Unbelievable! HOW You can INVEST in AIRBNB ANYWHERE in the World!

You can invest in real estate anywhere in the US. You can be thousands of miles away from it and still manage the property yourself. So, why not invest in the highest cash flowing markets? Or even the highest appreciating markets? Don’t allow the limiting beliefs of others slow down your investing journey. All you need are the right processes in place to take your real estate to the next level.

Building Your Team

Now, in order to invest long distance, someone is going to have to be in person. This person, however, is not you. So who is it? Well, it’s your team. The people who will perform the day to day work on the property. The people who will be your eyes and ears, providing feedback on any necessary items.

It all starts with the cleaner of your property. Once you’ve identified and vetted the cleaner, you will plan to have them takeover the regular cleanings of the property. Your cleaner will be the one to stock your cleaners closet and make sure the house is full of supplies and never running out. Your cleaner can also be someone who looks out for damage or missing items. They don’t just have to fulfill the role of cleaner, so understand just how much your cleaner is willing to do.

Now if you noticed, I mentioned a cleaners closet. This is a space for your cleaner to store excess linens and supplies. This closet needs to be locked off and inaccessible to your guests because they will use up all of your excess supplies if you let them. Guests are a lot like wild animals in that way.

Lastly, when it comes to having a cleaner, make sure you have a couple backups once you’ve identified your primary cleaner. There’s nothing worse than an injury the cleaner suffers causing your property to not be cleaned. Also good to have options if prices get raised and you aren’t willing to raise it.

The main question you should really be asking yourself is, “how handy are you?”. If you aren’t a handy person, the path forward is actually quite simple. Use other people who are professionals to take care of the handy work for you. If you are a pretty competent person with your hands, you need to let go of your ego. Allow yourself the opportunity to use other people’s time. You can always talk about the problems you are having with the property over the phone, so there’s no need to even be in person. Interviewing your handyman, having a list of questions, sending them a W-9 to sign is how the process is done. 

This is one of the biggest hurdles people have when it comes to long distance investing and managing of their own properties. It’s always, “what if something happens with the toilet in the middle of the night” or “How can I trust it’ll be done the right way?”. These are both poor thought processes because you’re assuming you won’t have processes in place and that there’s no way to prove the work performed.

Instead, create a plan for these emergencies and what steps you will take when an issue comes up. Additionally, force the handyman to take photos and video of the issue and the fix. You can also rely on other professional servicers in the area if the extent of the work is too much for your handyman. For instance, identify a plumber you want to work with beforehand so you have levels and categories of the fixes you will need to make.

Call to Action

You should also considering identifying the subscription button below. All these insights came at a lot of expenses, so I’d greatly appreciate it!

Automation Software

Understanding the technology we have in todays world is only going to benefit you. Tired of cleaning your Airbnb? Then utilize someone else’s time and find a way to pay them. This can be done through using the app Turno, where you can find a cleaner and pay them through the platform. The next step is charging the cleaning fee to the guest, causing the entire experience to be completely pass through. This means you pay nothing and your property is serviced.

Story time

  • Starting with Airbnb through house hacking
  • Had to move to Denver

That’s it for today, if you found value in this video or have questions, please leave a comment down below. Please don’t forget to subscribe… and until next time, peace!

The Recession’s Canceled?! Wait a Minute..

We are entering into one of the darkest recessions ever that will rival the housing crisis of 2008. 

Or are we? 

Traditionally, the definition of a recession is ‘a period of temporary economic decline during which trade and industrial activity are reduced, generally identified by a fall in GDP in two successive quarters.’ 

Which, this negative decline was already seen in Q1 and Q2 of 2022.

However, the National Bureau of Economic Research newly defines a recession as “a significant decline in economic activity that is spread across the economy and that lasts more than a few months.” The variables the committee typically tracks include real personal income minus government transfers, employment, various forms of real consumer spending, and industrial production. 

