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krafaparin1981 · 4 years ago

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hilivingbnb · 5 years ago

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2020 ALL-INCLUSIVE GUIDE: how to manage airbnb remotely during coronavirus pandemic and thrive

This is the perfect time to streamline your process and how to manage airbnb remotely during coronavirus lockdowns and stay-at-home. Limit contact or going contactless is the goal. In this guide, you will learn how to setup your remote management system now so your business runs smoother and provides you with passive income and more valuable time back for you.

1. Cleaning - This is key to manage your airbnb remotely

Why and how to communicate with your cleaner and maintenance staff How to manage airbnb property remotely starts with cleaning. Your cleaning staff might be as confused as you're about this whole process. With cleaning is more than important than ever (travellers are more germaphobic than ever), you need to nail down this process, as well as provide a system/guidance for your cleaning staff. The last thing you want is your cleaner not want to show up when you've a checkout. This can cost you money and stress to find someone else to come at the very last minutes and potentially jeopardize the next reservation. If you work with a cleaning company, ask them what cleaning procedure they use. Set clear cleaning instructions that protect your staff and disinfect your place well.Ensure you've enough disinfectants, gloves and other supplies for your staff.Communicate your care and effort to protect the health of your staff.You might need to train them "virtually" on the new cleaning procedure. SEE MORE: 6 Actions to take NOW | Airbnb stimulus package The "New" cleaning protocol Airbnb has a new cleaning guideline for Covid-19, you can check out their template here. This is based on information provided from the CDC. You can download the checklist and share with your team as well as posted it in your unit so guests can see that you're taking this very seriously. Download the cleaning checklistDownload the welcome letter

Airbnb will begin requiring that rentals stay vacant for 24 hours between check out and when a new reservation begins. The new requirement is based on a recommendation from the Centers for Disease Control to "address the possibility of particles that may remain airborne for a few hours." What do you feel about this? Cleaning products The CDC posted cleaning and disinfect your home guideline specifically to COVID-19 that you can add to your tool kit on how to manage airbnb remotely during coronavirus. Products to use: https://www.epa.gov/pesticide-registration/list-n-disinfectants-use-against-sars-cov-2. When choosing a disinfectant, make sure to read the label that it actually kills germs and bacterias. You can also prepare a bleach solution by mixing: 5 tablespoons (1/3rd cup) bleach per gallon of water or4 teaspoons bleach per quart of waterBleach solutions will be effective for disinfection up to 24 hours Alcohol solutions with at least 70% alcohol may also be used.

2. Check In - (keyless, contact-less entry)

How to manage airbnb remotely? Use keyless entry to offer digital check in for your guest. The less human-to-human contact the better.

SEE MORE: Lock Setups

3. Automated airbnb check in instructions

Set up your template for all communication checkpoints and send it out manually. Or you can use an automatic messaging service like YourPorter. The whole point is to provide your guests with all the airbnb check in instructions they might need to eliminate the need of you having to go there in person. You can use the airbnb saved messages feature and save your airbnb check in instructions template there. Companies that offer automated messaging that you can set up your airbnb check in instructions: iGMSSuperhost ToolsYourPorterUplisting

4. Airbnb check out message (minimize hassle)

Use automated message to send your guest a check-out reminder. This will save your guests from any confusion of what's expected of them and a surprised cleaning bill afterward. What to include in your check-out reminder: Check-out date and timeCheckout procedure - what to do with linens, dirty dishes, etc.

Airbnb check out instructions sample

5. Remotely manage supplies for guests

Use delivery services to manage airbnb remotely Look for where you can get wholesale airbnb supplies as well as delivery convenient. Here are our favorites (membership fee applies): Use Amazon Business Prime, you will get free shipping and pricing is better on some items than regular Amazon Prime. Look for "Business price."We like Amazon Business or Amazon Prime because you can even get Amazon Key to make the whole process even more contactless.Another retailer that we use is Sam's Club. We love the Plus membership for $99/year. We get free shipping and with cash back, we got more money back than the $99 membership fee we have to pay. Alternately you get Costco, depending on which retailer services your area better. In Hawaii, we get free shipping with Sam's Club Plus but not with Costco. Welcome gift

Consider a welcome gift or a welcome basket for your guests such as 2 masks, hand sanitizer if you can still find them. If you leave out fruits, make sure to wrap them well. You want to show your guests that you care about them and their well-being. If you like to sew, you can make cloth masks for your guests. See our instructions here. Or you can purchase them. A good source we found is Etsy and Facebook Marketplace.

6. Provide local info for guests so you don't have to be there

Add to your house manual all the details that you would normally tell guests if you meet them face-to-face. Not everyone is familiar with the local services and places and know how to find the best and the right one (that's still open in your city) online. Take the guest work out of this for your guests and manage airbnb remotely. Parking informationAccess code needed for the front gate/entrance doorGuest Wifi passwordYour contact infoEmergency services contact info (maintenance, requests, whom on your team can they call if there is an issue, etc.)Instructions where things are in the houseHow to operate items such as how to turn on Cable TV (believe it or not, this is what we get the most calls about)House rulesLocal transportation information (taxi, airport shuttle services, maps of the location areas). We include coupon codes for Uber or Lyft if we have those for our guests.Other important info your guests might needDelivery service (ex: Shipt, BiteSquad, etc...): services they are familiar with and used at their home city might not be what is available in your city. Emergency info like the closest hospital, poison control number, etc.The property address - if they need it for delivery or when they call the hospital, they don't have to tumbling through the app or messages.If your city or state has a dedicated web page or app with info about Covid-19, you might want to let your guests know too.The local news or government might have a website or info about what's open and closed in your city. Tips: record a short instructional video and upload it to YouTube. You can add the link or QR code to these video in your house manual or you can message them to your guests when needed. If you're concerned about privacy, you can make these video Unlisted. This way, only the people who have the link can see it. Other people cannot search for your video on YouTube.See an example of cleaning instruction video. You don't need fancy camera, just your phone should be good.

