Help critiquing our direct-booking site. What updates should we make?

[Brian Kantor]

Hi, everyone. We've been reliant on Airbnb and VRBO for renting out our STR in Vermont ski country.

We've had success to date, but after listening to BP's Real Estate Rookie Podcast episode 680, the guest Mark Simpson discussed how owners are beholden to the whims of these platforms. As they change their pricing and algorithms, we simply need to "take what comes". In addition, negative reviews on these platforms from unruly guests can really screw things up for future bookings.

TLDR, he suggested creating a direct booking site, which we did. We have it linked to our OwnerRez property management software which also plugs into Airbnb and VRBO. Would love some feedback on what we've built and learn what some of you who have been successful in doing this already have on your sites that may be lacking in ours. 

If you have a moment, please take a look and provide any critiques you have. Thanks in advance!

[Brian Kantor]

Quote from @John Underwood:

Looks great.

Did you build the site yourself?

What did you go about creating the direct booking site?

 Thanks, @John Underwood! I've built my own Wordpress sites in the past, but I've found the cost vs time commitment better to contract it out. This was actually my first site that I did NOT build myself. I design the pages in Google Slides and then work with a Wordpress developer to build them into the actual pages themselves. I've now worked with this developer on two projects and have been very happy with their work. If you DM me, I can share my developer info.

As for the ability to accept the bookings themselves, I had already been using OwnerRez to sync my pricing and availability between VRBO and Airbnb, and they offer Wordpress widgets to connect their software to your site. The process was relatively simple and their customer services is excellent, but OwnerRez does take some time to get used to.