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- Founder, VRMB
VRMB is thrilled to announce Season 6 of Unlocked by Matt Landau, a podcast that invites you to be a fly-on-the-wall with some of the most creative vacation rental professionals in the world. The first episode premieres Wednesday February 17th, 2021.
- Founder, VRMB
Zaira Guzman is the Director of Sales and Revenue Management at Bluewater Vacation Homes in San Diego. Since San Diego is such a competitive vacation environment, Bluewater's recent occupancy growth (month upon month) isn't attributable to much other than Zaira's dynamic pricing skills, which means changing the nightly rates of properties to generate a fair return for the owner and a great value for the guest...
- Founder, VRMB
Phil Minardi is the Head of Public Affairs at the Expedia Group which owns HomeAway and VRBO. His job entails a lot of travel so he has a great perspective on the vacation rental regulatory landscape throughout the USA. But what I like most about Phil is that he always speaks on behalf of the industry. Not about any one owner or manager or company, but on the movement as a whole. I think a lot of problems can be...
- 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
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...
- Founder, VRMB
Robin has spent a lifetime in adventurous areas of hospitality and now runs a luxury, mountain oriented vacation rental business with his family. In this episode, Robin talks to Matt about finding balance on the journey, company culture and the challenges and hopes for high-touch hospitality in the new Covid era.
Please visit our sponsors, which made this episode possible:
Vintory is the only sales and...
- Founder, VRMB
Pierre Becerril is CEO of Transparent, a data intelligence provider for the short-term rental industry. Their analytics and dashboards help compare rates, improve pricing, analyse demand, supply and upcoming events and they recently released a free version you can try. Pierre and Matt sat down in person at last year's VRMA and dove deep into travel, hospitality and the vacation rental industry. This is a covid...
- 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
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
FAQ: Click the orange button in the top right corner to download the workbook.
After researching the most successful advocacy groups throughout the USA, we have settled on 8 factors that determine the advocacy strength of any given destination. You're either strong and prepared, or weak and vulnerable to unfair regulation.
Instructions: Download this resource, answer these difficult questions as honestly as...
- 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
This episode takes a look back on Matt Landau's favorite lessons from the season.
Links:
https://www.pointcentral.com/vrmb/
https://www.vrmb.com/podcast/ep40-short-term-rent-long-term-win-with-matt-hoffman/
https://www.vrmb.com/podcast/ep36-a-theater-of-growth-with-cliff-johnson/
https://www.vrmb.com/podcast/ep-34-no-time-to-waste-with-megan-mccrea/...
- 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...
Vacation rental gap nights don’t need to be money losers. With the right tactics and toolkit, you can turn “the gap” between bookings into a revenue generator by mastering the art of extending guest stays. And you won’t need to drain your time and resources to do it...
- 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 is a Quick Tips episode of Unlocked, where Matt shares actionable wisdom from VRMB Communities.
Have you ever come across a product whose presentation is so on point in that it subliminally sucked you in and persuaded you to buy? Finca Victoria is a farmhouse style B&B on the small island of Vieques, Puerto Rico, and every vacation rental professional can take something away from their website...
- 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
In this special edition of Unlocked, we're airing the first episode of the How to Save Your Vacation Rental Business podcast and kicking it off with an exclusive intro from Matt and Dana. This new podcast is produced by VRMB Communities, hosted by Dana and something Matt's been passionate about for sometime, now.
Vacation rental professionals can no longer afford to ignore community based advocacy. In this...
- 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
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
There was no thought of a pandemic when Matt sat down with Brian Olson of Beachcomber Vacation Homes at last year's LiveRez conference. The industry was already in turmoil, however, and Brian's 'everything's gonna be alright' philosophy came as a real comfort.
More importantly, his years of experience and deliberate approach to growing and maintaining a highly professional vacation rental business with his...
- 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 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
Casey Halloran has built a travel empire selling custom, upscale trips across Central and South America and operating a boutique hotel in Costa Rica. He is also an early mentor to Matt and the reason Matt first came to Latin America and got into vacation rentals. In this episode we explore the evolution of Namu Travel Group from its humble beginnings to its pre-covid status and dive into the difficult time...
- Founder, VRMB
Nathan Schneider is the director of the Media Enterprise Design Lab at the University of Colorado Boulder. He is also a journalist and author who is currently exploring models for democratic ownership and governance for online platforms and protocols.
Nathan has a deep knowledge of cooperative business models, an age old, but oft overlooked concept that continues with great relevance in the modern world.
In...
- Founder, VRMB
Today's Unlocked podcast episode featuring Steve Hafner (co-founder and CEO of KAYAK) is perhaps my proudest interview of all time.
As you'll hear in the introduction, I was quite nervous beforehand for a confluence of reasons...
From the recording studio I rented for the occasion, to the personal nature of the topics I wanted to discuss, to Steve's famed pointed status in tech and travel...
A lot of pressure...
- 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.
This book is designed to help you through all the stages of vacation rental ownership, from buying the right property, to setting up your property for rental then the process of managing your vacation rental to achieve success.
Technology is moving at such a fast pace 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
Today's episode features Barry Shimelfarb, who is a short-term rental operator, an executive coach to tech leaders in Silicon Valley, and a father of two.
In this episode, Barry opens up about one of the most difficult times in his life and how this has shaped his guest philosophy, the way he manages his businesses, and the way he tries to make the best use of every single day.
In addition, Barry shares how he...
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.
Today, you can join our community of 1,000+ creative, thoughtful, and generous members who believe in a better future.
Spotlight
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.