Assaf Karmon, Author at Turno

Reopen Oahu’s vacation rentals for responsible tourism

Assaf Karmon — Thu, 09 Jul 2020 03:01:43 +0000

As a Hawaii based company we are compelled to speak up against unfair treatment of lawful vacation rentals. This is a letter we published on the Staradvertiser today

While the rest of Hawaii thoughtfully reopens, Oahu’s leadership plays favorites by keeping permitted vacation rentals closed.

Vacation rentals are more essential than ever in restarting economic activity and keeping residents safe as we reopen. They are the only accommoda- tion that enables true social distancing, and travelers seek this option for exactly that.

But as the CEO of Honolulu’s Turno, a cleaning tech and jobs platform, I am disappointed to see a vital community left out of this conversation: cleaners and property caretakers.

Vacation rentals are safer places to work, as employees can stay isolated. They can keep and maintain their own supplies, versus sharing them with a large staff. They can wait much longer to clean after checkout, compared to hotel rooms’ fast turnover.

It’s time to do the right thing like our neighbor islands and allow permitted vacation rentals to reopen.

Assaf Karmon

Downtown Honolulu

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City and County of Honolulu Considers Banning Most Vacation Rentals in Bill 89 and Bill 85

Assaf Karmon — Tue, 19 Mar 2019 02:08:12 +0000

While Turno is a global platform helping hosts on over 50 countries and in every US state, we are based in Honolulu, HI and we care deeply about our own community. Today we went before the planning committee to register our opposition to bill 89 and 85 that would wipe out all entire-home listings outside Waikiki and only allow a handful of “Hosted” listings in each neighborhood.

What’s in the bill?

You can read the whole bill here 031819 Commmittee on Planning Special Meeting Agenda

The highlights:

Only hosted listings, no second homes or investment properties. This mean the owner need to be living in the property to list parts of it.
Of those hosted listing, their number can not be over 1% of the housing stock, this is really low considering that some communities that are de facto resort areas, like the north shore, have a heavy concentration of vacation rentals hosted or otherwise. This also means that those hosts who want to continue sharing their home will have to compete in an arbitrary process to obtain a ‘golden ticket’ that would allow them to host. With a low cap on the number units many will be left out.
The county can levy draconian fines simply for displaying a listing on airbnb or other sites. These fines can reach $100,000 PER DAY and result in seizure of property is some of the bill versions. This is absolutely insane and probably not constitutional, this means the city will be able to seize your property with just a screenshot with no due process.

Why is this bill so bad?

It will reduce the number of vacation rentals dramatically. Since hotels in Hawaii are at full capacity this absolutely means fewer visitors spending less money on everything from shave-ice to luau tickets. Those who own businesses know that the difference between profit and loss depends on a few percentage in the bottom line, is some areas like the windward side and the north shore this means many will go out of business.
Jobs, Jobs , Jobs. According to a high quality study, more than 7,000 jobs are directly supported by the the almost $1.2 Billion generated by Airbnb/HomeAway guests visiting Oahu. If vacation rentals were one employer it would be the second largest employer in the state after the department of education and before Queens medical center. The city is essentially proposing to eliminate 7,000 jobs.
It won’t do any good while devastating the economy. One of the reasons cited by the bill proponents is the high cost of rent on the island. Rents will not go down due to this ban, the most likely result is that luxury beach homes will sit empty. Most are not suitable or desirable for long terms tenants. Similar bans in San Francisco and New York City have done nothing to the cost of rent.

Who is promoting this ban?

There were Three categories of people pushing the ban in the council meeting.

The powerful hotel lobby represented by posh lawyers – with vacation rentals out of the picture hotels would be able to raise prices by a few percentage points that would flow directly to the bottom line.
Hotel worker’s union – Arguing that vacation rentals hurt their job (exactly how? hotels are at full capacity and charging higher prices than ever). The real reason is probably the assumption that hotels increase in profitability would trickle down to them in the form of a tiny raise.
A handful of angry neighbors – With Thousands of rentals on the Island there are going to be some instances of less then perfect behavior by guests, some local residents even shared horror stories of how someone once knocked on their door by accident trying to find another house.

What can you do to stop this terrible bill?

Call or email (calling is more effective but email works too) the following council members, make sure to be polite and respectful.

