Setting up STR to be more "hands off"

[Justin Knighten]

I'm new to the STR game with 2 rentals, and they've gotten to where they are requiring a fair amount of input. One is in our front yard, the other is about 45 minutes away. I'm a firefighter, and can generally handle any non-emergent maintenance (and don't really mind doing so), and the accounting/paperwork sides of things aren't a problem, I can find a few hours a week to take care of that. The burden at this point is being responsive to messages, booking inquiries and the like. My wife was helping, but she starts a new job this week. Days I'm off work, I can handle it, but if I'm at work, I shouldn't be spending the day on the phone dealing with rental issues. My sister is a stay-at-home mother and is open to being what it looks like most are calling a "co-host". She'd be the person that answers messages and such when we're unable to. Does anyone have any suggestions or tips on how we could set this up to get us out of the business? I'm unsure of how the pay would work for this as well. It doesn't seem that it would take a lot of time from her, just a few minutes here and there, mostly being available when something comes in. Thanks in advance for any help!

[Luke Carl]

There are dozens and dozens of management softwares that will do the Dirty work 

[John Underwood]

My property is very hands off. I spend a few minutes a week checking the calendar and prices and maybe answering a pre booking question.

I have a guest book at the house that should answer about any question they have. 

My most common question is can I bring my boat and tie it up at your dock or where can I rent a boat?

If you are having maintenance issues while people are there you need to do some upgrades to make sure you minimize the risk of something not working or breaking while your guests are there.

[Justin Knighten]

Maintenance issues are minimal, the impetus for looking into this was a toilet problem on a Sunday a few weeks ago.  We aren't getting daily issues, but that one took a while to deal with while I was at work.  

I'm not incredibly tech savvy.  I do have a yourporter account and I'm trying out pricelabs for the pricing.  Is this one of the softwares to automate things that I should be using more of?  How so?

[Collin Hays]

As you point out, the management of a STR is a job. But's not unlike anything else you manage - your household, your personal car and home maintenance, and of course your career. And while there are many wonderful software packages to assist with managing a STR, you are correct - someone still has to take care of issues as they arise. Plugged toilets, reservation changes, guests getting stuck in show, and so on. And someone has to interact with that software; nothing in life is fully automated.

It might be the perfect gig for your sister-in-law if she is a stay-at-home mom.  Someone to check emails a couple of times a day, answer phone calls, and dispatch whomever, whenever, to take care of whatever.  I would suggest just arriving at an hourly rate that the two of you feel is fair.  While it is true that her work will be sporadic, you are essentially compensating her to be "on-call" for your business and to make executive decisions on your behalf while you, yourself, are busy.  

Good luck, and keep us posted as to how this works out!  

[Kenneth Garrett]

@Justin Knighten

I use my cleaning company who also takes care of minor maintenance.  My management time is very small managing inquiries, guests questions, and monitoring my calendar.  

[Steven Mcnutt]

Hi Justin.

responding to what I think is the pointy end of your message:  "The burden at this point is being responsive to messages, booking inquiries and the like".

Similar situation, have two rentals, one up and running the other we just closed on and getting ready to rent.

The original plan was my wife was going to run the business but I've found myself handling the customer communications because she's just not the kind of person who monitors her phone and responds to alerts.

So far I have the routine communications automated and message templates to cover frequently asked questions.

Regarding booking inquiries I see that as sales activity; that's where buying decisions get made. I'm absolutely fine with owning that and developing my skill at converting those into bookings.  Only takes a few seconds to respond to an inquiry so I'm fine with it.