Notably, there are no fixed rules or thresholds that trigger a determination of decline, although the committee does note that in recent decades, they have given more weight to real personal income less transfers and payroll employment.”

And because the Bureau relies on government statistics, which have never been wrong, there is significant lag time from when a recession is actually happening and when it’s “officially” happening. This allows them to accurately Monday Morning Quarterback something that we have been feeling the weight of the entire time. 

However, I’m not here to argue the politics behind why the definition of a recession is changing, I’m here to tell you the cold hard facts. Especially those affecting the real estate short term rental market.

Just recently, AirDNA put out statistics for Q4 2022 showing that the gap between demand on the platform and the supply of host increases was slimming down for short term rentals on Airbnb. This is good news as the results in Q3 2022 were quite dismal as Airbnb announced its greatest quarter ever while forgetting to mention that supply was vastly outpacing demand leaving their hosts in the dust. So it’s great to see supply and demand coming closer together in the last quarter of the year. 

Additionally, AirDNA noted that upscale properties continue to see increases in their Average Daily Rate, while economy and midscale properties saw declines in their ADR. Which proves further that true short term rentals shouldn’t have as much of an impact on affordable housing. 

Because even if there were properties in the affordable housing category on Airbnb, they aren’t performing well and are not the type of properties investors are looking for. But that’s a whole other video that I’ll be putting out in the near future.

And if you want to keep hearing more insights over real estate and short term rentals, make sure you subscribe to the channel and like this video. With the ever-changing environment around real estate and regulations you do not want to get caught with your pants down.

So, the White House just proposed a new bill in the first month of 2023 around the topic of rent control. This bill  would prevent ‘unreasonable’ rent increases and ‘unjust’ evictions while strengthening tenant rights and penalizing landlords who violate those rights.

My only question here is what’s ‘unreasonable’ and ‘unjust’? There’s way too much subjectivity in these words for there to be a clear cut path forward. I agree that Landlords should keep their properties in good condition and provide an excellent experience to tenants, but at the end of the day landlords are the ones who own the buildings and take all of the risk. 

These are investments that took a lot of effort and discipline to acquire. There shouldn’t be rent control, there should just be a better balance for what renting looks like. Airbnb has a pretty great way of rating both hosts and guests that keep both parties protected. You want to make more as a landlord? You gotta keep your place nice. Want a nice place to stay? Don’t trash the places you are staying. Pretty Simple. 

In 2019, several states including California, New York, and Oregon passed new rent control laws aimed at protecting tenants from excessive rent increases and unjust evictions. These laws typically limit the amount by which landlords can increase rent each year and provide additional protections for renters facing eviction.

However, not all states have embraced rent control. Some states, such as Texas and Florida, have laws that prohibit local governments from enacting rent control policies. Other states have laws that place limits on the types of properties that can be subject to rent control, such as excluding single-family homes.

In recent years, the debate over rent control has become increasingly political, with supporters arguing that it is necessary to address the affordability crisis, while opponents argue that it will discourage investment in new housing and lead to decreased supply. 

So in all of the confusion, let’s talk about some truths around the negative effects of rent control from a Stanford Case Study;

  1. Reduced investment in rental housing: Rent control policies can discourage investment in rental housing by reducing the potential returns for landlords and property owners. This, in turn, could lead to a decrease in the supply of rental housing, driving up rents and making it more difficult for tenants to find affordable housing.
  2. Inefficiency in the rental market: Rent control policies can create inefficiencies in the rental market by distorting prices and reducing the incentives for landlords to maintain and improve their properties. This can result in a decrease in the quality of rental housing and a reduction in the overall supply of housing available to tenants.
  3. Unintended consequences for tenants: While the intention of rent control is to make housing more affordable for tenants, it can have unintended consequences, such as making it more difficult for low-income renters to find affordable housing. This is because landlords may choose to restrict their rental units to higher-income tenants who are willing and able to pay higher rents.
  4. Lack of flexibility: Rent control policies can limit the ability of landlords to respond to market conditions and make necessary adjustments to their rental rates. This can make it difficult for landlords to maintain the financial viability of their properties and can reduce the overall supply of rental housing available to tenants.