Ikaika Anderson 808.768.5003 ianderson@honolulu.gov

Ron Menor 808.768.5009 rmenor@honolulu.gov

Heidi Tsuneyoshi 808.768.5002 htsuneyoshi@honolulu.gov

Michael Formby 808.768.5004 mformby@honolulu.gov

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Airbnb Cleaning Experts Talk White Towel Stains

Assaf Karmon — Sat, 16 Dec 2017 01:06:16 +0000

Every vacation rental cleaner or host has been in this situation, a guest has wiped their makeup on a white towel, and the stain does not come off easily. This is one of those things airbnb cleaning professionals talk about all the time!

How to Clean

What can you do as a vacation rental host to deal with this? Some of our most experienced Airbnb cleaners in Denver have suggested pretreating the fabric with dishwasher detergent. Dishwasher detergent is a powerful degreaser that dissolves fat, a significant component in makeup. Let the white towel soak for 10 minutes before washing and wash with extra hot water and bleach. You can even add some extra boiling water to the machine to make sure the water is sufficiently hot.

Different Colors

If this sounds complicated, you can always avoid white towels altogether. Our vacation rental cleaning experts in Miami Florida suggest using dark-colored towels. When these get stained, it is harder to notice and easier to clean. Avoiding treating stains make your turnover service shorter and less costly and possibly saving you money, not to mention that you need to buy towels less often. Dark-colored towels are less than ideal aesthetically since they don’t provide the same clean feeling a white towel offers. For this reason, if you are providing a luxury vacation rental experience, it may be best to stick to white towels and accept it as the cost of doing business.

Prevention

Yet another method of dealing with stains on white towels is prevention. Our short-term cleaning pros in Los Angeles recommend that you make sure to provide your guests with clear instructions and provide them with makeup wipes and or makeup towels(not white of course!) to make it easier to comply. You can take one step further by leaving a nice card in the bathroom asking to be considerate. If you do decide to write a card use a passive and calm tone for maximum results.

If you have suggestions for our next blog post about vacation rental cleaning make sure to comment below!

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Daily Routines of a Serious Airbnb Host

Assaf Karmon — Mon, 13 Nov 2017 07:06:45 +0000

This post on the daily routines of a serious Airbnb host was originally posted by our friend Mark Welpman, who has a great property in Maui, on the professional host facebook group. I love this post because it reminds us that you can always improve and do better. This is why we started this business; it is all about making it easier for hosts to focus on the business and stop wasting time managing turnovers and finding cleaners.

Daily Routines of a Serious Airbnb host

I have a daily, weekly, and monthly routine that I strictly adhere to.
First thing every morning before going to work.

Daily:

• Check my combined calendar and look for any notice or actions that might require my attention.
• Based on my reminders in my combined calendar, I send off my notice and welcome letters.
• I then go to each of my different listing websites and insure my calendrers are all in sync. Sometimes someone will slip in an instant booking overnight. (International travelers).
• One each calendar I block out and save and a few days. Then I unblock the days I selected and save then again, reopening those days. This is important. Rankings algorithms take into consideration how often you update your calendar. Daily activity on your calendar helps you greatly in your ranking.
The should take 15 minutes max. It usually take me about five minutes. I have automated much of my business to save time, but that is another lesson.

Weekly:

• Once a week, I go to my combined calendar and manually Sync each of my calendars to insure I have any new bookings captured.
• Then I use a spreadsheet that I made to set up reminders on the calendar. I have a reminder for what day I send out letters/notice:

Welcome packet.
Arrival follow-up letter.
Day before check out letter.
Day of check out letter.
48-hour review request letter.
7 Day request for review letter (last ask)

• I check comparable listings in my area to see how the competition stacks up. This includes their rates, cleaning fees, and other fees. I read each listing to see what improvements, if any that I can make to make my listing to stand out against theirs. Importantly I check their availability to see how booked they are. This can tell you many things about your competition. It gives you a good idea if they have figured out their sweet spot or they are way underpriced. Try and make sure that your listing is as close to the same as your listing. (Apples to Apples)
• Tweak your listing: Go in and see if you can improve your listings write or perhaps a better photo. Make sure that your write up is short but comprehensive. Your photos must tell a story. Try and change your title every couple of months. Or at least for the different seasons of the year. Keep your listing fresh.

Monthly:

• After paying all the bills, I perform an audit on my expenditures and see where I can do better. You can always do better. There are many ideas that can help cut costs. But I’ll save that for another time.
My final words of advice are that this is a full-time business. Not that it takes 40-hour a week to run, but it requires your full attention. You need to have a plan. Many people go into this thinking that it’s a wonderful easy way to make a few bucks on the side. As for reading on this page, you see example after example. You need to learn something new every day about this business. Ignorance of this business will cost you in the end. Benjamin Franklin said, “ If you fail to plan, then you are planning to fail.”

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