Big Bear, California · STR Management & Advisory
You built something valuable. You're right to be careful who runs it.
Two experienced operators in Big Bear who steward your home like the asset it is — and tell you the truth, even when the truth is "don't."
The operating record behind the work
- 237
- STRs operated
- 116
- listings launched
- 16,100+
- reservations facilitated
- $89.5M+
- real estate stewarded
- 73
- clients served
- 23
- markets · 7 states
- 7
- STR operating companies built
- 500+
- claims resolved
A note from the founder
I own a home up here, and I've spent twenty years around real estate and short-term rentals — long enough to watch too many homes get treated like inventory, and too many owners end up working for the house instead of the other way around. Every booking, cleaner, repair, and late checkout becomes one more thing you carry, until the place you were proud of starts to feel like a second job.
I started Ikoi — 憩, an idea I carry from Nagano: rest that meets connection — to be the opposite of that. I run your home the way I run my own: clear numbers, calm operations, nothing hidden, and a portfolio kept small on purpose, because that kind of care doesn't scale by cramming. So your home stays something you're proud of, earns the way it should, and stays unmistakably yours.
Yuri You
Founder, Ikoi Homes
The operating engine
A tired listing, turned around.
Most Big Bear homes quietly underperform — a mispriced calendar, thin distribution, costs that creep. We've taken that same home and turned the line back up. Here's the system that does it.
We grow the revenue
- Pricing and the calendar managed continuously — never set-and-forget.
- Listed everywhere it matters: Airbnb, VRBO, and Booking.com, plus a dozen more channels.
- A direct-booking path that keeps repeat guests — and the platform's 9–15% cut — with you.
- Found by the people searching now on Google and on AI assistants alike.
- Past guests brought back by email; considered upsells on every stay.
We lower the costs
- Cleaning, staging, supplies, and linens run in-house — efficient and controlled.
- Supplies, linens, and furnishings bought in volume, so you pay below retail.
- Maintenance and repairs at trade rates through a vetted vendor network.
We fill every season
- Short-term through the peak ski and lake seasons, priced to the demand.
- Then 30-plus-night stays to fill the shoulder and off-season gaps — offered to insurance-housing and corporate providers, traveling medical and trades professionals, and the major rental platforms.
What we focus on, year by year
The work is sequenced — here's where the attention goes, and the calculator below moves with it.
- 01
Year 1
Onboard & stabilize
- Pricing and the calendar set to a real baseline
- Listing cleaned up, repositioned, made rental-ready
- Operations brought in-house — turnovers, supplies, linens
- Compliance and the fundamentals, handled
- 02
Year 2
Optimize & build trust
- Active revenue management, adjusted continuously
- Distribution widened across every channel + direct booking
- Reviews and platform standing compounding
- The STR↔MTR hybrid filling the shoulder seasons
- 03
Year 3
Running on every cylinder
- Every lever compounding — pricing, channels, direct, hybrid
- Upsells and a repeat-guest engine in full swing
- Costs held down through scale and the vendor network
- Superhost, Guest Favorite, and the top tier of homes
Revenue reality · the operating system, quantified
Watch a mismanaged listing become a top operation.
20–60% is the lift we typically see — from a mismanaged or average start, realized by year two or three. Set two numbers and watch it build, lever by lever.
A typical range, illustrative of our outcomes — not a quote or guarantee.
Your home's size — a rough sense of scale.
Roughly what the home brings in per month today, as it runs now.
Baseline · mismanaged / self-run
≈ $72,000/yr revenue · ~$50,400 net to you
Net to you · Year 2 (illustrative range)
$69,048 – $77,616/yr
+37% to +54% vs your baseline- Airbnb Superhost
- Guest Favorite
- VRBO Premier
- Booking Genius
- Top 1% home
Illustrative of our typical outcomes from a mismanaged baseline — bounded, lever-by-lever, not a quote or guarantee. Your real number comes from the honest assessment. Direct-booking savings shown vs. OTA fees of 9% (VRBO) / 15% (Booking) / 15.5% (Airbnb).
