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- Founder, VRMB
Scott Shatford is the founder of Airdna, which is (by my estimates) the most cited resource in the short term rental industry. I have been virtual friends with Scott since about 5 years back when he and I were sort of dueling vacation rental experts.
But soon thereafter, Scott took the relatively simple idea of compiling all the data on Airbnb properties, and built it atop a fascinating business model. Lately...
- Founder, VRMB
If there is one person that has been a steady constant throughout the last decade of vacation rental mayhem, it’s Koryn Okey. She started out with a company called FlipKey and now works as the VP of Sales at Breezeway (an awesome cleaning app you should demo immediately). If you have ever attended a vacation rental conference, chances are you have seen or met or at least heard Koryn laugh.
Her experience gives...
- Founder, VRMB
David Krathamer never thought he’d be running a world-class hospitality business. Along with his wife Edna, David is the owner of D&E Landing in Guntersville, Alabama. I stop over for the evening and hang out and go fishing with David as often as I get the chance. And on this particular visit, I decided to record a podcast.
What’s most intriguing about David and his business is the precision and discipline with...
- Founder, VRMB
Tammi Sims is the VP of Customer at Properly, an industry-leading cleaning app with a host of deeper applications. Perhaps more importantly, Tammi (along with her partner Alex Nigg) are visionary vacation rental leaders: they identified a need for this solution way back before anyone could even name the problem.
Tammi is a regular at industry conferences -- and it was at VRMA in New Orleans where Tammi was ‘in...
- Founder, VRMB
Our scheduled epsiode for this week was interupted due to uncertainty around Hurricane Ian. Everyone involved with the show is fine and we'll be back next week with regularly scheduled programming, but for now we're going to archives and resharing Episode 19 with you, where Mike Harrington gives us a big business takeaway from Hurricane Florence in 2018. These are lessons we all need to be mindful of in the...
- Founder, VRMB
This episode features a conversation between Justin Ford and Matt Landau. Justin is a longtime industry advocate, having introduced professional safety protocols to the emerging industry of vacation rentals. In this episode, Matt and Justin talk about leadership and fear, and how certain experiences impact the way we think about, and handle, risk. The episode concludes with a conversation about safety in the...
- Founder, VRMB
Tim Cafferty of Outer Banks Blue Realty in Kitty Hawk, North Carolina is one of the most admired and respected professional managers in the world. He is a paragon of professionalism and hospitality as a whole.
Tim’s region is something of a mecca for short term rentals in the USA, but when Tim started the business, he wasn’t expecting his business to take off the way it did. Many years ago, I had only heard...
- Founder, VRMB
Carole Lynn Sharoff of Atlantic Vacation Homes in Massachusetts is one of the wisest vacation rental professionals I have met in my 10+ years of interviewing. You can tell a lot about someone from how others describe them. And when some colleagues like Jodi Refosco and Jennifer Frankenstein Harris heard I was launching a new season of the podcast, they were all unanimous: you have to interview Carole. No ifs ands...
- Founder, VRMB
This is probably the most unexpected podcast we've ever published. It features a couple, Emily and Jesse Cole, who epitomize a lot of vacation rental hosts using Airbnb to build a real estate portfolio. But that's the end of where the Cole's are normal. They also own a baseball team. Where the *MALE* cheerleaders dance on dugouts, kids find signed baseballs hidden like easter eggs, and tickets ($18) include food...
- Founder, VRMB
This PDF document consists of all the resources mentioned in the 'How To Save Your Vacation Rental Business' podcast hosted by Dana Lubner (co-hosted by Matt Landau). We've created a PDF document for you to keep on your desktop or print-out for sharing in your local vacation rental advocacy group.
- Founder, VRMB
This week will mark the end of an 8-month vacation rental fact-finding mission around the world filming Season 2 of A Sense of Place (premier in just a few weeks!) In this time, I visited 14 cities (Las Vegas, San Antonio, Phoenix, Boise, Bowen Island, Park City, New Orleans, Rio de Janeiro, Montevideo, Lisbon, Budapest, Bali, St. John, Lindsborg, Kansas), gave several keynote presentations, hosted a number of...
- Founder, VRMB
Brooke Pfautz is the Founder of Vintory, one of the only companies that I am aware of that helps property managers grow their inventory. I traveled to meet Brooke in Maryland, where he lives with his family and where he built a property management business from 0-500 properties in 5 years.
Since he sold that business and now focuses full time on helping other managers grow, we focused the majority of our...
- Founder, VRMB
In this very special season finale episode of Unlocked with Matt Landau, our sponsor, Sean Miller of Point Central turns the microphone around on Matt and and asks the questions we've been waiting nearly sixty episodes to answer.
Everything from Matt's management past to his Vacation Rental Show future is revealed, along with a great deal of thinking and action items about the vacation rental industry itself...
- Founder, VRMB
Tiffany Edwards grew up in the vacation rental business and has become one of its foremost goverment affairs experts and fundraisers. In this episode we dig into what our industry is doing well and what it needs to do better for a fair regulatory future.
This episode is brought you by PointCentral: https://www.pointcentral.com/vrmb/ the leaders in smart home automation, and Breezeway...
- Founder, VRMB
We're in-between podcast seasons right now. So I thought it might be nice to use this platform to share something very important:
The Vacation Rental Advocacy Playbook:
http://www.vacationrentaladvocacy.com
It's a compilation of videos from advocacy specialists that can help you and your colleagues in your destination prepare for the worst.
You can also see the 20 videos I picked out and reviewed on the...
- Founder, VRMB
This update episode of the Unlocked Podcast features Matt giving a heads up on the upcoming season, which will feature industry luminaries who have managed crises before. What to do, how to stay positive.
