STR Tech Stack

[Alex Dixon]

Pulled this together for a RE Investor meet up on how "today's tech stack" is breaking down historical concerns of STRs being a time-suck for RE Investors when looking at either purchasing properties for STR deployment or evaluating assets for STR usage vs other strategies.

Got some great questions/feedback/thanks for walking the group through this and thought I'd share here.

I'm an IT Consulting guy by day & RE investor by night so getting into the details of all of the technology offerings, how they integrate, which capabilities overlap/don't, where integrated value sits, etc. exposes my nerdiness/love for this kind of stuff.

I spent close to six months looking at various vendors in the space, and below are some of the ones we ended up choosing (including one of our favorites, Hospitable).

Each of the hours underneath the categories refer to what I estimate the monthly time-savings are by deploying the technology within the box for us.

[Tom Dieringer]

Very nice!

I'm just choosing my stack right now and I actually thought Hospitable, Guesty and Logify were all similar services and I would only need one of them. Are you intentionally using all three just to pick up some of the services they each uniquely offer that don't overlap, and to be able to choose which ones are strong in a particular area?
 

[Alex Dixon]

Ah great question - I had pulled this together to showcase some of the similar tools that sit within the same "capability". So you're absolutely right from a PMS capability that some of the major players include Hospitable, Guesty, Lodgify, Ownerrez, etc. 

I went through demos of all of those, pulled together our evaluation criteria, etc. and then ended up choosing Hospitable (which we've been thrilled with).

[Garrett Brown]

Great information! 
You hit pretty much every angle here. I would throw in a few more out there for you like Listing optimization: Rankbreeze and Intellihost, Data Companies: AirDNA, Mashvisor, etc., and guest verification platforms like Superhog or Chekin.

@Tom Dieringer you are correct that they are similar services. I use Hospitable and that was my choice in the end as well after trying all 3. 

[Tom Dieringer]

Quote from @Alex Dixon:

Ah great question - I had pulled this together to showcase some of the similar tools that sit within the same "capability". So you're absolutely right from a PMS capability that some of the major players include Hospitable, Guesty, Lodgify, Ownerrez, etc. 

I went through demos of all of those, pulled together our evaluation criteria, etc. and then ended up choosing Hospitable (which we've been thrilled with).

Thanks, that makes much more sense and frankly, is a relief (I started wondering if I was missing something, lol.)  Another quick question Alex.  I can't discern the names of the these two tools.  When you have a second, names would be appreciated.  

[Andrew Steffens]

A few more to add if I may:

Remote Locks

- Lynx (what I use), RemoteLock, Operto

Pricing

- Add Beyond Pricing.  I used to use them and I like them before using Revmax now with live Rev Manager (for PM/large portfolio)

Channel Manager

- BookingPal, RentalsUnited

[Nathan Bisson]

Hey @Alex Dixon, great visual representation! Looks pretty similar to our tech stack. I've been using Hostaway for a few years and generally like the platform and the support.

We made a recent switch from Turno to Breezeway for better vendor/maintenance coordination. The early consensus is that it's an upgrade, but we have yet to really put it through its paces.

Stayfi has been great for locations where we have several rental cabins and want to maintain that resort-like feel. For individual properties, we've recently started using a QR code system for wi-fi and email capture to save on costs. Along with the rest of the stack, it all starts to add up as you scale! 

[Jesse Turner]

What, if anything, are people using for collecting guest feedback?

What do others use for prompting positive reviews or intercepting negative reviews?

[Bryan Vukelich]

Some great info here - thank you all for sharing.