Pet friendly is a huge market and pet people are willing to pay for it.
I haven’t had real problems, but I cater to a more laid back crowd through my listing size, location and description (“1940’s Cottage on the quiet end of the beach” doesn’t scream party here).
If you do have someone else manage, make sure you really understand what rights you do and don’t have. Can you book whatever weeks you want? How far out? How will you know how well they are maintaining it? Are they vetting renters or just renting to whoever. Are they more concerned about occupancy or revenue?
We do. We have a stand alone house in a tourist town. We live there from late fall to early spring. The rest of the time the house is rented via Airbnb. We make enough to pay our taxes, winter heating bill, and one/two upgrades (windows, shuffleboard table, floor stripped/refinished, etc) per year.
We have had one “bad” guest in the 3 years we have rented. We have multiple repeat renters that we love.
A cleaning lady turns our property over for our guests. We looked at management companies that were about 20% of gross revenue.
We recently launched our first STR, www.lelaniluxury.com or Facebook.com/lelaniluxury
During the research phase, the most important thing is to verify rules and regulations before you buy. You'll also want to run a ton of scenarios to ensure you are comfortable with the risk.
I self manage and absolutely love it. I have a cleaner that is also my boots on the ground as I'm in ND but our rental is near Disney. I interviewed a lot of property managers but no one really fit for me. Your cost for staying will vary by property manager. Most don't care and just charge the cleaning fee but some will also charge you the commission fee.
If you do decide to allow dogs, I would go all out and cater to dog owners.
If you do decide to allow dogs, I would go all out and cater to dog owners.
This!
In the before times, I travelled with my dog quite a bit. It's frustrating how many short term rentals will show up when you include "pet friendly" in your criteria, but when you read the rules they require the pet to be crated 100% of the time or confined to the garage. It's a waste of my time to have to look at these listings. If you don't want my pet, that's fine. But make a firm decision on pets and embrace it either way.