7. Remove high maintenance amenities that guests don't need right now

Do you have amenities that guests who are in quarantine or working from home at your place won't need? Consider not providing those at this time to cut cost. Usually these are amenities or services that might require someone to be there to maintain it. We stopped offering cleaning between stay service to guests due health concern for our cleaning staff. Also think of surfaces that it harder to clean like carpet, upholstery, etc. We have clients that changed out their carpet for laminate because they needed to replace the carpet anyway and took this opportunity to replace it with a more durable surface and easier to clean like laminate. Disinfectant and bleach are very damaging to furnitures. If you have expensive furnitures or expensive items, consider putting those away. We are seeing longer stay 14+ days to a month and we see more reservations with children. Making your unit kid-friendly is a good idea. Do a walk through and see what you can do to proof your house for kids (easy to break or expensive decors should be out-of-reach for kids, etc.).

8. Add amenities or furnishing that guests might need

Recently we have experiencing longer term stays and even Chesky, Airbnb CEO, is also betting on the mid-term stay reservations going forward even post-Covid. These guests will tend to spend the most of their time in your home working or distancing themselves from others or obeying stay-at-home order. Summer is approaching, as it's getting hotter and hotter, if you don't have an AC, considering adding that. We also make sure our units have working space like a work desk and comfy chairs. Your guests will also stay at home and tend to cook at home more than the typical tourist before that just sleeps at night and goes out and about during the day exploring the city. Pay attention to what you might need in the kitchen. Amenities that accommodate longer trips: KitchenWifiWasherEssentials (toilet paper, soap, towels, bed linens, and pillows)Work space (bonus if you provide a printer)Suitable for childrenAC/heating See More: Amenities Checklist for Superhosts

Airbnb kitchen checklist

9. Local vendors you can trust

We are talking about maintenance need here. You will want to have a list of local vendors (ex: plumber, electrician, handyman...) that you can call and get them to come out right away when you need them. NextDoor is a good source to find local handyman. You can also search on Yelp, Angie's list, HomeAdvisor, Craigslist, Facebook Marketplace or local Facebook groups. Backup cleaning servicesPlumberHandymanElectricianHVAC repair servicesLandscaping servicesPool cleaning service (if applicable)Pest control

10. Devices to help you manage airbnb remotely

Consider sensors or digital tools that can help you manage your unit remotely. We use leak sensors next to the washer and under the kitchen sink and bathroom sink to detect leak. When it detects water, it will sound a very loud alarm as well as send you a message on your phone or via email. When choosing appliances, if the owner's budget allows, we recommend smart appliances that can connect via wifi and be managed from far away. In one unit, we use LG washer that can connect to wifi and send us an alert if there is any issue or if tub clean cycle needs to be ran. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vs1aNspxHIk&feature=youtu.be Smart plug - control any appliances like window AC, lights, etc.Security cameraDoorbell with cameraNoiseAware or Party Squasher will send you instant alerts if things get too rowdy. Measure noise level in your unit and alert you if the your guest is too loud (or there might be a party going on).Smart thermostat - save money by conserving energy. Also after your guests checkout, instead of worrying whether or not the AC is still running, you can check on your phone and turn it off if needed.Smart light - simulate someone being home when the unit is vacant.Flood sensor

11. Bonus Tip: Add these efforts to your marketing mix

All the things you're doing here to manage airbnb remotely are great, make sure your guests know that! Tell guests about your enhanced cleaning procedure Guests will want to know about all of the additional steps you’re taking to reduce the spread of infection. So it’s a good idea to mention your enhanced cleaning routine in your listing description. If you do, please be careful about the words you choose—while it’s okay to say that you’re taking extra care to disinfect your space due to COVID-19 base on CDC's guideline but you can’t make unsubstantiated claims, such as calling your space “COVID-free.” See More: Marketing guide to boost your listing.

Testing for optimal messaging Consumer's needs have changed during this time. Recently, for example, searches for longer stays nearby have more than doubled worldwide. And in the U.S., bookings for four to six weeks have increased 30% since last week. We've noticed that some people need a little more room, and many are searching for spaces where they can be alone or with family. Adapting your messaging to their needs and don't be afraid to test out different ideas with the goal to manage airbnb remotely.

Conclusion

It might seem like a lot of work up-front but once you set this up, it will be less management time on your part. Your airbnb business will run smoothly, your guests are happy and you can get some spare time back. We hope you found useful tips in this guide on how to manage airbnb remotely during coronavirus pandemic. Where do you think the STR market will go from here in a post-Covid world? Join the Airbnb community using this link and get $40 credit your first booking! These problems with airbnb worn you down? Why Not Listing Your Properties with HI LIVING Hospitality and let us do all the work for you? Check out our service: https://hilivingbnb.com/services/ We may earn compensation through affiliate links in this story while you manage airbnb remotely. This content is based on publicly available information from the CDC. The CDC does not endorse this content or HI LIVING. HI LIVING makes no representations or warranties of any kind, express or implied, about the completeness, accuracy, reliability, suitability, or availability with respect to this content provided for any purpose. Any reliance you place on such information is therefore strictly at your own risk. Read the full article

#Cleaningproducts #Coronavirusairbnb #manageairbnbremotely #Smartlocks

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johnysins4-blog · 5 years ago

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Get to know all the possible reasons of seepage. Interact with Plumbers in Hawaii to resolve seepage issue efficiently. Have a look at some of the exemplary services extended by Plumbers in Hawaii Some of the common issues faced are: - Emergency Sewer Clogs - Leaking Pipes/Faucets - Slow Drains - Sewer Pipe Bursting So, contact straightaway with plumbers of Hawaii to fix seepage issues effectively.

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sciencespies · 5 years ago

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When a Quake Shook Alaska, a Radio Reporter Led the Public Through the Devastating Crisis

https://sciencespies.com/history/when-a-quake-shook-alaska-a-radio-reporter-led-the-public-through-the-devastating-crisis/

When a Quake Shook Alaska, a Radio Reporter Led the Public Through the Devastating Crisis

“This is Genie Chance, reporting from inside the Public Safety Building,” she began from her new post at the Anchorage, Alaska, police station. The scuttle and din of everyone working around her bled into her microphone as she spoke.