So to summarize, there are positive things happening in the real estate market, however the government isn’t making it any easier. With changing of definitions all the way to rent control, it seems like there’s a lot of wasted efforts over the politicization of what should just be an open and honest conversation.

Rent Control only favors the tenant. Instead, what we should be doing is looking for solutions to balance the two sides out and not some clickbait thumbnail from the White House to garner power. 

That’s it for today, please leave a comment down below and let me know your thoughts on where the markets headed. Are we in a recession? Should there be rent control? Let me know, but until next time, Peace!

Resources:

How You Can Avoid the Airbnb Collapse

Airbnb revolutionized the way people traveled by providing a mainstream alternative to hotels. Now that the market is taking a dip, so is the company. With looming conversations around the ‘Airbnbust’, people are wondering about the future of short term rentals. With saturation in the market; many are feeling that they missed out on the golden era of Airbnb.

In fact, AirDNA wrote an article over Q3 2022 that Airbnb was going to find itself in a slow winter. While the platform identified that demand has increased 17% and Average Daily rate has increased 5.7% YOY, Occupancy has seen a 5.0% decrease YOY and the supply of available listings has increased 24.6% YOY. This indicates that supply is outpacing demand causing more hosts to see vacancy in their listings. With more supply than demand, this means that there is more hosts coming onto the platform than guests looking for places to stay.

Even Vacasa, a major short term rental management company through Airbnb, mentioned in their financials for Q3 2022 that the company is experiencing softness and variability in guest bookings which could have a material unfavorable impact to their business.

These statements are in direct opposition to the statement that came out from Airbnb’s Q3 2022 Shareholder Letter, where they noted having their biggest and most profitable quarter ever. On top of guest demand staying ‘strong’, while also noting a strong growth in new hosts, aka the supply. So the question you should be asking yourself is “why are third parties saying there is softening in guest demand and Airbnb is saying demand is still strong?”.

The truth is that demand is continuing to grow, however in relation to supply the demand position is weaker. So Airbnb can make claims to both statements being true without uncovering the dark secret that hosts are taking the brunt of the problems. The weakened relationship of demand to supply means that the amount of money hosts would make in the past is more diluted now due to the saturation. So in total, Airbnb will continue to make more money year over year, however it won’t be the same from a ratio perspective. This just means that with rising costs, the platforms margins will continue to be thinner and thinner.

While there are growing problems that Airbnb is facing, that doesn’t have to be true for your short term rental business. That is, only if you believe quality is better than quantity. The one saving grace of the platform is that there are many ways to optimize your listing to maximize the rents you can receive.

There is a big difference between professional and rookie hosts. Saturation does not automatically equate to less bookings for your rentals. So I want to share a few ways that you can work towards to becoming a professional host.

But before I do that, I want to ask if you’ve found value in this video. If you have, it would be so great if you could hit the subscribe button. Now let’s get into the list.

#1 – You suck at cleaning your own Airbnb. Hire a professional cleaning crew to clean and turnover your unit. You can use Turnoverbnb to automate this process, find a cleaner and schedule them.

#2 – Your own knowledge of a market does not trump the data when it comes to pricing your rental. So use a dynamic pricing tool like Pricelabs to accurately price your unit. You can also use the minimum stays feature to incentivize longer stays, leading to greater occupancy and revenue.

#3 – Get to super host as fast as possible so that your listing is pushed to the top of the search in your area. AirDNA says only 14.3% of 2.1 million hosts are actually super host which means there’s a pronounced difference in being a high quality host vs everyone else. Superhost status is determined on a quarterly basis and requires the following criteria;

Completed at least 10 trips or 3 reservations that total at least 100 nights

Maintained a 90% response rate or higher

Maintained a less than 1% cancellation rate, with exceptions made for those that fall under our Extenuating Circumstances policy

Maintained a 4.8 overall rating (A review counts towards Superhost status when either both the guest and the Host have submitted a review, or the 14-day window for reviews is over, whichever comes first).