Get the honest assessment →The proof
Your most valuable asset deserves more than a promise.
Every manager says the right things. Here are the four worries that keep owners up at night — and what we put behind each one.
The fear
“Will I be left in the dark?”
Every dollar, every month — gross revenue, every expense, your net. You see exactly what we see. No mystery, no “trust me.”
The fear
“Is it worth the cut?”
Active revenue management, fewer costly mistakes, your time back. We help you understand what you'd actually net — with us versus on your own — honestly, without the spin.
The fear
“Will it become inventory?”
Guests feel whether a home is cared for. Photo-verified turnovers, real checklists and SOPs, a small portfolio on purpose — that operating-system rigor is the standard we hold, so your home is never just a number.
The fear
“Will they underperform?”
This isn't our first home. The record above is real — earned across years of operating — and on this mountain it's paired with Yuri's twenty years of local broker and operator expertise.
The operatorsTwo principals who've actually done this. Yuri You — twenty years in real estate, a licensed broker who owns a Big Bear home herself. Jake Lee — an STR industry veteran who's built and operated six short-term-rental management companies across seven states. Local care meets field-tested operating muscle.
Why Ikoi
Most managers list your home. We operate it.
There's a wide gap between a co-host who holds the keys and an operator who runs the asset. Here's where it shows — measured against the ways owners usually go.
Pricing & calendar
DIY / self-managedManual, inconsistent
National managerAlgorithm-set, rarely adjusted
Light-touch co-hostBasic, set-and-forget
IkoiManaged continuously to the market
Distribution
DIY / self-managedA listing or two
National managerTheir portal + the majors
Light-touch co-hostAirbnb-first
IkoiAirbnb, VRBO, Booking + a dozen more
Direct bookings
DIY / self-managedNone
National managerPlatform-locked
Light-touch co-hostRare
IkoiA direct path that keeps the 9–15% cut with you
Turnover & cleaning
DIY / self-managedYou or a local
National managerThird-party network
Light-touch co-hostVaries by vendor
IkoiIn-house, checked every stay
Supplies & linens
DIY / self-managedRetail, DIY
National managerThird-party
Light-touch co-hostThird-party
IkoiBought in volume + our own laundry
Maintenance
DIY / self-managedYour contractors
National managerTicketed, remote
Light-touch co-hostAd hoc
IkoiTrade rates, vetted vendor network
Seasons
DIY / self-managedShort-term only
National managerShort-term only
Light-touch co-hostShort-term only
IkoiHybrid: short-term peaks, 30-night stays in the gaps
Reporting
DIY / self-managedA spreadsheet
National managerA payout
Light-touch co-hostA payout
IkoiOne open monthly statement — every dollar
Who runs it
DIY / self-managedYou
National managerA remote call center
Light-touch co-hostShared, unclear
IkoiTwo principals, end to end
Our highest intention
Guests first. It's not soft — it's the strategy.
Our highest intention is simple: care for the people who stay. Not as a nicety — as the engine. A guest who feels genuinely looked after leaves a five-star review, comes back, and tells their friends. Those reviews lift your ranking; that ranking fills your calendar; a full calendar at the right rate is what a thriving property looks like. Put the human experience first, and the returns follow almost on their own. Everything else we do — the pricing, the operations, the clean numbers — exists to protect that one thing.
Is this you?
Who Ikoi is for — and when it honestly isn't.
Fit runs both ways. The assessment reads your property; this reads the partnership. We keep our portfolio small on purpose, so we're candid about who that serves.
Ikoi is a fit for owners who
- See their property as more than a cash-flow unit.
- Want it cared for, run honestly, and made more meaningful over time.
- Love guests discovering their favorite local spots — trails, restaurants, mountain towns.
- Are excited to collaborate on experiences: adventures, tastings, breakfast baskets, cooking lessons.
- Care about integrity and transparency, with clean numbers and clear communication.
- Prefer a long-term, relationship-based partnership that refines the property over time.