It was about 8:30 pm, on Good Friday, March 27, 1964. Three hours earlier, just before sundown, the most powerful earthquake ever measured in North America struck Alaska; the epicenter was 75 miles east of Anchorage. In those days, the state of Alaska was still brand-new and often disregarded as a kind of free-floating addendum to the rest of America. But Anchorage was Alaska’s biggest and proudest city, a modern-day frontier town that imagined it was a metropolis, straining to make itself real.

Genie Chance was a working mother and part time radio reporter at local radio station KENI who’d hustled to the police station within minutes of the quake to gather information to report. Now, with everyone scrambling, Anchorage’s police chief had effectively made her the city’s public information officer: It would be up to her to decide whether to put the information and requests people passed to her over the air.

Anchorage’s city manager swept through, ordering Genie to put out a call for diesel fuel. A public health official stood over her shoulder while she repeated his instructions for purifying snow for drinking water. A police lieutenant requested that an electrician hurry to Presbyterian Hospital. While Genie made one announcement, others zipped onto the counter in front of her. “Providence Hospital needs six cases of six-inch plaster of Paris,” she said. “All electricians and plumbers at Fort Richardson, please go to Building 700 immediately.”

It was stressful; the responsibility was daunting. The highways out of Anchorage appeared to be impassable. The airport and railways were closed. Genie understood that everyone would be trapped together inside this crippled city for the foreseeable future—in the snow, in the dark, with no electricity, in below-freezing temperatures. Under those circumstances, she felt, “mass hysteria would have meant total destruction.�� She continued to worry about the possibility, even the inevitability, of such a breakdown of civil society, and felt it was her responsibility to stave off that mayhem.

She found herself scrutinizing each new bit of information that reached her: Was it knowledge the public could handle, or would it generate panic? And how much could she withhold before listeners turned suspicious and stopped trusting her? It also seemed possible that the accuracy of any given piece of information could have slipped, as messages made their way from the far corners of Anchorage into the building like so many games of telephone. Lots of people bringing Genie messages were volunteers, after all— ordinary citizens, many of whom seemed no more qualified to handle such a crisis than Genie was—and everyone was working so quickly that much of the knowledge circulating was imperfect or incomplete.

Earlier, for example, the city attorney informed Genie that the municipal court building could be opened up as a shelter for those who’d evacuated their homes, but also asked her who was in charge of inspecting the structure to ensure it was safe. Genie had no idea. It was unsettling, in retrospect, that Anchorage’s city attorney was asking her.

She wondered how she had wound up in this role. Shouldn’t authority figures, like the police chief and the city manager, be talking over the radio themselves? She suspected the public might trust those men’s voices more than hers. The previous June, Genie had covered the crash of a Northwest Orient Airlines flight chartered by the military to transport nearly a hundred soldiers and their family members from Washington State to Anchorage. The plane had gone down in the ocean, killing everyone aboard. Genie had reported on the search effort tirelessly for three days. But when a correspondent for NBC’s national newscast called her station from New York, looking to air its coverage of the crash, he asked the station to send a male reporter to redo all of Genie’s interviews. It felt too unorthodox, or unserious, for a woman’s voice to inform the American people of a tragedy. Only after the correspondent took it up with his bosses did he agree to put Genie on the air.

Yet here she was in the middle of a disaster—without any instructions or guidelines. People kept coming into the building and hurrying straight to Genie’s counter, entrusting her with the starkest damage reports and updates. “I don’t know why,” she later explained; merely standing behind a microphone seemed to give her a sufficient air of authority. As the night wore on and information kept raining in sideways, everyone seemed to move around the building so quickly, “with this brilliant, tense look in their eyes,” Genie said—“everybody doing a job.” Then, around 9:30 p.m., a sturdy-looking, middle-aged man in the uniform of a high-ranking military officer walked calmly out of that feverish blur of bodies and beamed a small, confident smile in Genie’s direction. He sat down beside her and watched patiently as she stood talking, waiting his turn.

The man seemed to occupy a different atmosphere than everyone else in the lobby, to have coasted toward her in a small depressurized pocket of his own. Genie knew many of the commanding officers at the two military bases outside Anchorage, yet this officer at the Public Safety Building was unfamiliar to Genie. Finally, when she could spare a second, she turned and asked him, “Who are you?”

“I’m Carroll,” he said.

Major General Thomas P. Carroll was adjutant general of Alaska’s National Guard. He happened to be overseeing a training encampment north of Anchorage that week and had immediately ordered his soldiers onto trucks and led them into town. “I have 150 men here,” he told Genie. They were waiting outside, ready to pitch in.

The military had been working with the city since earlier that evening, deploying drivers and vehicles and tanks of potable water— whatever resources it could. Still, something about Carroll’s appearance at the Public Safety Building felt viscerally reassuring for Genie, and seemed to generate the first surge of genuine relief she’d experienced since learning that her two younger children unharmed at home. Carroll just projected competence. (The man had once single- handedly gunned down 18 ambushing Nazis at once; he was prepared to tackle this mess, too.)

Carroll told Genie he needed her help as well. He was looking for a way to reach Juneau, the state capital. Lines of communication were still scarce, and Carroll wanted official permission from the governor to keep his guardsmen on duty. Genie told him to go out to the parking lot and find a ham radio operator named Walt Sauerbier.

Among the many citizens of Anchorage who’d leapt into action that evening was a small legion of amateur ham radio operators. Anchorage was said to have more hams per capita than any other state at the time; it was an amusing hobby to get people through the winter, and an easy way for Alaskans to stay in touch with family. A number of hams in the city had previously organized themselves into a preparedness group and practiced emergency communications during nuclear war simulations. After the quake, many flocked to the parking lot of the Public Safety Building or took up posts at other critical locations around Anchorage, hunkering in their radio-equipped cars to function as a kind of substitute telephone service.

The man Genie had hooked up with, Walt Sauerbier, had been among the first to show up. He was a 61-year-old mechanic who’d been driving around, idly chatting on his mobile unit with someone in Hawaii, when the quake struck. He would work at the Public Safety Building, sending and receiving messages, for 16 straight hours.

