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Category: Operations & Cleaning
By: Michael Thompson
Reply by Ryan Tanaka:
3 years of obsessive expense tracking across 5 properties. I'll give you real numbers. For a typical 2BR/2BA, consumables (TP, paper towels, soap, coffee, cleaning supplies, welcome snacks, etc.) run about $1,800-2,400 a year. Sounds like a lot but it breaks down to like $12-15 per turnover when you buy in bulk from Costco or Amazon Subscribe & Save. Shampoo/conditioner dispensers instead of individual bottles saves a fortune. Linen replacement is another $400-600/year. I replace 1-2 sheet sets, 3-4 towels, all pillows annually, and mattress pads every couple years. STR linens wear out roughly 3x faster than residential use. Small repairs are the stuff nobody warns you about: $800-1,500/year for running toilets, dripping faucets, appliance fixes, door hardware wearing out, paint touch-ups, wobbly furniture. It's constant small stuff. Seasonal maintenance (HVAC filters, tune-ups, gutter cleaning, pest control, power washing) adds $600-1,000. And then you have to amortize the big-ticket replacements — mattresses every 5-7 years, sofas, TVs, appliances, water heater, HVAC — which works out to roughly $500-1,000/year depending on the age of everything. All in: $4,100-6,500 per year per property. Rule of thumb is 5-8% of gross revenue, so if you're making $50K/year, budget $2,500-4,000 for maintenance. Track all of it in Stessa (https://stessa.com, free) because every dollar of maintenance is tax-deductible. DIY what you can from YouTube and you'll save a ton on the smaller repairs. For modeling these costs against your revenue: https://strspecialist.com/tools/cleaning-fee-calculator.
Reply by Priya Nair:
Adding unexpected costs that bit me in Year 1: 1. **Guest lockouts** — $150 per locksmith visit until I switched to a smart lock ($200 one-time) that eliminated this entirely 2. **Clogged drains** — $150-250 per plumber visit. Now I have drain screens ($5 each) and snake my drains quarterly 3. **Broken wine glasses/dishes** — stopped buying glass, switched to unbreakable polycarbonate "glasses" ($25 for a set of 8). Guests can't tell the difference. 4. **Remote batteries** — seems trivial but dead remotes = guest complaints. I now replace ALL remote batteries on a quarterly schedule regardless of charge level 5. **Grout cleaning** — bathroom grout gets gross with high turnover. $200/year for professional grout cleaning vs $50 DIY with a steam cleaner ($80 purchase) The general principle: **anything that can break or run out WILL break or run out, faster than you expect, because guests use things differently than residents.** Plan for everything to need replacement at 3x the normal residential rate. A towel that lasts 5 years in your home lasts 18 months in an STR.