After speaking with owners and managers daily, Matt also shares some of the patterns he's noticing beneath the surface of what was "the fastest growing sector in travel" now stopped dead in its tracks.
- Founder, VRMB
Friend, colleague, and producer of all Matt's media "concerns," Stuart Hooper has a production company based in Panama and works all over the world producing non-fiction broadcast and online content. Along with his partner Tammy, he has been producing The Vacation Rental Show and the Unlocked Podcast, as well as almost anything else Matt dreams up for a few years now.
The chat with Stuart episode explores...
- Founder, VRMB
Today's episode features Antonio Bortolotti, who runs the vacation Rental World Summit with his wife, Christina. It's become the preeminent event in Europe and the Middle East for vacation rental professionals. In this episode, Antonio and I recount this most extraordinary moment on stage at the end of the Vacation Rental World Summit in Barcelona just a couple weeks ago. We go through some of the sequences that...
- Founder, VRMB
Film producer Tammy Rowe has been working with Matt now for about 5 years. Along with her partner Stuart Hooper, Tammy has a production company based in Panama and works all over the world producing non-fiction broadcast and online content.
The chat with Tammy dives into some of the values she (a Millennial!) looks for in her purchases including her travels, the platforms she uses to research, and her current...
- Founder, VRMB
In Dana's relatively short time in the vacation rental industry, she has emerged as an advocate and leader for responsible, professional rentals in a tough market. By pioneering 'The Good Neighbor Summit' in Denver, Dana learned how getting public and private stakeholders together can change the narrative about the industry and generate positive press.
In our first season 5 episode, she sits down with Matt...
- Founder, VRMB
Toby Babich not only runs a successful vacation rental and management business, he has taken over as president of the VRMA during this difficult time for the industry.
In a virtual sit-down with Matt, he provides insight into how different vacation rentals are doing, gets into how he has kept his own business afloat and lays out what the VRMA has in the works for the industry.
Please visit our sponsors...
- Founder, VRMB
Chip Conley has disrupted the hospitality industry on more than one occasion. First as 26 year old founder of Joie de Vivre Hospitality, which transformed an inner-city motel into the second largest boutique hotel brand in America. Many years later he would get a call from Brian Chesky to join Airbnb as the head of Global Hospitality and Strategy.
In this episode of Unlocked, Chip joins us virtually from...
- Founder, VRMB
Heleena Sideris brings the best elements of her non-profit background to her family vacation rental business in Park City. In this virtual sit-down with Matt, she explores the bright post-covid future of outdoor destinations like Park City and talks about finding meaning and creating community with vacation rentals.
Please visit our sponsors, which made this episode possible:
Breezeway’s operations platform...
- Founder, VRMB
Rafat Ali created Skift, the travel industry insider source for news, insight and trends. In this episode of Unlocked, Rafat and Matt explore a post-covid world and what it means for vacation rentals, travel, and business survival.
Please visit our sponsors, which made this episode possible:
Breezeway’s operations platform makes it easy to ensure quality, safety, and cleanliness across your properties so you...
- Founder, VRMB
Viktoria Ujj spent 16 years in leadership roles at luxury hotels around the world before settling in Maui and developing Sunny Maui Vacations. In this virtual sit-down with Matt, she talks about the tough realities facing the Hawaiian vacation rental market and how she is using all of her hospitality knowledge to keep her business and her 'Ohana' strong for a brighter future.
Please visit our sponsors, which...
- Founder, VRMB
Matthew and his wife Angela came to vacation rentals accidentally in the wake of the financial crisis and have since built a powerhouse business from Central Oregon to Southern Utah. In this virtual sit-down, Matthew gives a masterclass on the workings of a true lifestyle business where family is everything, employees are like family, and guests keep coming back. The two Matts also delve into Listing Site...
- Founder, VRMB
In this episode of Unlocked, Matt and Michelle Williams of Atlantic Vacation Homes and the VRMA Board of Directors change up the format and tackle a host of pressing vacation rental industry problems round-robin style. Dependence on listing sites, poor diversity, bad actors and bad regulation, tech madness and a whole lot more.
Please visit our sponsors, which made this episode possible:
Breezeway’s...
- Founder, VRMB
An African tent safari led Lynn to find the epitome of a limited edition vacation rental business and incredible glamping experience in Texas Hill Country.
In this episode she talks to Matt about the experience she continues to perfect, reconnecting with her property during crisis, and why one is enough.
Please visit our sponsors, which made this episode possible:
Breezeway’s operations platform makes it...
- Founder, VRMB
Shaun Stewart is a visionary and seasoned tech leader with a hospitality background from companies like Airbnb and Jetsetter. He is now CEO of Newlab, which applies transformative technologies to things that matter. In this episode he joins Matt to talk about innovation in times of crisis, evolving attitudes about tech, and give unique perspective on the vacation rental industry.
Please visit our sponsors...
- Founder, VRMB
Christina Thoreson is an entrepreneur and self-described numbers person who runs Chattanooga Vacation Rentals with her husband Thor. In this virtual sit-down with Matt, she explores what makes a vacation rental business sustainable and looks at the future of drive-to destinations in the post covid world.
Please visit our sponsors, which made this episode possible:
PointCentral, the leader in business grade...
Welcome to VRMB!
I’m Matt Landau, the founder of this forum. It was created in 2016 when a group of us wanted a safe space to discuss our growing STR businesses.
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Discover "Unlocked: The Intermission" - a captivating 6-part podcast series featuring the individuals who have shaped Matt Landau's horseradish in the past 6 months.