#4 – It’s all about the amenities. Ask the question of how you stand out from the rest? Does your listing have a pool or hot tub? A few of the major overlooked amenities is having a full kitchen – with all of the cookware, a garage for guests to stow their vehicles and an in-unit washer and dryer. A place that is fully self-sufficient and clean will always rent on the market.

#5 – Get a professional photographer to take pictures of your unit. You aren’t as creative as you think right out of the gate. So rely on someone who spends every waking hour dreaming of capturing the best shot of your property. Often times you can find this person through your agent and it’s not a ton of money to make happen. Often, these pictures cost around $200 to have done and will pay for themselves with the bookings you will get. You’ll have to trust me that your listing will sit there without professional photos.

#6 – Direct Bookings. Don’t just rely on Airbnb. Build your own website, list and market your own property there or build relationships with medical agencies or insurance agencies. You can do this by contacting HR in hospitals or asking for relocation specialists at the insurance agency. This can be very profitable as an option.

Hopefully this video has given you some better perspective over the ‘Airbnbust’ controversy and what you can do to protect your investment. As I’ve noted, there’s many factors you can control about getting your listing booked, so don’t use the hype as a reason to fail. Too often we look for reasons why something won’t work instead of asking the question “How can it work”. So make sure you are always looking for solutions in the difficult situations.

Anyway, that’s it for today, please leave a comment down below and share your thoughts on the ‘Airbnbust’. What do you make of the data? What are you seeing in your market? I want to know your thoughts!

Resources:

It’s the Beginning of THE END for AirBnB – Here’s Why…

Intro:

Airbnb is starting their path to destruction by silencing hosts, charging unreasonable fees and ultimately gutting the hosts investment. Even though hosts are supposed to be partners on the platform, they are considered nothing more than a nuisance that can be handled through Airbnb’s roundabout, incompetent support team.

In this video I will discuss why I’m leaving the Airbnb platform and why you should consider it as well so that you don’t end up losing your investment.

Why I’m leaving Airbnb:

I’m deciding to move away from Airbnb in order to do direct bookings. So I’m not leaving Airbnb completely, I would just like to get to the point where guests are booking directly through my own website. For instance, I’d be fine with using Airbnb 25% of the time and have direct bookings being 75% of the time. I just don’t want to be fully reliant on their platform when it’s progressively been getting worse for my business. 

In recent years it’s become more and more a theme that Airbnb is gaining more control over my business by keeping my property on the platform. Whether they are controlling my listing from the support side, the pricing perspective or the SEO side; which is the part that even allows my listing to be seen.

The Airbnb Support team is a joke with how they handle issues and are completely guest oriented. Most of the support is only reading off a template and you can only reach someone after 5-10 calls in order to obtain some real answers. Do you understand how long that is to wait? It’s absolutely insane.

My favorite example of this is when a guest cancels their reservation and doesn’t want to pay the cancellation fees so they have Airbnb support go after you to refund the guest. You clearly have a policy that should be followed, however you have to adamantly defend your position. You can avoid all of this headache through owning your listings.

CTA:

And if you haven’t subscribed already, please subscribe to the channel. I talk about all things short-term and medium-term rentals. I run a management company and use my real life experiences to share with you for free so that you can go out and find the most success possible!

Making the decision to create a direct booking website will allow me to have all of the control when it comes to my business. Which if you haven’t heard, Airbnb is working on rolling out the 15% fee they used to charge to the guests, to the hosts. The fee that hosts have paid to this point has been 3%, so it’s quite a large jump in fees.

