Does anyone recommend a company called Evolve?

[David Morrison]

My question is: should I use Evolve to help me with my vacation rental. I just bought a house that I am considering renting it out as a vacation home. The house is in Clairemont, San Diego about 4 miles away from the beach. I heard of a company called Evolve. Evolve helps owners with 1. market your property on all major sites 2. Guests inquiries and reservations 3. Guest communication 4. Some on the ground services. Like Housecleaning. They charge 10%. This house would be my first vacation rental. I live near the property And was wondering if I need this service and would it help me as much as they say they do. Hoping it could help me bring in more bookings. Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

[Luke Carl]

In my market (Gatlinburg pigeon forge) I’ve bought two cabins that were managed by evolved because they were sinking ships costing the owners big money. I turned a 200k property from negative numbers to 40k gross over night.

Not everyone is crazy enough to self manage like me lol

Just last light I had an instant book. 10 minutes later they’re giving me this long speech about how amazing their dog is and can they bring him with. I said no we are dog free as the listing states. There are 10,000 cabins if you want to bring your dog please cancel and find one this is dog friendly.
This went back and forth for an hour before I finally convinced them to cancel. Which is what you have to do. It was an AirBnB. If I cancel them myself they ding me big time and take away my Superhost. So I have to convince them cancel and NOT stay at my property.

It wasn’t about the dog. It was the fact that they instant booked and THEN asked me about the dog. Huge red flag and guaranteed trouble. At the very least they would just lie and bring the dog anyway and I don’t want to do business with people like that. Why don’t I turn off instant book? Because AirBnB dings you for that too.

Watch Black Mirror Nosedive on Netflix if you want to get an idea what it’s like in the self management business.

The good news is I did all of this from the beach in the Cayman Islands with a beer in my hand. It interrupted my book reading for a while, poor me.

10% with evolve is really 50% because you’ll be 40% less booked.

Happy renting!