Carroll went outside to find Sauerbier and returned to Genie’s police counter a few minutes later. He told Genie he’d reached the governor’s office, and everything was squared away: Carroll’s National Guardsmen were now officially at Anchorage’s disposal. Genie reported this news over KENI, then pulled Carroll in for an interview on the air.

“You got here so quickly!” she began. “You got your group right in the spirit and you arrived at the Public Safety Building in such short order.”

Well, Carroll explained, it was lucky that the earthquake struck during the Guard’s annual two- week training at Camp Denali. “This is the one time of year when all of the guardsmen, from approximately 75 villages and cities in Alaska, are here in Anchorage,” he said. Many of Carroll’s men were Alaska Natives from remote villages around the state: so-called Eskimo Scouts, drawn from the Aleut, Athabascan, Inupiat, Tlingit, and other ethnic groups that had been disproportionately represented in Alaska’s National Guard since World War II, when the military armed and organized Native men to protect the territory’s coastlines from a potential Japanese invasion. “This was our last day of camp,” Carroll said. “We were all starting for home at midnight tonight— though those plans have been canceled.”

Carroll appeared impervious to the ruthless disorder that had swallowed Anchorage. Four weeks later, however, that randomness would rear up again and claim him: Carroll would plummet into Prince William Sound aboard a C-123 twin-engine cargo plane after taking off from the town of Valdez. He had just dropped off the governor to examine the earthquake and tsunami damage there. All four people on board were killed.

***

The military was projecting that a tsunami might shoot up Cook Inlet and strike the city of Anchorage. Tidal waves had already thrashed the towns of Valdez, Seward and Kodiak, and the villages of Kaguyak, Old Harbor and Chenega, and would continue radiating outward from Alaska all night, barging down the coast. The water shattered a small town in British Columbia, wiped out a bridge in Washington State, and carried houses away in Oregon, as well as drowning four children who’d been camping on a beach there with their parents. The town of Crescent City, California, at the Oregon border, sustained a direct hit: a series of four waves, escalating into a monstrous wall of water, which leveled the downtown and killed 11 people. The wave action in the Pacific would still be ferocious enough, as it traveled south, to sink boats in a marina near San Francisco and damage a dock in Los Angeles—until, finally, 22-and-a-half hours later, the last of its energy petered out in a few four-foot-high swells slapping the banks of western Antarctica at the bottom of the world.

Genie first broadcast a tsunami alert for Anchorage an hour earlier and, since then, two fire trucks had been patrolling the city’s coastal neighborhoods, blasting orders to evacuate. Now a police dispatcher pressed Genie to warn Anchorage again; another radio station, he explained, had been mistakenly announcing that the danger had passed. Genie leaned into her microphone. “Please,” she warned, “any of you in the lowland areas, get out of the lowland areas and head for the hills! Please, don’t be overconfident!” There was pleading in her voice, as though, if she said it forcefully enough, it might repel that other, incorrect information off the airwaves.

Other times, when the station’s broadcasters clicked over to her for an update, she tried to smooth the frantic churn of announcements into something more conversational, interviewing more people who, like Major General Carroll, passed by her post in the building.

Each stunned, eyewitness account on the radio that night appeared to help people in Anchorage find the contours of this sinister abstraction they were living through— and to locate their places in it. For nearly five minutes, the earthquake had overpowered everyone. But now so many stories described people switching back on and spontaneously helping one another— reclaiming their roles, collectively, as protagonists in the disaster. “Anchorage has sustained a large amount of damage,” Genie would eventually tell her listeners, “and it’s been a shattering blow to a very proud people. However, many of us have enjoyed— actually, taken a great deal of pride in— seeing the way the people of Anchorage can rise to the occasion.”

Excerpt from This is Chance! by Jon Mooallem, copyright (c) 2020 by Jon Mooallem. Used with permission of Random House, an imprint and division of Penguin Random House, LLC. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.

#History

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jackmarkes34-blog · 5 years ago

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smartplumbinghawaii · 1 year ago

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SINKS AND FAUCETS, SHOWERS AND TUBS, TOILETS AND URINALS

Sinks and Faucets, Showers and Tubs, Toilets, and Urinals are essential elements of any bathroom or kitchen settings. These words are fundamental to the plumbing industry and are widely searched by people when looking to buy or remodel their homes or commercial spaces. In this article, we will discuss the significance of these keywords and how they relate to the plumbing services.

Sinks and Faucets:

Sinks and Faucets are highly searched keywords in the plumbing industry. People often search for the best quality, design, and material of sinks and faucets while renovating or building their homes or commercial spaces. The sink and faucet combination plays a significant role in enhancing the look and feel of the bathroom or kitchen space. The latest trends include integrating smart technology in faucets to control the flow rate, temperature, and lighting. Choosing the right sink and faucet requires considering several factors such as size, material, style, and water efficiency.

Showers and Tubs:

Showers and Tubs are vital keywords in the plumbing industry. People often search for versatile and stylish options when it comes to showers and tubs. These fixtures are essential as they impact the overall user experience of the bathroom. The use of smart technology in showers and tubs is becoming increasingly popular. People are looking for showers and tubs that can adjust the temperature, flow rate, and lighting. The latest trend is using materials that can regulate the water temperature, such as smart tiles in showers and tubs. Choosing the right shower or tub requires considering several factors such as size, material, and style and keeping in mind water efficiency.

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prosperopedia · 6 years ago

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Pros and Cons of Using a Property Manager for Nightly Rentals

Over the past few months, I have been wading into real estate investing by purchasing a couple of nightly rental condos in the Saint George, Utah area. Because this is my first experience with nightly rentals, and due to the fact that I already have more things on my schedule than I currently have time for, I decided to enlist the help of a property manager to handle all the details of renting out the two condos I’m using as an introduction to nightly rental investing.

I’m going to share with you what I consider to be the pros and cons of using a property manager based upon my experience so far.