And if you think about it, Airbnb is really only a marketing platform for your business. Every business out there has to do some kind of marketing in order to obtain clients, so why would this be any different? Your decision to have a short term rental makes you a business owner. So you can own this process yourself or hand it off to a management company that should be doing the advertising for you and most likely will be in process of having a direct booking website!

Now I own a management company called “BNB Monthly” and would love to help you maximize the revenue potential of your property while minimizing the headaches associated with a short term rental. So make sure you click the link the description to schedule a call with me today.

Having said all of this, I do not hate Airbnb nor am I saying it hasn’t been good for me. It’s just not continuing to do good for me like it did when I first started out. And frankly, it’s important that you take your own business seriously by evolving the way you do things.

Because a platform that doesn’t value you as a partner, is no longer a partner. With the change in fee to 15%, do you really think it will stop there? They are just replicating how other platforms with their reach do business. Just like how Amazon charges between 8-15% for every item sold and this is before any fulfillment fees. So it’s not just Airbnb, it’s the industry.

Now it’s not all doom and gloom, but it is up to you to be accountable and educate yourself on how to evolve your business. You can’t be stagnant in todays world, but I promise that if you put in the effort, you will benefit greatly.

That’s all I have for today, please subscribe and leave a comment below and let me know your thoughts on Airbnb as a platform and if you are interested in a direct booking website. Until next time, peace!

Self-Managing Your Airbnb: How to have your Cleaner Managing your Rental Property (Part 2)

Now that we’ve discussed the sourcing of the cleaner and the linens, it is now time to discuss the management of inventory. You should be providing your cleaner with a checklist of the expectations you have for them. If you don’t have a checklist, how can you blame them for something not being done? As a part of my checklist, I require the cleaner to alert me if any of the supplies we have for the unit are below 25% of capacity.

Depending on your cleaner, they may only charge you an additional fee for stocking the supplies you want or have you send them supplies through Amazon for which they will stock the unit. Which brings the second point that you should have a list of supplies at the ready. Automate your expectations for what will be in your property from a supplies perspective. Be proactive by creating these lists so that you can automate your restocking process.

Another pro tip is that you should not have your cleaner managing your supplies from their office/home. They have multiple other properties that they are working on and the truth is that they are best at their craft; which is cleaning. So make the management of your inventory easy and provide a locked off area for which the cleaner can access the supplies. Most times this will be a closet, to which you can install a latch with a self-coded cable lock. You’ll thank me later on the lock, because the last thing you will want is another key to worry about or someone to lose.

By putting systems in place, you are avoiding the opportunity to make mistakes. When everyone understands the expectation and knows the next steps, you are setting up your business for success. You’re also respecting your cleaner to the greatest extent possible, because you are laying out the parameters for what should be done and allowing them the opportunity to take the reigns. Because you have your cleaner taking pictures after the job has been performed, you are able to manage the project from wherever you are. By having pictures taken, this creates the opportunity for the cleaner to find any mistakes or areas they may have missed. These can be subtle reminders to them to perform at a higher level, because they know they will have to submit the final project to you.

Self-Managing Your Airbnb: How to have your Cleaner Managing your Rental Property (Part 1)

When it comes to having an Airbnb, it can get stressful as there is so much to do. You have to make sure the property is clean after every guest and that there’s enough toilet paper and paper towels! Let alone making sure there’s shampoo and soap!

You can find a cleaner that specializes in Airbnb’s through the platform Turnoverbnb. Turnoverbnb will help you find a cleaner and manage them. The cleaner you select will have access to your Airbnb Listing Calendar, which allows them to know when a guest will check-in/check-out. Make sure you’re choosing a cleaner that is highly rated within the platform. Also, try to have them take pictures after every cleaning to prove the work that has been performed.

When you have found your cleaner ask them to connect! It’s good to have their contact information as an additional counter measure in case of emergencies. Some of the cleaners will refuse to speak outside of the platform which is also just fine. However, I like to provide them with a checklist that goes over the expectations I have, a supply list to control what’s in the property and to also build rapport and utilize their network of people they know.

