Experiences with Red Awning?

[Solomon Price]

Good morning,

We are a smaller (looking to scale) PMC in Central Florida. We are getting our PMS hooked up with all of the different booking channels when we arrived upon Red Awning. They talk a good game, and I'm looking for anyone who has experience working with them, either as a PMC, owner, or guest. As a small team, dealing with one company to handle all of the different booking channels looks very attractive to us, but many reviews online don't seem great.

Any advice?

[Brooklyn McCarty]

I would bypass them. 

Self management is the way to go. You have control over your properties, your guests, and your money. You aren’t paying that 15-20+% to a PMS. 

Check out Avery Carls book, Short Term Rental, Long Term Wealth. It teaches you all this. How to sync your calendars, how to manage, handle reviews, etc. very quick, easy read. 

[Brian Barch]

I’ve heard of them, but not any reviews personally. How much do they charge? I wouldn’t pay more than 15%….

I wanted to throw some counter advice out there. I totally understand that the math usually pencils out in favor of self managing, much like it does for mowing my own lawn. However, I think the route that is best for each individual will depend on your goals and your personality type.

I don’t want to have to respond to guest inquiries and coordinate cleaners, I just don’t. I understand why others say it’s not difficult, however with 3 kids and a big boy job, I don’t want to spend my Xmas vacay answering a bunch of requests. I like the mental piece of mind knowing there is a buffer (PM there). It also means I can scale. They stay on top of SEO and dynamic pricing, and back to back stays, etc. they work with the hot tub person and the pest guy, etc.

[Solomon Price]

Quote from @Brian Barch:

I’ve heard of them, but not any reviews personally. How much do they charge? I wouldn’t pay more than 15%….

I wanted to throw some counter advice out there. I totally understand that the math usually pencils out in favor of self managing, much like it does for mowing my own lawn. However, I think the route that is best for each individual will depend on your goals and your personality type.

I don’t want to have to respond to guest inquiries and coordinate cleaners, I just don’t. I understand why others say it’s not difficult, however with 3 kids and a big boy job, I don’t want to spend my Xmas vacay answering a bunch of requests. I like the mental piece of mind knowing there is a buffer (PM there). It also means I can scale. They stay on top of SEO and dynamic pricing, and back to back stays, etc. they work with the hot tub person and the pest guy, etc.

 I appreciate the insight. They charge 13% (10% commission 3% payment processing fee). We are a property management company utilizing a PMS, so the cleaning/pest/etc coordination isn't something we are too concerned about.

The advantage to us is that they put our units on all the different booking channels (vrbo, airbnb, expedia, etc) for us, and they handle things like chargebacks, guest complaints, etc. 

The major downside is that the guests don't have a way to directly reach us, unless we directly reach out to them first. The properties also end up slightly more expensive, as we would be marking it up before handing them to Red Awning, and then Red Awning marks them up a second time to pay the booking channels commission. This ends up making the property 20% or so more expensive, without us actually seeing any of that money.

[Michael Baum]

So @Solomon Price, they charge 13% for what? 10% just to answer inquires and book the place? Seems like a waste of 10%.

[Tyler Gibson]

Quote from @Solomon Price:

Good morning,

We are a smaller (looking to scale) PMC in Central Florida. We are getting our PMS hooked up with all of the different booking channels when we arrived upon Red Awning. They talk a good game, and I'm looking for anyone who has experience working with them, either as a PMC, owner, or guest. As a small team, dealing with one company to handle all of the different booking channels looks very attractive to us, but many reviews online don't seem great.

Any advice?

 You should make your listing and handle the guest services. you can use tools like price labs for pricing and guestly to manage multiple booking sites and coordinate calendars as well as build out automation for communications with guests.

[Mason Jeffries]

@Solomon Price I was under contract to buy a property that was under Red Awnings management. The guest reviews of the property reflected poor management in more than one way.

[Solomon Price]

Quote from @Michael Baum:

So @Solomon Price, they charge 13% for what? 10% just to answer inquires and book the place? Seems like a waste of 10%.

 The primary thing we are interested in is that they get us on all booking channels. AirBNB, VRBO, Expedia, Google Travel, etc. This is something we have found very difficult to do with some channels, mostly due to poor communication and delays. We are currently live on our own with TopVillas and VRBO, but everyone else has been a bit of a mess, except for Hopper.

This may be due to us wanting to integrate each booking channel with our PMS, instead of direct listing with each one.

[Todd Goedeke]

@Brian Barch you are like many other investors who prefer to or are required to by the IRS to be a passive investor.Many professionals; attys.,doctors,dentists, athletes, business owners, executives,and charitable foundations hire management companies to run their RE investments.

You don t have to share profits with a management company. There is another option that makes a management company have more at risk.

Leasing your property to a management company removes an investo completely from the management process. In particular, triple net(NNN) or master leases, allow you to lock in fixed returns of 20%+

STVRs held inside a retirement plan like a Solo 401k require the investor to be passive with no managing of the property.

Compare the ROI between leasing or sharing management with a management company before choosing which type of management arrangement is best for you.

[Todd Goedeke]

@Solomon Price why don t you hire a marketing firm to get you direct reservations paying them 6-8% of ADR for each reservation made direct. That way you are not layering on more marketing fees ( 10-15%)on top of what all the platforms like Airbnb and Vrbo charge.

[Solomon Price]

Quote from @Todd Goedeke:

@Solomon Price why don t you hire a marketing firm to get you direct reservations paying them 6-8% of ADR for each reservation made direct. That way you are not layering on more marketing fees ( 10-15%)on top of what all the platforms like Airbnb and Vrbo charge.

 Any examples or recommendations for these kinds of companies?

[Sara Levy-Lambert]

look up awning airbnb management, they manage several properties in that area, rates start at 15% for full-service management
As someone pointed out, they are indeed not full-service and 10% for 1/4 of the work is really not great. 

[Michael Baum]

Hey @Solomon Price, so AirBNB and VRBO are all you really need. Maybe Booking.com once they get the revamp done for STRs.

TopVillas? Never heard of that one. Why not AirBNB?

You can still integrate with the PMS if they have APIs for each platform, especially VRBO and AirBNB.

[Jon Martin]

Quote from @Michael Baum:

So @Solomon Price, they charge 13% for what? 10% just to answer inquires and book the place? Seems like a waste of 10%.

 Exactly. They don't coordinate cleaners, field guest complaints, send a handyman etc. 13% for price optimization and listing . . .. LOLZ

[Todd Goedeke]

@Solomon Price contact companies or people who are experts at small business social media marketing; You Tube, Facebook, Instagram . What you want is a marketing “ success” reservationist who connects vacationers to your landing page for each property. 
If you want a couple referrals pm me thru FB messenger.