Category: Airbnb Updates

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Florida Governor Bans Short Term Rentals In Florida – Actions I Am Taking Now With My Short Term Rentals

The Florida governor bans short term rentals in Florida. This is huge news and one of the first states where the governor has done this! Just received an email from Airbnb because my Airbnb units are all in Orlando!

Over the last week, the Florida governor has put an executive order in place to shut down all short term rentals effective immediately.

I am honestly not sure, but I believe Florida is one of the only states where the governor signed an executive order explicitly for short term rentals.

This is definitely a bummer, but part of the potential things that could happen once this virus started to spread.

There are three exceptions to this executive order:

First, “long-term” rentals of 30 days or more are still allowed.

Second, Rental stays where guests are currently staying in a vacation rental or have previously booked a stay with a scheduled check-in date of March 28th are still okay to stay.

Lastly, rentals to persons performing military, emergency, governmental, health or infrastructure response, or travelers engaged in non-vacation commercial activities are allowed to stay.

I am going to have to alter my current short term rental strategy to look for 30+ day stays.

I have also gone ahead and signed up on Airbnb’s platform to be one of the hosts open to renting out my home to first responders for a heavily discounted price. Might as well try to give back in these situations if I can.

What I Have Done

So far, I have converted all my short term rentals to be a minimum 30 night stays. This morning, I received a call from the guest who was supposed to checkout tomorrow at Turquoise, and he asked to extend his stay for 30 days.

Turquoise – Rented!

Ol’ Faithful is a whole different story. My HOA sent out a note yesterday morning stating that they will not be allowing any new guests in the security entrance for the foreseeable future. I told them of the situation and even explained exactly what the executive order stated, but they are still saying no new guests period.

I have emailed the GM of the resort 3 times and the board has declined my inquiries. Tomorrow morning, I plan to get on the phone with a board member so I am allowed to have my place rented out for greater than 30 days.

I think my HOA is being a little ridiculous, but will see what they say when I speak with them tomorrow.

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From $10k Expected Income to $20 – How COVID-19 Is Impacting Short Term Rentals

This month I went from $10k expected income to $20. That is right, this is a massive decrease in revenue. COVID-19 is impacting short term rentals in a very significant way in Florida. The governor recently signed in an executive order to halt all short term rentals less than 30 days for the foreseeable future.

Want to hear more about some of the things I am doing and what my portfolio looks like? Checkout the latest podcast I was interviewed on with Dante Belmonte earlier this week!

Listen to 012: Airbnb & COVID-19 with TheYoungRetireeBy33 from The Real Estate Investing Podcast with Dante Belmonte on Apple Podcasts.

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-real-estate-investing-podcast-with-dante-belmonte/id1493408974?i=1000470216281

Podcast Num 3 OUt

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Cops Called To My Airbnb Property!!!

What a wild last guest I had at Ol’ Faithful! The cops were called to my Airbnb property and I would have never expected something like this to happen. Having the cops called to my Airbnb property was a great learning experience for me on how to handle the situation. The next time this happens, as I am sure it will happen again at some point, I will take the things I learned from this experience and I will become even better in how I handle it.
 
I can now say I have had to deal with the cops being at one of my properties. All in all, I am glad my property wasn’t completely damaged and the guest wasn’t harmed (at least from what she is telling me).
 
For those of you who weren’t checking my stories, here is what happened:
  • I had a guest who continued extending her stay, which I was fine with. I didn’t think anything was too off.
  • Two days before she checked out, she called me at 12:30 am. I was asleep and didn’t answer the call, but called back in the morning. No answer from the guest. I was a little confused. She finally called back and just wanted to let me know that the mirror in the master fell because of something and that she would pay for a replacement. Ok, cool no worries.
  • An hour later she calls from her Apple Watch telling me I need to call the cops. Someone slashed her tires and then her ex boyfriend found out where she was and forced his way in my home. Yeah…this is where it starts getting crazy.
  • I tell her to go to the front desk at the clubhouse and call the cops. First, I didn’t know what to do because I had never experienced this before; and, I am not there so I have no idea what is actually going on.
  • She goes to the front to call the cops. I try calling her back shortly thereafter and get no response.
  • I then call the front desk to see if they knew what was going on. The lady mentioned to me that the cops arrived at my place and they seem to be handling the situation.
  • I continue to try to get a hold of the guest with no luck.
  • An hour later, I call the front desk back. The lady at the front desk let’s me know the cops left and everything seemed to be quiet and good now.
Okay, that is all well and good, but what happened?
 
Finally Getting A Hold Of The Guest
I finally got a hold of the guest after two hours. She told me her ex had slashed her tires and then forced his was in and tried hitting her and that is when she ran outside.
 
I immediately stopped her and said, “There are only two things I care about. First, were you physically harmed in any way and are you okay? Second, is the inside of my home damaged at all?”
 
She told me she was okay and when asked if she wanted to press charges against her ex that she didn’t want to. She mentioned everything inside was fine.
 
Time To ACtually See What Happened
That night she calls me back. I am just thinking, oh here we go again.
 
The guest tells me she is leaving and apologized for everything that happened. After she left, I immediately deleted her access code from the door. I didn’t want to have to deal with someone getting back in. I confirmed the door locked and felt somewhat good about the current situation.
 
The next morning, I decided to go to the property to check out how things were.
 
Here are a few pictures of how the property was:
 
 
Here were the main things that happened:
  1. There was excess trash everywhere in the home. You could definitely tell she just bounced and didn’t want to clean anything up.
  2. The sliding glass door leading to the pool wouldn’t shut all the way. I was able to open the door and the realized this was due to the thing on the wall being bent. I reached out to my handyman and he said that is what happens when someone is trying to break in and open the door. So this lead me to assume her ex definitely did try to get in the back door and luckily she had it locked. My handyman is going out there today to fix this. I am assuming it will cost around $80 to fix.
  3. Towels were left all over the home. Beds weren’t destroyed, but it was a mess. I knew I was going to get charged extra by my cleaners, which was fine by me. I would charge back to the guest.
Key Takeaways:
  • It is not if something is going to happen, but when. This is the same whether you are running a short term rental or long term. Long term, you just won’t know unless you do regular inspections of the property.
  • Don’t let something like this get to you. I controlled the situation to the best of my ability and understanding of how to control it.
  • I charged the guest $180 for the extra cleaning, breaking a mirror in the master and my handyman fixing the door. She immediately paid and didn’t ask questions. She apologized again and I wished her the best and that she stayed safe.

 

Don’t forget @TheYoungRetireeBy33’s 3 Core Principles:

1 – Your money should make money for you⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
2 – Start early to realize the power of compound interest⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
3 – Eliminate your largest expense by house hacking