Once the cleaner is setup, you will want to make sure that you have (at minimum) two sets of sheets, towels, really everything; in order to allow your cleaner to be efficient. So as they take off the dirty sheets on a bed, they have another set to replace that is clean already. The dirty sheets are then taken back to the Cleaner’s office to be washed. Your cleaner will greatly appreciate the time saved and allow them to clean faster and get more done in their day.

The Biggest Mistake You Can Make When Investing in Short Term Rentals

Getting Started

The biggest mistake occurs during the purchasing process of the short-term rental. There’s a huge misconception that all properties will work using the short-term rental methodology by posting the rental on Airbnb. Instead, what you should be thinking about first, is will the rental comps work for the property as a long-term rental or at least break even first. If the property will break even, then you have another use for the property and not be solely dependent on the property as a short-term rental. Typically, if the property will also work as a long-term rental, then you have nothing to fear if you’re able to optimize the property using Airbnb.

Mindset Around Investing in Short-Term Rentals

A conservative mindset is your friend when it comes to investing in short-term rentals. There is currently so much hype around the concept that it’s easy to get distracted and feel like you can’t lose. Let your numbers be your guide by analyzing the cashflow and equity paydown of the property. Use the enemy method to analyze the properties around yours and how much they are making from Airbnb. When it comes to the enemy method, make sure you are taking notes over the quantitative and qualitative measurements to find where your property will fit best.

Purchasing in a Recession

Short-term rentals are likely to fluctuate in a recession as the money people have to spend on vacations lessens. Properties that are true short-term rentals, as in beachfront properties on the ocean, will see lesser impacts do to the nature of the value they bring. However, people who have a property in a city that isn’t centrally located or near Downtown and have found success to this point will see the impact first. So having a plan in place where your numbers work for multiple approaches will allow you to pivot if necessary. Even if you turn your short-term rental into a mid-term rental (30+ days), you will find that your approach will become more recession resistant. This is due to people staying for months at a time for work, so they are making money instead of just spending money. Consider the different approaches and your backup strategies so that you have a no-lose situation.

How to Start an Airbnb Business through Rental Arbitrage

Rental arbitrage is the concept of leasing someone else’s property and sub leasing the property to a third party. In the past, sub-leasing was used as a way to find someone else to take over your rent when you moved. Now, entrepreneurs are using Airbnb to rent out the property to guests who will pay them much more than what their lease costs. This is the concept of Arbitrage, which is when you take one good and sell it for a higher price than you paid for it.

The way the process starts is by contacting landlords of properties that you could foresee being successful on Airbnb. Typically, you should come to them with a plan for what you will do with the property and ease their concerns over guaranteed payment and the maintenance items under $100 that you will take care of. Additionally, you should let them know that a cleaner will be servicing the property on a very regular schedule, meaning that the unit is inspected frequently. If the landlord wishes to move forward, you will want to make sure that the Airbnb language is noted in the lease itself.

Before signing the lease, you will want to use the financial information you received from the Landlord and calculate the total costs in comparison to the amount of money you’ll make on Airbnb. Not every deal is a good deal, so keep this in mind and do not be discouraged when it’s not a good deal. The Landlord will give you the cost of the lease, however, you should also be taking in the cost of the furniture into account as well.

Next, you have the option of paying for the furniture out of pocket or to finance the furniture with a 0% interest 18-month credit card. As long as you use the Airbnb to pay off the credit card first or at least have a plan to pay it off on a monthly basis, there should be no problems with this approach. When buying furniture, it is important that it is durable as well as unique and stylish. Replacing furniture is not fun, ideal or inexpensive which is why it does matter what you purchase.

Additionally, make sure you have umbrella insurance to protect yourself and your business. There may be problems that come up and being uninsured is the worst problem you could have, especially in instances of general liability. So make sure you are protecting yourself with a policy that has at least $1 million dollars of general liability protection.