I have a handyman on retainer who lives nearby in case someone needs to get on site quickly to fix something (and a backup guy of course). I probably overpaid but I would rather error on the side of making sure my support people are on point and make me the priority while I learn the ropes of doing the operations stuff.  Also have an amazing cleaning crew that will alert me to anything they can't handle that needs attention.  The cleaners have access to the booking calendar and customer communications, and they adjust their schedule accordingly without me having to say anything.

looking forward to following your journey,

best regards,

-s

[Samuel Garrett]

@Justin Knighten there are a great number of companies that you can hire to be a co-host for your listings (for a nominal fee) and they can handle virtually every aspect of your business, minus access to the funds. Since you have YourPorter, it may make the transition easier as most use a multi channel similar to that one. Typically the fee can range from 20-40%. So you will have to see if that is worth freeing up your time. I am knowledgeable of one company, with a reputable standing, that charges in the 12% range and they are totally virtual. They do the heavy lifting of finding, interviewing, hiring cleaners, maintenance team etc. 

Hope this helps.

Happy investing!

[Justin Knighten]

@Steven Mcnutt

I have a lot of my messages (at booking, before check-in, morning after, and pre-check out) on a schedule through Airbnb.  That works fairly well, but I have had an issue with some of them not sending for one reason or another (no idea why).  Are these things better to have set up through something like Yourporter, or is that mostly valuable if your'e using multiple listing platforms? 

For the message templates, are they just pre written answers to common questions, i.e. "where can I rent a boat" that you have to select from a list to send, or does Airbnb pick out key words from a question and send the answer automatically? 

It also looks like Yourporter will automatically approve inquiries as well.  I'm a little apprehensive to do that, for example, if someone sends an inquiry asking "are you waterfront", and it automatically approves them, they book, then find out we aren't waterfront (or whatever the question is), am I setting myself up for disgruntled guests?  Maybe I'm reading too much into things, I'm still trying to feel this whole process out.  

[Steven Mcnutt]

@Justin Knighten I use a channel manager called hostaway.  Never seen Yourporter. 

The templates are predefined messages that I can populate with variables (like first name, number of days staying, phone number etc) to personalize.  I pick how I want to respond (in-app, SMS, email), and click the template I want to use.  works really well.

Personally, I would never automate inquiries.  As you point out there are so many ways that can go wrong.  Automation is great for routine messages/consistency of experience, but the initial contact needs to be a real person imo.

[Jefferson Brown]

Hey Justin!  Just my two cents here but we just put up our 8th property in Florida (I live in Utah) and I might have some tips for you.  After 2 or 3 properties you really start to feel the tug of the inquiries on your personal life so we hired someone on Upwork and pay them $20 per booking to manage the inquiries and call the maintenance person when needed.  They speak perfect English and have phenomenal customer service skills.  Its really improved our business and allowed me to spend more time with my family.

I can't stand the thought of paying someone 20-30% of topline revenue to do this.  That could mean thousands of dollars per month for a single property and its just not worth that.  Let me know if you want some help in setting that up.

[Steven Mcnutt]

This is gold great stuff.

Originally posted by @Jefferson Brown:

Hey Justin!  Just my two cents here but we just put up our 8th property in Florida (I live in Utah) and I might have some tips for you.  After 2 or 3 properties you really start to feel the tug of the inquiries on your personal life so we hired someone on Upwork and pay them $20 per booking to manage the inquiries and call the maintenance person when needed.  They speak perfect English and have phenomenal customer service skills.  Its really improved our business and allowed me to spend more time with my family.

[Justin Knighten]

@Jefferson Brown

That's outstanding.  Sounds very similar to what I was thinking, just replacing a random person with family.  Even 10% for what I need sounds really high, the flat rate is appealing.  What kinds of stays are you getting in these properties?  We get a lot of 1 night stays, for around $150.  $20 per would be getting pretty pricy on those, but not so bad for the week long stays.  

[Jefferson Brown]

Originally posted by @Justin Knighten:

@Jefferson Brown

That's outstanding.  Sounds very similar to what I was thinking, just replacing a random person with family.  Even 10% for what I need sounds really high, the flat rate is appealing.  What kinds of stays are you getting in these properties?  We get a lot of 1 night stays, for around $150.  $20 per would be getting pretty pricy on those, but not so bad for the week long stays.  

@Justin Knighten

We don't go lower than two nights because most of our properties are larger (6+ bedroom) and attract the party crowds.  You're right that would be expensive for a one night stay.