Vacation Rental - Where to begin?

Question

I'm about to close on a property that will be my first vacation rental, so I'm starting from scratch. I'd really appreciate some advice about how to get started when I get the keys. One of the first things I think I should do is decide how my guests will get into the property and what sort of security features it will have. I've been looking at Lynx today and can't find anything about pricing. Seems like automating check-in would be smart. Does anyone have advice or recommendations about how to use technology inexpensively to automate and protect my investment and give guests a great experience? I'd love to get the place ready to rent by December. TIA

Michael Baum · Answer

Hey @Kelly Martinez! Welcome to the club! I agree with the other folks here, but seeing as you are starting from scratch, there are a ton of details you will need to cover.

Is the house furnished? Do you have all your linens? What kind of shape is your kitchen setup? How big is the house? Is it in San Antonio? What is your target demographic? Let us know all these things and I can help point you at what I am using to get those 5 star reviews.

Also, remember that your personal attentiveness will drive the guest experience. I speak to each and every one of my guests on the phone. Tell them some cool stuff to do for the family. Help them get space at the marina for their boat, get them introduced to our local boat rental folks, and on and on. I personally love doing it.

I think the kitchen is the key. I thought I did a good job setting it up for guests by planning it on what I would want. We get the best reviews on that alone. I had no idea how over the top we were, but it has paid off. I have about 50 spices in the cabinet for just about any kind of meal. Tons of pots, pans, bowls, glass pie pans...the list is loooong.

I go out of my way to buy quality stuff for the house. No, not a full set of All Clad, but I try to buy as much USA made stuff as I can.

This goes double for furniture. All of the stuff in our house is made in the USA. It is so much better made and it will just last. Solid woods look good and are durable. Going to Craigslist, Facebook marketplace, LetGO and OfferUp are all good places to find stuff. It took a while to get everything that matched well, but overall it looks great and is holding up really well.

The mattresses are something you need to buy new. I am using the Zinus Green Tea 12" on all the beds as well as at home. I put a 1.5" gel foam topper and a Serta waterproof padded cover over the whole thing. Everyone loves the beds. Zero complaints. 4 pillows on each bed. 2 shredded memory foam firm and 2 standard soft. No down. All hypoallergenic.

I love the Charisma lightweight quilts. They look awesome, are good for warmer climates, wash up well and they hang on the bed great! I love them things. They are very reasonable in price.

I highly suggest you use a 70/30 cotton/poly blend sheet (or there abouts) in a Percale weave. It is crisp feeling and cool sleeping. Sateen is not as durable IMHO. It will pill up. I tried them first and tossed them after a few guests. I use only white. You can use microfiber on kids beds as they don't care, but I would avoid them on the adult beds. I can't stand them and I am sure there are others. Everyone likes cotton and the poly blend keeps them nice looking. I use the Kohls Big One percale sheets. They go on sale at a very reasonable price, I am still on my first set going on 3 years. Still look great!

You will want at least 3 sets of linens per bed. I also provide a set on the shelf for guests if needed.

At least 2 bath towels per guest. All my towels are white. I would get dark washcloths embroidered with Makeup on them so people have them for removal instead of using your white towels.

So, fill in some blanks and I can help more.

Jon Crosby · Answer

Hi @Kelly Martinez, automating your management and guests experience is going to be the key to your success, along with great customer service of course.  I have always automated my check in with smart locks (Schlage w/ Nexia Hub) and used the last 4 digits of the guest's booking phone number.  This allows you to always be able to provide the same check-in instructions email to your guests.

While I use Evolve and they send their emails for checkin, I supplement theirs with my own Mailchimp campaigns that provides further info on their stay at my propertyies  All of this is powered by an automation engine I built using a free service called Automate.io that leverages my Google calendar to send tailored emails to my guests throughout their stay and automatically notifies my housekeeper of new and updated bookings.

At this point, barring a broken toilet or something, I only have to spend about 4 minutes on each of my bookings.  :)

Congrats on your first STR and best of luck on your future success!

Cheers!

Sean McDonnell · Answer

Start working on your check in and check out instructions now. You dont want to end up like me and my wife, writing the check in instructions the night before our first guests checked in and writing the check out instructions the night before our first guests checked out haha.. It is probably self explanatory, but we missed a few things..

Avery Carl · Answer

Hi Kelly! You’ll definitely need a digital or smart lock. There are quite a few options for this but my biggest piece of advice is to keep it simple. Some of the models will require that you be present with your phone/app to reconnect to the internet if for some reason it gets disconnected, so make sure you check that feature on all potential models.

The simpler your systems, the lower the amount of potential problems you’ll run into. So find the happy medium between technology and ease of use and you’ll be good to go.

Paul Sandhu · Answer

You can also rent them to working people with a per diem.  Travelling refinery contractors are the tenants in my 23 STRs.  Your hardest part will probably be the cleaning/restocking between occupancies.

Nathan Gesner · Answer

Some great advice here. I agree about using quality products. Avoid filling the kitchen with complicated devices like a simple coffee pot instead of a fancy espresso machine, a hand blender instead of a Tilt-head mixer with six attachments, or a  Crock-Pot instead of an Instapot that can be complicated or dangerous.

As for sleeping arrangements, I recommend an "ideal" number of guests and a maximum. For example, my rental is priced for six guests but will take up to ten with an additional fee for each guest above six. Extra guests increases wear-and-tear and likelihood of problems.

electronic locks are nice but avoid anything linking to Bluetooth or WiFi. They are too complicated for some, easy to hack, and have a propensity to fail. Schlage and others make great electronic locks that are easy to program new codes, master codes, temp codes, etc. You can also consider a manual lockbox with keys inside but tenants may lose the keys or accidentally leave with them.

Flights taking off so I'll leave it at that.

Ola Dantis · Answer

@Kelly Martinez If there is constant internet at the property, then you should definitely check out the Nest Yale Lock.

It is amazing, as you can assign passcode for a particular day range (for guests) or even time range (for cleaners).

We've used it and it works perfectly!

Paul Sandhu · Answer

Advertise that it is new and being furnished as you are reading this ad.  Put in a tentative completion date and explain that you are acquiring furniture.  If it was me, I'd mention something about being the first couple to "break in" a the new bed.  Wink wink.  But you're not me, and we deal with different types of renters.  My renters would break in the new bed with a hooker.

Shelby Pracht · Answer

@Kelly Martinez

Congrats and good luck!

Everyone raves about the smart locks, and they are definitely nice, but we've had very little problems with just including a key in a lockbox by the front door, giving the guest the four digit code 2 days prior to check in.

Vacation Rental - Where to begin?

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