Negotiating w/a Property Manager

[Anne-Marie Singer]

Newbie here. First STR property about to go live; just finished renovation. I am ready to list the property and have interviewed a couple of vacation home property managers who are pursuing the listing. They both charge 22%, which is typical in our market for high-end beach vacation rentals. I would love to hear any tips, insights, etc, from those who have worked with property managers. For example, I want to ensure that the listings on VRBO, Airbnb, and other platforms belong to us and not them, so that if/when we terminate the contract, we retain the history, reviews on our property. I don't know what I don't know, so I appreciate all of your feedback. Thank you-

[Collin Hays]

Quote from @Anne-Marie Singer:

Newbie here. First STR property about to go live; just finished renovation. I am ready to list the property and have interviewed a couple of vacation home property managers who are pursuing the listing. They both charge 22%, which is typical in our market for high-end beach vacation rentals. I would love to hear any tips, insights, etc, from those who have worked with property managers. For example, I want to ensure that the listings on VRBO, Airbnb, and other platforms belong to us and not them, so that if/when we terminate the contract, we retain the history, reviews on our property. I don't know what I don't know, so I appreciate all of your feedback. Thank you-

 From a property manager's standpoint:

For liability and contractual reasons, we have to retain liability of the listings on the major platforms. Part of the reason you are hiring a Property Manager is to shield yourself from liability. And vice versa - the PM doesn't want to co-manage with you because ultimately, it may be present them with risk that they have no control over.

We do not have annual contracts with notice periods, etc. We offer a service agreement, and it can be ended by either party for good cause, bad cause, or no cause. If the relationship isn't working for one or both of the parties, both need to be able to pick up and move on without fuss.  In fact, we just exercised our own termination on a client about a month ago who was driving my team crazy.

You want to find out if they are getting to you in other ways besides the 22%.  Are they charging outrageous booking fees that they don't share? If so, you aren't really getting 78% of rents.  What sort of credit card fee are they charging you?  I hear of companies charging 5% for this, when their real fee is 3%.  So that's 2 percentage points more that they get from you.  

Do they upcharge repairs and maintenance?  A lot of companies mark up these items and make them profit centers. Are they allowed use of your place for a week or two per year for "marketing" purposes?  Very common.  Unscrupulous PMs use this to barter with various vendors to line their own pockets.

I knew a manager in eastern TN, still in business by the way, who had 2 weeks of use of each property per year for "marketing purposes."  He had around 40 cabins, so that's 80 weeks total of inventory that he used to barter for things for himself.  Car repairs, firewood, laundry and dry cleaning, a side of beef from the local grocer, lawn care, you name it.  He is living fat and happy just off of those 80 weeks he barters.

And if you think PMs are dishonest, you ought to see some of the homeowner clients I've come across!  ;)

Good luck!