STR Self Managers - What's Your Monthly Mgmt Costs?

[Anthony R.]

Hi All,

Things are moving forward with getting my STR up and running by end of next month. I'm still on the fence about self-managing remotely vs a local PM company. Those of you who self-manage remotely, have you ever done a breakdown of your monthly costs? Based on what I've read here and elsewhere, below is my (educated?) guess for what it would cost me per month to self manage.

50 Guesty/OwnerRez/Whatever
50 For miscellaneous I might be missing on this list
30 Detergent & cleaners
20 PriceLabs - Dynamic Pricing
20 Linens
10 Trash bags
Total: $180/mo | $2160/yr

My 1bd/1ba is not going to be bringing in beaucoup bucks, just based on its size. At my best projections, the difference between self-managing and outsourcing responsibilities to a PM is less than $3k. It'd be nice to have ~$3k in my pocket, but at my price-point maybe that's a "convenience fee" to myself for getting to be hands-off?

Thoughts? Thanks again--ya'll are amazing!
P.S.: Mrs R is not too keen on getting into the PM biz, which I totally understand; she is busy with a lot of other things.

[Randy Dubiskas]

I self manage a property 6 hours away. I guess your list has some expendable cleaning items, laundry items, etc. I have bought supplies, left them in owners storage and had the cleaning crew draw from the storage as needed. We go out and visit from time to time to replenish. I guess I have seen some that charge 10% just for photos, staging and marketing and leave you to do all the things you are costing out anyway. If you can get a reliable cleaning crew, the management part is not really all that hard. I only have one property as an STR, so I do not use Guesty or Owner Rez. I did hire a bookkeeper, though because the tracking on this and my long term rentals was getting to be time consuming. I don't pay for pricelabs, as VRBO has a nice feature called "Marketmaker". I use that and the Enemy method per Luke Carl. I have found electricians and plumbers that I give a code when work needs to be done. Main thing is that I care about how the guests view my property and I don't think a corporate or 3rd party manager would do that. After talking to management companies, I would still be paying for most of the same things anyway, so I decided to give a go without them. So far so good. AirBNB had a mentorship program and hooked me up with an experienced host that I could ask questions. That was huge.