[00:00:02] This is Short Term Rental Management, the show that is all about short term rental property management with your host, yours truly, Luke Carl.
[00:00:16] All right, Short Term Rental Management, here we go. We're going to talk about managing vacation rentals today because that's what we do. It's the name of the show. I'm Lou Karl, happy to be your party partner on the world's greatest podcast, Short Term Rental Management, brought to you by the Short Term Shop. If you're looking to buy a house in a vacation market, check them
[email protected]. so here's what happened. I recently went on vacation, took my children to Orlando. It was wonderful.
[00:00:52] I just, I love spending time with the kids. It's the greatest thing ever. I never dreamed in a million years that it was even something that I needed. I had no idea. And then I, I had kids and wow, here we go. It's awesome. It's the greatest. And my daughter had a tennis tournament. Well, both kids had a tennis tournament in Orlando. So we said, okay, let's go down with spring break.
[00:01:15] And we did Universal.
[00:01:18] We are very much Disney people, but we are going to Disney in a couple of months.
[00:01:27] By the time you hear this, it'll be about a month, I would, I would guess. And we are going with my brother. And we did not want to make that trip any less special.
[00:01:38] So we decided to hit Universal this time and hit it hard. We did all the parks, we did SeaWorld, and we got it done and it was great. So during the trip we were to stay at a house. So the first part of the trip we stayed at on property there at Universal, which was great. No problem, no complaints. Definitely not as good as Disney. That's my opinion.
[00:01:59] But different, obviously different. I'm not a roller coaster guy. Okay. So let's keep that in mind. And all of this stuff is very relevant because of course, this is a very vacation rental friendly area. A lot of vacation rentals in the area, which we did have one rented to stay in. Okay. So we stayed on property for the first couple of days, three, three, four, I don't remember what it was. And then we were to move to this house which was next to the tennis facility where my children were to have this tennis tournament.
[00:02:32] And for those of you that don't know, Orlando is the tennis mecca of the world of the United States for sure.
[00:02:42] So my kids are really into tennis. We enjoy it very much. And it's a lot of fun to go to tournaments. So we went to this tournament. My aunt that my son ended up getting canceled. They didn't have enough kids in his group. He's only five.
[00:02:54] But my daughter played, and, man, the competition is tough down there. She hung in there pretty good, but it's tough down there.
[00:03:03] So bravo. Kudos to the uni, the Orlando, Florida tennis community.
[00:03:12] So we went to the tennis tournament and it was great, and the weather was fantastic. It was actually kind of cold while we were there in Orlando, which is so weird.
[00:03:23] So anyway, we were to check into this house, and parts of this are my fault. I'm going to take ownership of all of this being my fault.
[00:03:33] But I did. A couple days before we got there, I messaged the host. It was a property manager from a different town. And I said, does the. Is the pool heated all the time?
[00:03:48] The children were looking forward to the pool in the backyard.
[00:03:51] And they said, yes, the pool is heated all the time.
[00:03:57] Then the next day we were set to check in, and we got another message that said, the owner just let us know that the pool heater is broken.
[00:04:06] Okay, so first thing first, they should have said, I'm so sorry, I hate to tell you this, but we. But the pool heater has just broken. They made it sound like it was already broken and they didn't tell me, which I think actually was the case.
[00:04:23] But that's not good management. That's not good leadership. They certainly should have at least made me feel like it was an urgent situation where it had just broken. Right.
[00:04:34] So changing the wording of it would have been better. And then it just got worse. And I said, man, my kids were. And I hate to be this guy, you know, because we deal with these type of people all the time, but my kids were really looking forward to that pool. And without the pool, we don't really care about this house, you know. You know, we'd rather just go get another hotel or whatever. That's going to be easy, that the kids can use the pool because it's cold outside. It was cold outside.
[00:04:54] And. And then, to be honest, we drove by the house and it was not in a good area. The neighborhood was a little on the sketch side, which was a bummer.
[00:05:02] And it's just, you know, it's one of those things. Like, I mean, I literally do this all day, every day, and I couldn't tell.
[00:05:08] I probably should have street viewed it, but that's a lot of work, you know. Who's got the time? I just went on, I found a nice house, had some good reviews.
[00:05:14] I booked it. Turns out the reviews Ended up. They were kind of fake, you know, they were just like, from. They brought them over from Expedia from their management website or something like that. I don't know. But it said. It was one of those deals on Verbo where it said something like, you know, alternate reviews or something like that.
