How to scale housekeeping and laundering of linens

Question

I only have 10 listings currently but my goal is to ramp this up pretty rapidly towards 50+ units and I can already see housekeeping and linens being my #1 stumbling block.

Linens: We do houses not apartments for the most part so there is no washing the linens in the unit option; there's just no time between guests during a turnover. Right now the cleaners take them home to launder and maybe that's the scalable solution but I pay them extra for that and they still hate it. Commercial laundries and even local wash and fold places work but they're expensive and they could care less about getting stains out it seems and that's a big thing to save on linens.  I've even considered putting a bunch of washers and dryers in a house I own and paying someone there to just wash linens all day. Any ideas?

Housekeepers: This one is critical because finding people to clean is easy but as you know this is SOOOOO much more than just cleaning. It's staging, it's minor maintenance, basic property care, etc. so getting someone and training them on the way it has to be done is a big process and it seems hard to scale because right now I have 2 cleaners which is great but what happens when I have 8 checkouts on the same day? Right now we struggle with 5 same day checkouts. Houses just take a LOT longer to turn than a small 1BR condo. Any ideas or wisdom?

Lauren Kormylo · Answer

@Robert Gilstrap  Someone here mentioned awhile back that they pay their cleaner the regular fee, and if the next guest leaves a 5 star review that mentions how clean the unit was, that cleaner gets a bonus of $15.  So they are really motivated to stay on top of things.

Boris Mordkovich · Answer

Hey @Robert Gilstrap,

As you begin to scale, have you considered using a linen rental service? These services would essentially rent you linens, handle all of the washing, as well as replacements. You'd still have to figure out the logistics of getting the linens from your units to them and back, but they would probably be best suited for handling this at scale and ensuring quality control.

I'm not sure exactly who operates in your market, but this would be an example of a such company: https://crownlinen.com/linen-s...

Boris

Robert Gilstrap · Answer

@Sean McDonnellWe have 3 sets per bed now and carry one to the unit with us and strip everything and bag it up to be cleaned off site by the housekeepers. I've been paying them a small amount to do that (not enough).

@John Underwood Yeah relying too heavily on any one company or person is my worry as we scale. I think I'm inclined to give 5-6 houses to each person/team/cleaner and that becomes "their baby" and then just split revenue on what the unit brings in net profit. This way I get their interests aligning with mine. Just gotta figure out that percentage!

@Boris Mordkovich I did look at one linen rental service but I didn't crunch the numbers 100% so I guess I'll revisit that. I think for getting them too/from places I can use runners or task rabbit or services like that.

Account Closed · Answer

@Robert Gilstrap  If you self manage and your properties are in one market then you could consider owning the whole operations - management, maintenance, cleaning biz, linens, etc - and being vertically integrated. Get offsite commercial washers and dryers.  Consider having a dedicated person that just handles linens and making the beds between guests, while others divvy up cleaning duties.  At 50+ units I would think you could hire a property manager that can oversee this operation and give them some sort of equity or alternative compensation...and you could probably start that now with 10 properties.  If you get the right manager then that person can set up the operation.

Robert Gilstrap · Answer

@Michael Hefferon  Just do it is the only advice I have. There is a reason virtually all hotels do sheeting this way.

Michael Hefferon · Answer

@Robert Gilstrap We're in New Jersey. And that makes total sense. Both on using all the same and having the cleaners responsible for pickup and dropoff.

We tried triple sheeting in two of our large 5 bedroom houses and we received a bit of pushback. Some from the weeklong guests in summer and mostly from the owners during their use. It made a big positive difference for our team to cut out the duvet covers though. Any tips on implementing this?

Robert Gilstrap · Answer

@Michael Hefferon All our properties are cleaned by independents and we never launder linens in the property (no time). They show up with a clean set in a laundry bag we packed from our warehouse and then they leave with the dirty linens in the same bag coming back to our laundry so they can't use the excuse there's no room in their car.

We use the same type linens in every property with very few exceptions. I don't necessarily "require" the exact same linens but after I explain to owners how much more its gonna cost them to launder their cheap Amazon micro fiber sheets because they have to be handled and treated completely differently than the other 1000 lbs of laundry for that day then they realize the math doesn't favor them. Plus commercial linens last longer and look better. Also since we do triple sheeting on all our beds and use standard pillows on all beds it's just not practical for an owner to not use commercial linens. Where you gonna find a set of king sheets on Amazon that has 5 standard pillow cases and 2 flat sheets in the pack? You aren't.

What market is your laundry guy in?

Michael Hefferon · Answer

@Robert Gilstrap - Congrats! Thats a nice increase in portfolio count. And great move on purchasing a laundromat. I looked into this a bunch thinking it could be its own profit center still allowing walk-ins. Just couldn't find a space that worked and then found the awesome hospitality laundromat we use today.

Do you require all your homes to use the same linens? And how are you handling dropoff/pickups between houses? Our cleaning team doesnt have the room to fit the giant linen bags in their vehicles and buying a transit van just for this feels overkill at the moment.

I'm happy to make an intro to the owner of the facility we use, if you'd like. He's a mad scientist with water temp, soak time, the chemicals etc. And he gets stains out every time. Its truly impressive. Just shoot me a DM if so

Robert Gilstrap · Answer

@Michael Hefferon well 2 years later and many more units (we're at 46 right now) just made it a larger problem on the linen front. My first solution was to fill a rental house with residential washers and dryers and pay someone to do laundry all day. That worked for a while but we really didn't have the space to put a large amount of equipment in the house plus there are other issues like gas line size, electrical requirements, drain lines, water lines, etc. I will say it worked well for about a year but we still had issues with stains and residential washers just flat don't clean the same as commercial equipment. Then I went down the path of replacing the residential equipment in the house with commercial/industrial equipment but that poses even more challenges like cost, size/weight of the units, infrastructure of utilities, etc. So my last and current solution was I ended up just buying a laundromat! So far that has fixed the volume problem but we're still refining our process to cover stains but it has gotten exponentially better just using commercial equipment.

I would love to talk to anyone who is at a decent amount of doors about logistical challenges in growing the portfolio so hit me up!

Michael Hefferon · Answer

@Robert Gilstrap - Which direction did you go and how is it working two years later now?

We're in a similar position with 20 properties under mgmt today. They're all luxury beach houses with an average of 5 beds per house and we have a mix of laundering onsite, sending out to a local wash and fold, and a central linen program. Houses that want to be in our central program, have to buy 3 sets of a specified sheet set and then they are laundered off site at a special facility that handles most of the hotels in our area. They are specially handled with a hospitality mindset to ensure all stains are removed and then ironed. Streamlining has been excellent for us and I'm now working to get everyone over onto this same program.

How to scale housekeeping and laundering of linens

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