Robbins Nest Retreats Nightly Rentals in Saint George, Utah

Firsts, some background on what led to my choosing to get involved in nightly rental investment properties…

At the recommendation of my accountant, and because I feel like there is a lot of wealth to be built in real estate, and that I’ve put it off too long already, my wife and I decided to start shopping for an investment property last year. As luck would have it, there is a popular tourist area in southern Utah about three and a half hours from where we live. The hub of all of the tourist activity is Saint George, Utah, which is a natural getaway destination for people seeking refuge from the cold of northern Utah (an area that is also growing quickly, meaning more people looking to get out of the cold and snow for a large part of the year), and which is surrounded by state and national parks, including (most famously) Zion National Park.

Based on that set of conditions, we started looking last year for a condo or townhome to purchase in the Saint George area. In the process of searching, we had questions about property management for the realtors who were selling agents for the condos we looked at. One of them recommended the property manager we use now: Red Sands Vacations. After a quick couple of phone interviews with the owner of the company, I decided to commit to using them to manage my first property, even though I hadn’t even picked it out at that time. As it turns out, I have also relied upon them for help not only managing my first property, a condo in the Las Palmas Resort community, situated in a prime location on the west side of Saint George, but also for locating another opportunity for a nightly rental investment property in another area should I expect to do well for me.

Overall, I’ve been happy with the management style and the useful information provided to me by my property manager. However, as I’ve gained more experience with renting my property, I’ve come realize that not everything is perfect, and that a property manager represents the interests of many clients, which means that their focus on one particular property can become watered down.

With that context, I will explain the pros and cons I’ve experienced with using a property manager to take care of a nightly rental investment.

Pros of Using a Property Manager for Nightly Rentals

As a new investor in nightly rental properties, there were more things I didn’t know than what I did. I knew that you could list your property on websites like VRBO and AirBNB, and that those marketplaces made renters accessible. In fact, before I bought my first rental property several months ago, I started working through the process of adding my home address to VRBO.com just to see how the process worked and to get a feel for what people might look for when they are searching for a rental.

As I walked through the VRBO listing process, it occurred to me that with my current schedule, there was no way I could keep up with a new “business” that was obviously more complicated than what I anticipated when I first began thinking about whether I should manage my properties myself (or hire someone who would work on my behalf) or to outsource all of that to a property management company.

Most real estate investors who are in the dabbling or moonlighting phase like I am simply don’t want to take on the roles, responsibilities, and headaches associated with managing their own properties.

This is a list of the benefits I’ve seen from using my property management company.

Understanding of and Experience with the Entire Rental Experience

As I mentioned before, the owner of the company that manages the condo I recently bought actually went with me prior to the purchase being completed. I asked him to join me on a tour of the home to get some validation about the price I was paying for the property and the potential it had for attracting rental income. His reassurance about the location, the layout of the condo, and other aspects of the home allowed me to feel a lot of confidence in my decision to purchase the property in the first place. Not all property managers are willing to put in that kind of work up front, but those who are open to it are likely the best candidates for managing your property.

As we walked through this condo that I was soon to be the owner of, my property manager friend explained how to lighten up the bedrooms (they were built with only one or two poorly placed lights in them, which made them unpleasantly dark when the curtains and shades were not open) with brighter LED lights and lighter colored bedspreads. He strategized with me about the most practical ways to update the property to make it more attractive to potential renters, including everything from adding brighter colored pillows to the couches in the living room to rearranging the rooms and adding bunkbeds to increase the number of occupants for the rental, purchasing a quality blow up mattress for extra visitors, and adding a Nintendo Switch and a pack and play crib for babies that would be appealing to the many families we’d expect to stay there. We also talked about lower priority, higher cost fixes that would be ideal for the future, after some cash flow had come in from the property.

After the property was purchased, I’ve continued to receive feedback on adjustments to the property that make renting it a better experience for my growing clientele.

That entire experience was reassuring, and kept me from second guessing and experiencing the analysis paralysis that tends to prevent business owners from making progress because of uncertainty.

Access to an Established Rental Pool

Another advantage I can see with using a property manager is that they have an established pool of renters who they can draw from to steer income to your property. In situations where rental properties lack some of the elements that attract a steady stream of renters (whether it be because of location or something about the property itself), it is helpful to be able to coordinate with a property manager who can help with marketing, promotions, and other ways of attracting occupants among its own pool of loyal clients.

For properties that are in high demand because of features of the home, location, or for other reasons, this perk associated with having a property manager is not so critical. In fact, for those types of properties, there may be downsides of using a property manager, which I’ll discuss in my cons section.

Not Having to Deal with Tenants

One of the headaches I wanted to avoid with nightly rentals involved fielding questions and solving problems for tenants. In the past, I’ve had long-term renters in the home that I kept after we moved out of it into a new home. It seems like renters know exactly when is the worst time to contact you with small issues that they’ve figured out how to make into big problems. For instance, while I was on vacation in Hawaii several years ago, I had a renter call me and tell me that he couldn’t get the hot water heater to work, which was an emergency for him. It turns out he had left the garage door open (where the hot water heaters were stored), and a strong wind had blown out the pilot light. Fortunately for me, I had neighbors who were nice enough and knowledgeable enough to take care of the problem for me, as the renter had no intention of trying to solve it himself. This situation, and many others like it during the three years I rented out that home before I sold it, cured me of wanting to have my days interrupted by having to respond to service requests from people who can be highly innovative about not using things the right way and who lack simple intuition.

As I’ve interacted with my property manager’s team of customer service people, I’ve been a little surprised at some of the requests they have responded to, and I’m glad that they have protocols and methods in place for putting out all the small fires that happen when new people temporarily live in a home they are not familiar with.

This point is a pro for property management that is not just for new nightly rental owners, but even for those who have been doing it for a long time and simply don’t want to deal with the problems that come up with renters’ needs.