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[00:06:01] anyway, it quickly. I quickly realized that this property manager did not have much experience with vrbo.
[00:06:09] I think that they were. I booked it on Verbo, by the way.
[00:06:12] I think that they were used to people direct booking.
[00:06:17] Like, there was a lot of communication that was not happening that they thought had happened because I think they were used to people booking direct and sending text messages. And we booked on vrbo and I was looking on Verbo and they never sent, you know, like, anything. For instance, they. They said, you're not going to get your door code until the rental agreement is signed. And I couldn't get them to send it to me.
[00:06:38] Then come to find out they were texting it to me on some random number that I used on Vrbo like, 10 years ago, you know, which, again, that's my fault.
[00:06:46] But I was thoroughly expecting this to come through the Verbo messenger because that's what I do all day.
[00:06:58] So we ended up not staying there, didn't get a refund. We asked, you know, we said, hey, this is not gonna work out for us. We lost the amenity, and our kids are not gonna be. Yeah, you know, it's not. We've. We've decided we don't want to stay. And that was it. We didn't get a refund, nothing. We just moved on and. And went and found a nice hotel down the road. And. And it was. I was kind of sad. I was saddened by the situation. And, you know, part of this has to.
[00:07:26] Has it goes along with the. The hosts make horrible guests. I will give you that. They do. And. But I think in this case, we were just disappointed. The neighborhood was pretty bad. You know, there were cars on blocks and all the yards were overgrown, and it was just not something that we were looking for. And it was not inexpensive, I will say, matter of fact, we went and stayed at this very nice hotel.
[00:07:52] Very nice hotel. Large.
[00:07:55] Extremely large facility. I Think it was the Marriott Central City, if you're familiar with that. In right, right next to Disney.
[00:08:04] Beautiful hotel, multiple buildings, had a running track which I took full advantage of. I did three miles around the running track on four hours of sleep and I'm still, still not caught up on sleep. And who cares? You just get after it. You know you can be mediocre or you can get after it.
[00:08:24] To quote Jeremy Piven, I saw it on Instagram. Anyway, I do like that guy. But anyway I was, you know, I was, it was a bummer. Like the get the property manager didn't care. They were not, you know, they weren't nice about it. They, they had a broken amenity that they should have offered a couple of bucks or something and they didn't and they.
[00:08:53] We're not sympathetic in any way and that was the end of it. We just didn't stay there and we went and found a hotel and I'm saddened by that. I don't, I don't want that. I want my kids to be going to houses and I prefer to sleep in a house. We very much needed a washer and dryer at that point. We're on the road for a week and my daughter was very excited about the Princess room and it's a bummer. So there's some lessons to learn here.
[00:09:20] Number one, the guest is always right. Always, always, always right.
[00:09:27] That again, that house was not inexpensive. And that's kind of where I went wrong I guess is that I, I just assumed it was going to be nice based on the price. I think we paid 900 bucks for two nights and they, they got, they kept it and we didn't stay there.
[00:09:41] And the hotel down the street was like top notch, super nice hotel and it was, it was less than that. I want to say it was 400 a night.
[00:09:54] You know what I mean? So price wise compared to where I, my other option would be this nice hotel. The house was actually more expensive and it wasn't anything. It was just a three bedroom.
[00:10:10] So lesson learned from that manage for that manager is that the, the, the host is all. The guest is always right. The guest is always right. Always right. You know, they should have done something. But honestly I was so busy I didn't even really bother with it that much. It was just I, I had to move on to something else. I wasn't going to let the kids stay in that house and, and, and we moved on and we were sad about it. You know, everybody was sad, but it just, it looked like it Wasn't really very safe environment, to be honest. It was a pretty rundown area and.
[00:10:47] We ate the cost and moved on, you know, simple as that. And the, the, like I said, the host didn't care, which I get it. You know, what are they gonna do? Hey, man, our pool heater's broken and go pound sand. That was kind of how they, they there. That was their stance on it. You know, after I had a screenshot from them that said, and I shared this with them on text because they were not, you know, they, they, they seem like they were not aware of the pool heater situation. When we've started, they started texting me.
[00:11:18] I sent a screenshot that said, you know, here's where, here's where you said, yes, the pool is hot all the time, heated all the time. I mean, you just told me this yesterday, you know, anyway.
