Let me tell you a story about a client we signed about two months ago. He hired us to manage two properties: - one in a beach market - one in a metro market During the onboarding for the beach property, the owner met us there and casually mentioned he wasn’t going to list the metro property yet, but planned to “eventually.” Red flag #1 That might sound harmless, but he had already signed two-year agreements, and our contract waives the $2,500 onboarding fee unless the owner cancels within two years. We hadn’t purchased equipment for the metro home yet, so we let it slide. (not to mention he negotiated the 25% down to 23 on this metro property) We launch the beach property It’s dead season. No bookings for the first two weeks. The owner calls a meeting asking what we can do. We explained the seasonality and showed him market data. We also paid out of pocket for a couple “virtual stays” to help the listing gain traction and build momentum with the platform. After that, we pulled in two bookings, which was solid considering the market was around 13% booked overall. Red flag #2 About a week later, our noise monitoring system stopped connecting. The owner said he blocked a device because he thought it was “hacking” his internet. Red flag #3 Two days later, he asked us to block off a couple days for his personal stay. No problem. We checked the cameras on the first day he arrived and suddenly we had no camera access. We texted him asking if he accidentally removed our access or blocked the noise monitor again. No response. Then the complaints started piling up He asked for a breakdown of bookings, even though it was already in his owner statement. We still sent screenshots from Airbnb to show everything matched. Then he emailed a list of issues: - dirty utensils put away with clean ones (cleaner reported there were no dishes left) - “water” in the hand soap dispenser (it was swapped with a different soap color due to availability) - dust in the open garage (it’s basically a three-wall garage open to the back, so wind and dust happen)

The holidays Have been crazy! 🙃 I hope everyone has had a great holiday season. We are back next week to brainstorm together! Let's lock it in! 💪

For obvious reasons the brainstorm session is canceled today.

What was your win this week?

Do you have a co-host or property management website? Let's see 👀 it! I will drop ours in the comments. Always a work in progress.