Connections with Local Contractors and Service Providers

I have found that my property manager has already sifted through plumbers, electricians, repair guys, and others who might be needed to service a nightly rental. Because of their relationships with these people, they have the clout to move to the front of the line in situations where a quick response is needed. This is an invaluable asset brought to the relationship by a property manager. The fact that they provide a lot of business to these contractors allows the property manager to expect a higher level of service than someone who calls a contractor for a one-time job or on a much less regular basis than a property manager that uses them for dozens of nightly rentals.

Cons of Using a Property Manager for Nightly Rentals

I’ve reviewed several of the positive aspects of using a property manager to handle management of nightly rentals. Now I’ll talk about some of the reasons you might choose to not use a property manager.

Several months ago while I was in an airport, I met a couple who had a property rental near Yellowstone Park in Montana. I told the wife about my plans to buy a condo and hire a property manager. Her response surprised me. She told me that they had used a property manager for a time to manage their Yellowstone rental, and that they found out the property manager was siphoning off clients and sending them to other competitor rentals. This woman’s strong advice was to not use a property manager. Of course, she and her husband were older, they were retired, and their kids were all grown up and out of the house. In that scenario, they had the time (and the desire apparently) to manage the rental themselves.

Here are some reasons why you would decide not to use a property manager for your nightly rentals.

Cost: Normally 30% of Rental Revenues

Property managers don’t work for nothing. In fact, the commissions they take on rental revenues (the typical payment structure) is normally 30%. Some property managers will take less that this amount in situations where the property owner takes on more of their workload, or if the property doesn’t require much or any marketing to keep it at full occupancy.

The majority of nightly rental real estate investors finance their properties, even up to 100%. [There are lots of books, podcasts, and webinars that describe this approach to building wealth through real estate investment. I don’t recommend it.] The worst case scenario for a real estate investor should be to at least break even on property rentals, with the expectation that the mortgage will be paid off in 15 to 30 years while not having to dip into other cash resources each month to make ends meet on a nightly rental unit.

If your property is financed, and the 30% commission taken by a property manager puts you in the red, it’s possible that you simply cannot afford to hire a property manager. It’s as simple as that.

In other situations where very little of the rental property is financed or the investment has been paid for in cash, there is more flexibility for paying the commission fees charged by a property manager. Still, in this case it’s important to consider whether you’re getting what you’re paying for. If the property is not being rented out very consistently, it may be time to fire the property manager and hire another one or simply do the marketing yourself. Even if a nightly rental is paid for in cash, there are maintenance, HOA, and tax expenses that make it so that the minimum revenue you need to break even is still significantly higher than $0.

Diversion of Attention from Your Specific Rental Business and Brand

My family stayed at our rental condo last weekend so that my wife (who was seeing the property for the first time; apparently she trusts my investment decision-making capabilities) and kids could have a chance to enjoy the property, and so that we could get a feel for how things worked from the “renter” side.

As we toured our property, we couldn’t help but notice that all of the signs were branded with Red Sands Vacations. It was clear that our property manager is using our condo to promote their brand, which includes selling them (their website and phone number are listed on each of the posted notes) nightly rentals that compete with ours. It occurred to me as I looked at how they had staged our condo that it didn’t make much difference to them ultimately whether someone rented our condo, the Robbins Nest Retreat at Las Palmas, providing income to us personally, or whether they chose another one of the Red Sands Vacations listings. In fact, I could see that it would benefit them more if someone chose a more expensive property than ours, since the commission was higher. I’d hope that in their individual dealings with people whose visit to our property, our property manager helps us retain the clientele we’ve attracted, but it’s hard to be sure.

When considering whether to use a property manager for your nightly rentals, be sure to keep in mind that it’s very likely that they will be looking at your property as one among many others that comprise their product offering. Their loyalty to your property can only go so far. There’s also a high potential, as demonstrated in the story I described, that the ebb and flow of rentals through their community takes away more rentals and revenue from your property than it contributes.

One of the things I’ve noticed with our property manager is that it can take two or three times following up on an issue before receiving a response, and that there are things that they’ve agreed to do that take longer than the expectation they gave. That’s a sign of their attention being watered down a bit. The back and forth of having to follow up often makes it feel like I have to spend time managing my property management company, and it creates overhead for me personally.

Loss of Control of Your Brand and Attention to Details

When I signed the contract with my property manager and went through the onboarding for new clients, I was careful to sit down with my family and come up with branding that we will use for this property and others we’ll purchase in the future. We decided to designate our rental brand “Robbins Nest Retreats”, and this specific one we called “Robbins Nest Retreat at Las Palmas”.

Soon after everything was set up with my new property manager, I was eager to see our listing on their website. I was surprised to see it listed as “Robbin’s Nest Retreat”. For some reason, whoever added the listing (one of too many people who don’t pay enough attention to things that matter), decided to put an apostrophe in our last name. I had to follow up and ask them to correct the name on their website and other online listings they manage.

Later, when we arrived to stay at our condo, I noticed that the property manager had made a sign that said, “Robbin’s Inn”. Close, but not really!

I was disappointed that whoever was managing our listings and branding was being sloppy and not paying attention to our branding, which turns out to be kind of important in situations where you’re trying to build a brand.

When you hire a property manager, it’s almost certain that they will not have the regard for brand integrity and other important details that you would likely have if you did the management yourself.

Potentially Inferior Marketing

I’ve been fairly happy with the occupancy I’ve had so far on my property, but I’m not super impressed. The month of March, the property’s first month in the rental pool, is one of the busier times of the year. While the weekends (Friday through Sunday) in March were consistently full, none of the other days of the week were. I had hoped for a better start.

As I’ve audited the listings my property manager put on VRBO and AirBNB, I can see that there are some good things along with some not good things. Our listing on VRBO doesn’t even include the word “Las Palmas”, a name that is well-known among people looking to rent in that area of Saint George. I’m sure that we’re missing out on people searching for rentals in Las Palmas. Based on that oversight (in almost every search engine, titles are the number one factor associated with ranking a listing), I can only conclude that there are other under-optimized aspects of my property’s listings on VRBO and AirBNB and wherever else my property is supposed to be advertised as part of my contract with the property manager.

