Below from this Facebook post. To clean up.
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- My first STR (short term rental), a labor of love. One month of consistent 16 hour days, sleepless nights,
falling in love with my rented Ford Edge, impact driver & a $5 hex bit set from Lowes, and a whole lot of
learning.
- Went live on 7/16, Average ADR around $400 (2/2.5), $8k in bookings between 7/16 - 8/7. Insane.
- I kept a list of things that helped me or I could’ve done better, hopefully it helps you / saves you
some money / brings you some peace for your own Airbnb venture.
GENERAL
- Download offline google maps before you leave in your rental car, signal is spotty in the mountains
- Bring an Anker battery / mobile power bank with you. Your phone should never be close to dying, it is your
lifeline
- Bring your own modem & router just in case
- Try to schedule appointments in the morning so they can’t push you off to the next day because
“it’s late” or they get “delayed by traffic”
- Bring two checkbooks if you can, I actually ran out of checks. Not everyone takes Cashapp / Venmo, most do
though
- Have 3+ contacts for everything (roofer / plumber / electrician / handyman / cleaners)
- Schedule a deep clean right BEFORE your professional photos
- Write everything down to help stay organized or you’ll go insane. It's also a blueprint for the next
STR
- If you need to fell a dead tree, call SCES and ask for the Hazard Tree Removal program. This alone saved me
$2000, I’ll have another post elaborating on this later
- Your inspector should use a moisture meter. Or at least your inspector’s inspector should use one. I
missed out on a lot of water damage I could have negotiated with.
- Make sure your inspector looks at ALL crawlspaces. I had 3, only 2 were looked at. Guess which one had the
most damage?
- If your flight is delayed overnight and you booked with Chase, you have $500 to spend in Trip Delay
credit
FURNISHING TOP TO BOTTOM
- Shoot to be under $20-25/sqft for total budget, I spent $35k total
- Line up a few people before you go out there to help build furniture. I built most of my Wayfair / Amazon
stuff myself, not the best use of time
- Wholesale Furniture & Linens has awesome affordable modern-esque couches, dining tables, and nightstands.
Oh and they deliver AND HAUL away for $25. Tell Ronnie, Hunter, Barb, Brandon & Chad I said hello
- If you don’t already have one, buy a $5 hex bit set and an impact driver, life changing
- If your Lowes order is over $1.5k, you qualify for QSP (Quote Support Program) in store and you can save 10 -
15% off your entire order
- Write up what you’re buying with the Aisle and Bay number so you can be as efficient as possible with
your 10s of trips to Lowes / HD
- If you get a new foosball table installed, make sure the guys install it in the “right handed”
direction, not the other way, it feels weird to most people otherwise
GATLINBURG, TN QUIRKS
- If you’re buying in Gatlinburg proper, make sure your property has an ACTIVE Tourist Residency (TR)
permit. Otherwise you have to go through building and fire inspection, to get it like I did. Not fun. Thousands
of dollars of work to bring it up to code. Not going to bore you with the details. Comment below if you want me
to though
- City of Gatlinburg picks up trash M, W, F and the trash guys are AWESOME. They’ll pick up pretty much
anything. I walked down to help on a few particularly big loads, I think it sends a good message
There’s probably a ton more tips I’m missing, but this is long enough.
Huge shoutout and thanks to Alex Sabio. He got me into this adventure, and I can't thank him enough. My
conversations with him changed the trajectory of my real estate investing and I’m pretty sure my life.
Attend his meetup!
Thanks to Karen for helping me lock down this listing, Teela for AMAZING photos (can’t wait for the fall
reshoot), Parker for a silky smooth 10% down financing process, Lexis & Ryan for sharing so much of your
experiences and tips, Lüc Carl for your awesome classes and self declared GOAT-level wisdom, Avery for
putting together this amazing group, and a huge thanks to Danny, Kenny, George and Annie for walking the journey
together this past month with our cabins. LFG. What a journey.
If you found this helpful, throw us a ❤️ on Airbnb. And you know I got that homie discount at the
ready, just LMK.
Now to get STR #2 �� leggo