Lay My Hat

We started with Beyond Pricing in January and love it! Takes care of a lot of the work and it’s been very profitable for us even with the 1% they take. I think PriceLabs set monthly fee would be less expensive. Going in , I thought our property was at the high end of the price range for comps , but ...

We just had our best January and February ever in 20 years at one property and 14 at the other. This is our low season. We filled half the month and that's with leaving 2 nts beteeen bookings. We are going to stop that in June. We are in the U.S.-in Colorado on the edge of the national park.

People often ask if VRBO is better or Airbnb. We are on both and the tide has turned to Airbnb for bringing us more bookings. I just looked at stats for the month-page views- and this may be why:
2 bdr cabin-VRBO 102 Air 302
3 bdr cabin -VRBO 202 Air-704

At first I suppose Vrbo travelers will switch to Airbnb since it’ll cost them less. Until Airbnb hosts start raising their prices.

But can you imagine increasing your price 15%?!

We are in the US and have been on VRBO for 18 years for one property and 13 years the other. We added Airbnb 3 years ago and already it's overtaken VRBO. 70-80% of our bookings. I'm not really sure why. They both have a traveler service fee and Airbnb's is actually a larger percentage. In New Zealan...

There's also Wheelhouse and Beyond Pricing but we haven't tried them.

I'm in the U.S. We were shut down (mandated) from end of March to end of May. Starting mid June things REALLY picked up. We'd be as full as ever if we didn't keep 2 nts empty between guests. Seems like most aren't even doing that.

I love the look of yours, Martha! I can't say our hot tub helped as much as I thought it would. We couldn't get a higher price and maybe it brings in 1-2 extra weekend guests a month in the winter.

I don't know if this still stands, but I used to hear if you could get say $1400 a week in summer peak season, then that's what you would charge per month in the off-season for a month to month or yearly rental. Not sure if that includes utilities.

I'm looking for suggestions from those of you with hot tubs. i am really getting frustrated. How do you make sure sanitizer levels aren't too high or too low while guests are there, when you aren't able to check it daily? We have a bromine spa and a floater but were having problems with the floater ...

Martha , I agree with what you say, but even though we ask guests to shower, I'm betting most don't. WE don't even do it before we go in!

I'm in the US and don't usually need to discount in summer or fall as we fill up, but at other times I've discounted as much as 40-50%.

In the U.S. we don't have separate bath mats for different people.

Do pools require more or less maintenance/dosing than hot tubs?

Interesting thread. I see you have the same problems overseas as we have in the US. I've been sacked by 4 cleaners in 16 years. (And had 4 great ones who moved or retired or changed careers.) We pay all our bills immediately, keep our property up well, pay our cleaners well, and I am not a person wh...