Top managers and management companies

[Brian T. Grooms]

Any of you STR investors out there that can give a shout out to your management companies if you have them? Who are they and in what markets?

I know there are a lot of anti 3rd party management owners out there, I don't blame you for lots of reasons. But I also believe depending on your strategy good management companies do exist even if few and far between that bring you lots of value and worth paying for. 

[John Underwood]

No one has more incentive than you the owner to take care of your property.

After paying a 30% PM fee or more off the Gross income then only person that is guaranteed to make money is the PM. 

Vrbo and Airbnb give you the tools to successfully self manage your property. Add a cleaning company to handle turnovers and you are off and running and pocketing the high priced PM fee.

[Joshua Strickland]

I am a self manager through and through and have no experience with a 3rd party management company in my markets, however I’ve heard Panhandle Getaways is good if you’re in the Florida panhandle market.

With that said if I ever did switch to a management company I’d rely on a smaller local company versus the big ones like Vacasa and Evolve. I’ve stayed in STRs that they managed and seem to always have issues. Full disclosure I’m pretty biased though. Like @John Underwood said, no one will take care of your property as well as you.

[Paul Sandhu]

I see a great one in the mirror behind my set of free weights.

[Tanner Morrill]

Hey Brian, I run a small firm in Nashville metro & Salt Lake City. 30% is definitely too much. Before you choose anyone you could ask how their fees are structured (I keep it super simple) and what their response time is (you can see this on AirBnb). Ask what they do to prevent parties and increase security in general. They should have smart locks with changing access codes upon checkout. Cleaning can't be understated. They've got to have a handle on their cleaners or have in house cleaners who follow the standards. Set up fees can be around $5k, but we can work something out if we work together. Also are they tracking rental rates year over year? Are their occupancies over 80%? Lots of questions. Good luck. 

[John Underwood]

Originally posted by @Paul Sandhu:

I see a great one in the mirror behind my set of free weights.

 Is 10lbs still classified as free weights?