As a marketer myself, I have a specific strategy that I’ll be executing over the next several months and years to increase the occupancy. I’m going to claim the listing and use local SEO citations on Yelp and other local business directories to stand out from other listings by ranking in Google directly. However, most nightly rental real estate investors don’t have that kind of experience and background (they really should if they want the highest return on their investments), which leaves them at the mercy of the property manager’s marketing skill set or lack of it.

When Does it Make Sense to Do Your Own Property Management?

Using a property management company makes the most sense among new property owners whose nightly properties are not so leveraged that it’s impossible to break even after paying the property management company fee. As mentioned before, even for experienced, veteran rental owners, it often makes sense to continue to use a property management company.

Here are some example scenarios I believe are most appropriate for rental owners to do their own property management:

When the total revenue from your property is not suited for (even with expertise marketing from a solid property manager) bringing in sufficient rental revenue to cover mortgage payments, property taxes, maintenance, property management fees (usually 30%, but potentially negotiable in this situation), and other costs, and still break even. The property management fee represents a big enough cut into the pie in this situation that it may be best for an owner to take on that responsibility. With some creativity, a property owner in this situation can often find a way to efficiently hire out some aspects of the management that make sense.

When a property owner has enough rental units in a particular area (or, in some cases, even spread out geographically), economies of scale make it so that his own internal property management company can be created specifically to manage his properties. This would make it so that the profits experienced by an external property management company would be brought internally to contribute more to the investor’s bottom line. I’d guess that down the road, as I pick up three, four, or more rental properties in Saint George or in any other geographical area, or if I have enough geographically spread out rental units to take advantage of a single marketing team and customer service department, I’ll certainly evaluate the situation and ultimately take over property management.

Conclusion

I hope you’ve been able to benefit from my own experience with determining whether to use a property manager for my nightly rentals.

If you have experiences on either side of this pros and cons list, feel free to share your own advice.

Happy nightly rental investing!

The post Pros and Cons of Using a Property Manager for Nightly Rentals appeared first on The Handbook for Happiness, and Success, and Prosperity Prosperopedia.

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#Prosperity #Wealth #Riches

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pineappleplumbing-blog · 6 years ago

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witurver91iv · 6 years ago

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newstfionline · 6 years ago

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Hawaii’s Volcano Country, Where Land Is Cheap and the Living Is Risky

By Simon Romero, NY Times, May 25, 2018

PAHOA, Hawaii--Jaris Dreaming built his spacious solar-powered home in a clearing of Polynesian jungle. He drinks rainwater caught from the sky and eats avocados from trees in his backyard. Mainlanders express envy when they hear how he bought nearly 100 acres of Hawaii’s Big Island for just over $100,000.

But there’s a catch to this off-grid paradise: Mr. Dreaming lives a short stroll from a lava-spewing rift of Kilauea, one of the world’s most active volcanoes.

The growing ferocity this month of Kilauea’s eruptions, which are burying home after home under rivers of molten rock, has provoked questions about how thousands of families managed to put down stakes in such a disaster-prone domain in the first place.

Puna, the magnificently forested region of the Big Island where some of Kilauea’s most intense eruptions are taking place, ranks among the most remote corners of the United States, luring real estate developers, renegades and modern-day homesteaders with colossal appetites for risk. Since the 1970s, when Vietnam veterans and other wanderers began settling here, Puna has emerged as a place where people could drop out, reinvent themselves, maybe grow a bit of pakalolo--as cannabis is called in Hawaii.

“We have a reputation for being something of a pirate’s lair,” said Mr. Dreaming, 64, a musician and contractor who was raised in New Jersey with the name John Fattorosi. “But we really just want to live freely in a place of stunning beauty without anyone telling us what to do.”

While rattling people here who generally want little to do with mainstream culture, the destruction unleashed by Kilauea is also exposing fault lines in Hawaiian society, focusing scrutiny on the state’s severe housing shortage and the questionable land use regulations that governed the development of one of the Aloha State’s last bastions of affordable property.

Real estate speculators set their sights on the Big Island almost immediately after Hawaii became the 50th state admitted to the Union in 1959. By 1960, a developer had carved the area encompassing Leilani Estates, the now evacuated rural outpost overrun by lava flows in some areas, into more than 2,000 housing lots.

The land developers minimized any volcanic risks, and were not without support: Dr. Gordon MacDonald, a prominent volcanologist at the University of Hawaii, bolstered the launch of Leilani Estates by claiming that there was little risk to the development from a volcanic eruption--even though lava flows had just destroyed the nearby town of Kapoho.

In a column on the area’s history for the news website Honolulu Civil Beat, Alan D. McNarie said the risks since then have only become more apparent. “The odds may be considerably worse than Dr. MacDonald predicted back in 1960,” Mr. McNarie said. Citing figures from the United States Geological Survey, he noted that about 40 square miles of the island were buried in fresh lava between 1983 and 2003 alone.

For many of those who continued to buy homes, the lure continued to be cheap housing in a tropical wonderland.

Hawaii has what may be the highest statewide home prices in the United States, with the median home value in the state at about $605,000, according to the housing website Zillow. And while the unemployment rate is low at around 2 percent, that figure obscures other problems. Hawaii had the highest cost of living of any state in 2017, according to the Center for Regional Economic Competitiveness, driven largely by housing prices. Zoning restrictions in parts of the archipelago and the use of private residences as vacation rentals constrict available affordable housing even further.

The result: Even though Hawaii’s economy seems to be strong, wage increases have trailed the climb in home prices, fueling an exodus of people from the state. For some who don’t want to leave, or for mainlanders seeking to move to Hawaii, the far-flung areas of the Big Island hold allure.

“We’re 40,000 housing units from anywhere near adequate to easing the need for places for people to live in Hawaii,” said Carl Bonham, an economist at the University of Hawaii. “That’s why Puna is an option no matter its remoteness or risks.”

Many homes in Puna are not built to code, or are built in zones where lava flows have already wiped out previous developments, which some residents attribute to the frontier mind-set here. Others, however, contend that public officials have not enforced existing regulations as strictly as they could have.