It's honestly less of a fit if you
- Want as many doors as possible, managed as lightly and cheaply as possible.
- See the home purely as a cash-flow unit, where the only number that matters is the payout.
- Own in a location, zoning, or condition where the honest demand — or the law — won't support a quality short-term rental.
- Have unresolved safety, access, or readiness issues you'd rather not address before guests arrive.
- Want a flattering revenue projection more than a straight, defensible read.
None of that makes you wrong — it just isn't what we do well, and we won't pretend otherwise. We're not selling a fantasy. If a different path serves you better, we'll say so, and point you somewhere honest.
Let's find out if your home is a fit — honestly.
A few quick questions. A candid read. No sales pitch.
The honest assessment
Find out if it's a fit — honestly.
We don't take every home. Answer a few quick questions and we'll give you a candid, plain-language read on your property as a Big Bear short-term rental — including, sometimes, “this may not be the move.”
A qualitative read, not a revenue estimate — and Ikoi Homes won't take a home that isn't a fit.
What changes
Picture the version where it's handled.
No more 11pm guest messages. No scramble before a check-in. No wondering what the City needs this year. Just your home — cared for like our own, earning well, running quiet, and still unmistakably yours. That's the version we build toward.
How we work together
Three depths of stewardship. One standard underneath.
Most owners come in at one of three depths — set by how much of the operating burden you'd like us to carry. Underneath all three is the same standard: 憩, the care we'd give our own home. Where you start is a conversation, not a checkout.
Full Stewardship
Recommended25% of revenue · all-in, no hidden fees
Owners who want the entire operating burden carried — the home run as the asset it is, with nothing left for them to chase.
The whole operation — revenue managed daily, guests cared for, turnovers photo-verified, maintenance coordinated, and the full weight of Big Bear's regulations held end to end.
- A named principal, and a private line
- You work with Yuri herself — a principal, not a portal or a rotating account manager. The portfolio is kept small on purpose, so that relationship stays real.
- An annual asset review
- Once a year we sit down over the asset: how it performed, where it sits in the market, the rate plan for the year ahead, and the refresh worth making — on Yuri's twenty years as a broker.
Also carried
- Owner's private-use concierge — readied for your own arrivals, reset after
- A year-end owner & tax dossier, built for your CPA
- Periodic design & styling refresh, with fresh photography
- Capital-improvement projects, managed and accounted for
- Insurance & damage claims, handled on your behalf
- Owner-period home-watch & winterization
Prefer to stay closer to the day-to-day? A lighter, partial involvement can be arranged — by conversation.
Launch
from $2,500 · scope quoted after assessment
Owners who'll run the home themselves, but want the launch built correctly from day one.
Our STR Launch Package: licensing and compliance set up, the listing and photography built, pricing dialed in, and the operating system put in place — then handed over to you, clean.
Counsel
scoped · by inquiry
Current hosts or small portfolios who want a sharper operating read.
A focused engagement: a candid assessment and a clear plan — pricing, positioning, operations, compliance — on Yuri's twenty years and Jake's operating record. One-time, or ongoing.
And the individual pieces
- Property Care
- Home-watch for owners who use the home themselves or pause renting: regular checks, maintenance coordination, and seasonal snow/freeze prep.
- Scoped · inquire
- A-la-carte
- The individual pieces, on their own: photography, listing setup, dynamic pricing, compliance, and more.
- Scoped · inquire
We don't take every homeIf it's not a fit, we'll tell you.
We tell you the truthNo overpromising, ever.
100% transparent reportingYou see every dollar, every month.
Fair, transparent termsPlain language — no hidden fees, no traps.
No pressure, no pitch. If it's not a fit, we'll say so — and Yuri reads every inquiry personally.
憩Partner with us
Tell us about your home.
Yuri reads every inquiry personally — expect a real reply, not an autoresponder.
yuri@ikoihomes.comPart of The Xenia Network
Held to one standard.
Run within The Xenia Network — a founder-led collection of hospitality companies sharing one operating standard, with guest care by Xenia Hospitality Operations.
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