Once you’ve gotten this far, all that’s left is to have a professional photographer take photos and to create your listing on Airbnb. These steps are crucial because the quality of your pictures will effect your occupancy rates and the amount of revenue you make in a month. Your listing must be accurate but also reflect all of the wonderful attributes of the property and location.

A couple parting words over rental arbitrage. This process is not a form of investing in Real Estate; you can only expect cashflow. There will not be equity pay down, appreciation or depreciation benefits. You can make a lot of money using rental arbitrage, but you should invest the money you make into actual properties. Additionally, because you are leasing properties, this could hurt your ability to finance the properties you wish to invest in. You will need to prove to the bank that you’ve made solid income for 2 years, before they will consider your income to be consistent.

Airbnb Management: How to Effectively Screen your Guests and Avoid Disaster

Screening your guests on Airbnb is the first best step you can take in protecting your Airbnb. The reason screening your guests is so important, is because you want to mitigate any form of damage that could be done to your property and to protect your reviews as a host.

Having a guest that throws a party can really damage your property and leave a sour taste in your mouth and the neighborhood that your property is in. Which brings me to my first point, be wary of guests that book the property locally. Parties can also be mitigated by having more than a one-night stay (we suggest three night stay minimum depending on your area), but finding out about the party two or three days later could be horrible. The question you should ask yourself is why would a local want to book my property for one night? Intentions matter and you should ask the guest in order to understand the bigger picture, but know the risks involved.

High maintenance guests could almost be worse due to the impact they have on your reviews and your ability for your listing to be seen (i.e SEO). A big reason we don’t allow discounts on any of our properties is because the people who ask for them come with their own problems. And really this comes from any high maintenance requests that guests have. Asking for an earlier check-in is a reasonable request, but a request to offer an air mattress that you don’t have/offer or to have specific pots and pans (outside of what you already offer) is out of the question. Avoid these types of guests at all costs.

Next, is the actual settings in your Airbnb listing for instant bookings. Now you want to have your instant booking feature “On” in order for your listing to be seen better, but you don’t want to attract the wrong guests. So make sure you check the boxes to require instant bookings to have the following: Government-issued ID required, Host recommendation required and a pre-booking message requirement. If one of these categories isn’t selected, the reservation will come across as a “Request to book” allowing you more time to look into their background. Highly suggest if a guest does not have their ID verified with Airbnb, that you ask them to do so before accepting their booking.

By having the pre-booking message required, the guest will most often tell you their reason for visiting. This will allow you to understand if the guest will be a good fit for your property or not. You can also require a profile picture from the guest, which means they are completing their profile and invested in becoming a good guest. This is important because it means it’s also not just a throwaway account.

It’s fine to accept guests without reviews, but make sure you are more cautious and take your time in vetting them. You don’t have to accept people into your property that aren’t a good fit, so make sure you have these precautions in place.

Greatly appreciate you taking the time to read through this article. Make sure to comment and let me know your perspective on screening guests.

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Long Distance Investing: How You Can Get Started and Why it’s Not as Scary as You Might Think!

Have you ever had the thought, “I wish I lived in a cheaper market” or “I wish I lived in a market with better Cashflow or Appreciation”? Well, the short answer is to invest remotely, but I’m sure you didn’t come here for the short answer. So I’ll share with you my story and the tools you’ll need to find success investing remotely!

So to get started, you’ll need to do some market research; basically find the area you think that you’d like to invest in a meets your criteria. This is a big step in the overall picture, because it does matter where you decide to invest. However, when you’re just getting started, googling top markets for cashflow or appreciation could start to put you in the right general area. Once you have the general idea, it’s time to start looking for a niche location based on the strategy you’d like to implement. So maybe you’re using airbnb and find a really awesome spot where the local airbnb’s are completely filled or basing it off the analytics of a tool like AirDNA. Maybe your strategy is traditional rentals and you use the tool Rentometer to find local comps to plug into your Cashflow Analyzer Template. Regardless of the strategy, you will need to dig deep in this phase to figure out the location piece.