Many of the subdivisions in Puna were created in the 1960s before the first lava hazard maps, drawn in the mid-1970s, said Daryn Arai, deputy planning director for the County of Hawaii.

“If we knew back then what we know now, things would probably be different,” Mr. Arai said. But he added that the county currently has no regulations that apply directly to lava flow hazard zones, aside from building codes that establish wind and seismic safety standards. Those generally apply, however, to how a house is constructed, not where it is built.

Meanwhile, many homeowners are scrambling as the lava flows advance.

“I scoured Hawaii on different trips to find the most affordable place to settle,” said Amber Sengir, 60, a computer chip designer who moved here last August from Portland, Ore. She said she bought her home in cash for $240,000--much less than the median price of $760,000 for a home in Oahu.

Now, Ms. Sengir said, she is desperately trying to save some possessions in case the lava flows overrun her home, which is uninsured for such an event. Still, Ms. Sengir took a more conventional route to living in Leilani than some of her neighbors.

Howie “Sunray” Rosin, a Brooklyn-born plumber, moved to the Big Island in 1997, but only recently was able to afford to move to Leilani when the owner of a home nearing foreclosure allowed him to live on the property in exchange for paying property taxes of about $2,000 a year.

“I got incredibly lucky,” said Mr. Rosin, 48, while guiding visitors around the dilapidated villa where he now lives. “This place is wilder than you can imagine,” Mr. Rosin, also a musician and Navy veteran, added. “Many people are willing to risk living next to a volcano because the living is cheap.”

When developers were carving up Puna back in the 1960s and 70s, many investors on the mainland bought lots in the lava lands sight unseen. In some cases, public officials leveraged their power into cobbling together real estate deals on the Big Island from which they could benefit.

At the time, basic infrastructure--things like paved roads, sewage systems, running water and electricity--was lacking. Subdivisions such as Leilani now have some of those services, but many residents still rely on rain catchment tanks for water. Just a few miles away, many homeowners live entirely off the grid, on even cheaper land parcels.

In some parts of Puna, newcomers are building nearly directly on fields of hardened lava from eruptions that destroyed other communities. For instance, an eruption of Kilauea in 1990 destroyed about 100 homes in the community of Kalapana. Less than 30 years later, dozens of homes now stand atop the flow field that swallowed Kalapana. The homes, some built without heed to code, lack ties to the electricity grid and sewage systems. Residents collect water in catchment tanks.

Often, banks won’t issue a traditional mortgage on such properties, but those determined to come here have found other ways to finance their ventures.

“On some days we can hear the roaring of the eruptions in Puna, like a jet engine taking off,” said Rainbow Foster, 33, who bought a home and a patch of land on the lava field with her husband three years ago for $55,000 in an owner-financed deal.

“Our credit rating wasn’t good and we had very little money,” said Ms. Foster, who is self-employed, as is her husband, Tony, 44. They get by doing odd jobs and selling tie-dyed T-shirts, but cherish the sense of freedom they have in Puna to raise their two children. Some of their neighbors have evacuated, but Ms. Foster said that isn’t an option for their family.

“This is the life we chose,” said Ms. Foster, who grew up in Puna. “We’re hanging tight.”

#Hawaii #Kilauea volcano #Puna #volcano real estate

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cleopatrarps · 7 years ago

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Toxic gases add to hazards near Hawaii

PAHOA, Hawaii (Reuters) – Toxic gas emanating from steaming gashes on the flank of Hawaii’s erupting Kilauea volcano on Tuesday added to the danger facing residents, whose escape routes are threatened with closure because of lava flows, officials said.

Lava erupts from a fissure on the outskirts of Pahoa during ongoing eruptions of the Kilauea Volcano in Hawaii, U.S., May 14, 2018. REUTERS/Terray Sylvester

Dangerous levels of sulfur dioxide gas and other emissions prompted state health officials to urge residents to stay indoors or leave the eastern end of Hawaii’s Big Island, which has been ravaged by volcanic activity since May 3.

A 20th fissure releasing lava and gases has opened on Kilauea’s side, state officials said on Tuesday.

Lava oozing out of fissures have hit the island’s lower Puna area especially hard, tearing through farmland some 25 miles (40 km) east of the volcano’s smoking summit, destroying 37 homes and other structures and posing a risk of blocking one of the last exit routes, state Highway 132.

No deaths or major injuries have been reported, but officials have ordered about 2,000 residents to evacuate the area.

Near-constant small earthquakes and gas emissions have not driven all area residents away.

Mark Clawson, a 64-year-old semi-retired plumber, said he was not ready to leave his spacious Upper Kapoho hilltop home, where he has lived for 15 years.

Smoke and lava erupt from a fissure near a home on the outskirts of Pahoa during ongoing eruptions of the Kilauea Volcano in Hawaii, U.S., May 14, 2018. REUTERS/Terray Sylvester TPX IMAGES OF THE DAY

“It’s a lot more fun today than it was yesterday,” he said Monday. “Yesterday it was just too unnerving.”

Lava from one of the fissures has been moving toward a coastal dirt road that is also a key access route for some 2,000 residents in the southeastern area of the Big Island, home to around 200,000 people.

Mass evacuations would be triggered if either highway is hit by lava, Hawaii National Guard spokesman Major Jeff Hickman said.

President Donald Trump on Friday approved a disaster declaration that makes federal relief available to the state.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency, which has a team in place on the Big Island, said it would assist the state with at least 75 percent of emergency measures and replacing damaged infrastructure.

The U.S. Geological Survey has warned that pent-up steam could cause a violent explosion at the volcano crater, launching a 20,000-foot (6,100-meter) plume that could spread debris over 12 miles (19 km).

Scientists had expected such explosions by the middle of this month as Kilauea’s lava lake fell below the water table. But water may not be entering the crater, as feared, and gas and steam may be safely venting, scientists said.

Reporting by Terray Sylvester in Pahoa and Jolyn Rosa in Honolulu, additional reporting by Andrew Hay in Taos, New Mexico; Writing by Peter Szekely in New York; editing by Scott Malone and Jonathan Oatis

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party-hard-or-die · 7 years ago