[00:11:31] And also, I want to make another point here is that the competition in Orlando is really bad. It is, it, it's, you know, you hear all the saturation stuff in Orlando and Disney, and we did a Disney pod a few months ago. You should go check that out on YouTube.
[00:11:45] And the, this is not. They're, they're, they're.
[00:11:51] Man, if you want to get into the Kissimmee Disney area, overnight rental single family home deal, you can crush it because your competition is not good.
[00:12:04] Not good. I mean, I picked this house myself, doing this all day, every day, and I couldn't even tell that this house was going to be bad, you know, and I thought it looked pretty good in the pictures and everything. And, and it was the best one I could find, you know, and I, I was probably looking in the wrong areas.
[00:12:25] You know, that's, that's one thing I, I don't exactly know where to look, but the, the houses I was looking at were. A lot of them were just junk.
[00:12:37] Junk. And maybe I'm looking at the wrong things. I think I was trying to get in this specific area near this tennis event, and having gone down there, we learned that it wasn't, you know, the, the tennis area. The, the resort was very nice where the tennis was, but the areas outside of that were a little run down.
[00:13:00] So that was probably the problem. You know, I was looking in the wrong areas based on this tennis tournament. But, man, competition was not good.
[00:13:08] So that I will say that if you want to get into the Disney market, you can smoke it. I've got some friends that own down there and they say the same thing. You know, their, their, their neighbors, their, their enemies, their Competition is just not good. Not good. If you put in some effort, have a clean house. There's a lot of carpet down there. Dingy, older stuff, you know, just not updated. Not cute.
[00:13:32] Why we have carpet in Florida. It's disgusting.
[00:13:35] You know, there's sand and there's everything else. Car. A carpet is just gross. Get out. Get rid of it. Get. Get it out of there.
[00:13:43] But, you know, I. I prefer to stay in a house. And it breaks my heart that I ended up having to stay at a damn hotel on this trip. You know, I needed the washer and dryer, and we were really looking forward to the princess room and the Mario Arcade room and all that.
[00:14:00] So if I have a point today, which I may not, it's that the host, the guest is never wrong. All right? Period. The guest is never wrong. The guest is always right. Always right. Always right. Has to be that way. It has to be that way. This is a customer service, client facing gig.
[00:14:23] And I hate to tell you, Mr. Host or Mrs. Host or whoever, Mr. Property Manager from Tampa, there's a million other places to stay. You are. You know, it's almost like they were acting like I didn't have an option here. And it's. You got a lot of options. The traveler right now has a lot of options because the economy's not that great. And of course, of course, with COVID a lot of people got into this rental house rental thing, and there's a lot of competition. But I will tell you, number one, number one, the. The guest is always right. Number two, your competition stinks.
[00:15:03] If you're listening to this podcast, I've said it before, you are the cream of the crop, and you should be proud of yourself for putting in the effort and putting in the time and make sure that your guests have what they want. Brother.
[00:15:20] It's very simple stuff. Have a clean house with nice sheets in a great location, and you'll succeed.
[00:15:35] The guest is never wrong. The guest is always right.
[00:15:42] Okay?
[00:15:43] And if you're worried about the other folks, just try a little harder, because I'm here to tell you I'm living proof that the other folks are not doing that well. One more point I will make. I'm gonna give you a quote.
[00:15:55] You need to be traveling.
[00:15:58] Now. You probably are traveling. Most people get into this because they like to travel, but you need to stay in hotels. You do.
[00:16:08] I'm sorry, Houses.
[00:16:11] You and the hotels are great, too. They. They do. They, you know, they do a lot of things right. You know, check out, you know what kind of alarm clocks, they're using phone chargers, pillows, you know, but you need to be staying in houses and seeing what the competition is doing and get some ideas and things like that. And I got. I didn't get any good ideas from that one, clearly, but I did get some ideas of what not to do.
[00:16:36] So get out there, do some traveling, book your property on Airbnb and go stay in a house next time you travel, and hopefully you get a good host.
[00:16:48] And if you're going to stay in one of my houses, I can guarantee you're going to have a good experience. I love you. Let me give you a quote here. I got a good quote for you. I'm reading a couple of books right now.
[00:16:58] Stop sitting at the table where people speak evil of others, because when you get up from the table, you are the topic.
[00:17:11] It's a quote from a gentleman named Daniel Chidiac, author of a book I'm reading currently, which. The title of the book escapes me, but it is a good book. Look him up, Daniel Chidiak. All right. I love you.
[00:17:28] Don't overthink it.
