My Short Term Rental Website Is Live
September 21 2026 | 5 Minute Read This is a follow-up to my September 7 post, “Why I’m Building a Direct Booking Website.” After about a month of building, testing and troubleshooting, I’m happy to report that BirminghamVacationHomes.com is now live. The goal was simple: create another avenue to increase occupancy and reduce our dependence […]
Why I’m Building A Direct Booking Web Site
September 7, 2026 | 7 Minute Read Over the past few months, I’ve come to the conclusion that we need a direct booking website for our short-term rentals. After four and a half years of owning and operating short-term rentals, I’ve become pretty comfortable with our systems and processes. At one point, we had as […]
How I Keep My Airbnb’s Booked During the Slow Season
August 18, 2025 | 3 Minute Read When we launched our first Airbnb in Birmingham, Alabama back in early 2022, I had a realization: Birmingham isn’t a vacation market—it’s a necessity market. What do I mean by that? Travelers don’t come here to sip piña coladas on the beach. They come because they need to—for […]
My Secret to 80% STR Occupancy During Slow Season
January 6, 2025 | 3 Minute Read After three years of running our short-term rentals, I dread our slow season – from December through February. And when I say slow, I mean dead. Last year, our average occupancy during these months is 16% below our normal average. For example, from December 1 to December 31, […]