I didn’t start out investing remotely; it actually started when my wife and I moved from our duplex Househack in Minnesota to Colorado. So we had already found the location we wanted to use and the strategy which was Airbnb(referral link). Our strategy using Airbnb, was to offer mid-term rentals (monthlies) and situate our investment property between hospitals, places that require contract work and really just people who needed a more flexible leasing strategy.

You will then need to find an agent that also invests in real estate to work with. You can find an agent with these specifics using BiggerPockets, which is a platform where investors share information. When you connect with an agent that invests, they will have some great ideas for you that may work for them or at the very least, be able to help you find a property with your goals in mind. Most times they also have a referral for a lender that can help you in the area, making this step super simple. However, always shop the lender market to see if there are better options and to protect yourself.

Next, you are going to need to build your team and start automating your processes. My wife and I wanted to be able to control the property from long distance. With Airbnb, you need a key code on your door that you can actively change from anywhere. I’m normally a little paranoid believing people won’t just gain a copy of my key and I’m hyper aware of the protection of my tenants, so the best option was a key code controlled deadbolt. We messed around with some wifi locks for a while, but the problem is that they require a battery change every 2 months or so because they are constantly connecting. So to find the answer to this problem we invested in a security system, Vivint (referral link). Vivint allows us to control access to the doors (Changing access codes from anywhere in the world, have cameras outside of entrances, control temperature, smoke alarms, detect water and so much more. It also provides a feed of recordings for any activity you may need for any contingencies that might happen (Never too safe). The best part is that only the hub is controlled by wifi, which means that the door locks are radio frequency and only need to be changed every 1-2 years (which is sweet!).

Next, you will need a cleaner, no matter what strategy you use for your property. So for Airbnb (and for traditional rentals) you can use the app TurnoverBNB. What’s great about this platform is that you can obtain multiple bids and quotes for your property from cleaners that have also been reviewed. So you know that you’re using a cleaner that has great reviews knowing you can trust their work. Additionally, you can provide a scope of work for anytime a cleaner needs to bring all the cleaning supplies or if you plan to provide anything. TurnoverBNB also syncs your calendar, so when a guest checks out, your cleaner will automatically go to clean your property. So you just give them the access code and that’s really all there is to it. You can also just manually schedule your cleaner for anything you need done as well. If you charge your cleaning fees forward to the guest, then this is just a process that becomes net zero.

Lastly, it’s advised to find a handyman and utilities team (plumber, electrician, HVAC, etc). For the handyman, you can refer back to your investor agent for anyone that they may know. However, you can always submit requests on sites like Angies List for whatever projects you have or need done. For the utilities, there are often companies that will have plumbing, electricity, HVAC and more handled all in one. For me, there’s a company called Ben Franklin that offers all of these services and I’m on the VIP list. Anytime there’s an issue, I can just call them and they will handle it which is fantastic while I live 1,500+ miles away.

An additional last item to account for is landlord insurance. It’s just like homeowner’s insurance with the difference being that you are compensated for lost profit as a result of any damage within the property. I had a pipe burst in my property that took it out completely, but I never missed any revenue for reservations I had previously booked to this point. So it was a huge learning curve getting a water mitigation team in there and then have a restoration company come to restore the property to the point before the damage. However, I also, just handled these events from my phone which was incredible. My network that I had built up, referred me to the right people to get this job done. This really gave me the confidence to believe that I did not need to be in the unit and that my location was actually irrelevant.

Denver has a very expensive market that can be hard to cashflow in (not impossible), so it has me looking for more opportunities in better cash flowing markets as should you. These experiences have led me to realize that building a team and systems can actually make distance investing easier. In today’s world, there’s not a lot you can’t do from a phone so take advantage of this and start living the way you want to live!

Let me know your thoughts by commenting!