All Forum Posts by: Bill Ames

@Bill Ames

Sounds good. Definitely check if they are charging incoming guests as well. I usually tell people for the first season is to have the rental company manage since it gives a better sense of issues that come up and better ideas on pricing and how to handle customer issues. 

Two things, I completely forgot in my last update to flag which is another reason to do Self Management

1- Management companies won't allow hosts to have linens on the bed and in some cases towels. Guest in OC has to rent linens which can be pricey for several beds and weekly rental. 

Outside of the net revenue, that is probably one of the main reasons that I switched. I personally don't like guests renting linens and having them make the bed after a long journey on the road.  Additionally, the linens are sometimes not the best quality.

Not sure why they haven't allowed it. There is an initial sunk cost for linens and towels but I have gotten better reviews due to it. There are great places online where you can get affordable linens/towels.

2- The other main reason is that when you are with a rental company. Your VRBO and Airbnb listing will be done through their account. So any positive reviews you get will be under their account. In the sense that if you ever leave that management company, those reviews won't transfer to your account. I asked multiple rental companies if they will be willing to be co-host so if I decide to leave their management company in 1 or 2 years. I would still have those reviews under my account.  It's much harder to leave a management company if they have several years of reviews and you have to start from scratch after leaving them.

I wanted to give an update on my last post

Compared to 2021 when I had Coastal Rental management managing it. My revenue went up 30% this past summer (2022) which doesn't include the 12% that Coastal rental charged for their management.

Which is a sizable difference. Using the online system Pricelab which is linked here https://pricelabs.co/users/sig... was one of the main reasons for that. Additionally, it was able to get me some additional rentals in September which was a happy surprise.  Highly recommend Pricelab and also turnoverbnb which automated the cleaning.

One thing I will mention is if you have a larger house and have room for additional entertainment. I recommend buying 1 to 2 Arcade1up game machines which can be bought from $300 to $500 and are very popular with kids. Specials can be seen here https://slickdeals.net/newsear... Pac-Man is probably the top one to get.  I don't have room in my rental but for my WV rental. This has been a very popular entertainment option for kids and adults.

Tagging: @Bill Ames @Bill Ames

Update August 2, 2022.

Wanted to give an update on what I have learned from my first summer without a rental company in Ocean City

A couple of things, we used Coastal rental last year and I think they charged us 12% which is low. But realized that they were changing the guest a fee as well.  Coastal Rental was good to us and did a good job. So if you need to have a property management company, they will work.

However, if you want to self-manage and I would say is the best route to go. Mainly since my revenue shot up 45% and we don't have the 12% fee from the property management. So our net income went up a good amount. For our 3 bedroom/ 2 bath property, we are on target to hit $50k and maybe more depending if we get a September booking. Next year will aim for $55k. To give some context, with Coastal Rental last year, we made about $35k. 

Below is what I learned which should help most of you increase revenue and also reduce work.
It's a good playbook and hoping to improve on it in the next few months.

1- Set up Airbnb/VRBO listing. 

2- Get professional photos. There are several in the area.
I used www.SvetlanaLeahy.com

3- Hire someone from Fiverr to write a professional title/description for Airbnb. Which you can use for VRBO
I used: https://www.fiverr.com/andrewb...

4- Hire a cleaning staff. I found this great site that now does everything automatically for me at https://turnoverbnb.com/
I would interview 3 to 4 cleaners personally at the property. I can give you the cleaner that I'm using if you want their name
Basically, Turnoverbnb connects to your Airbnb and Vrbo calendar. You add a credit card to Turnoverbnb. And the rest is automated.
So the cleaning staff knows when the person leaves and cleans it and it's charged to your CC. You also get alerts on when they start and finish.
They also help with inventory and can do custom checklists.  This alone has saved me a ton of time. It's been great. I wish they had it for my WV property :) 

5- I use https://touchstay.com/ for my digital guidebook and it's worked really well. I used to have a paper version but this has helped a lot since I can change content pretty quickly

6- The remaining is communication with the guest which is vital, I have it automated through lodgix but that is a vacation rental management system that I tapped into through VRBO and Airbnb. That might be a bit too much setup for most people. Since it does reporting and other misc services. So I'm trying to locate a much easier service for people to use for communication.

7- This isn't needed. But since I'm a web developer, I created a website at https://pineapplebayoc.com/, if you know how to create a website. This is a good option to have. It adds some value but not a lot if you are not tech inclined or don't want to build a website. 

8- Hire a good handyman. There are several in the area

9- Have a big owners closet to put extra items in it (i.e. hand/bath/dish towels, toilet paper, etc)

10. AND by far the best thing that has driven my revenue up is using https://hello.pricelabs.co/, it's a service that will connect to your VRBO and Airbnb and automatically adjust the price daily based on demand and supply. I just found out about this service this year. I wish I found it earlier. You put the lowest and highest price and pricelabs does the rest. To determine the low and high, you can either check out your competition through Airbnb or use https://www.airdna.co/ which shows what other XXbed/XXbath charges.  One thing I will say is that Coastal rental price list that they sent us last summer, the highest price they had per day was $425. For this summer season, I increased that to $550 with a higher minimum and it worked well. Next week, I plan to increase that a bit higher for both min/max. Also, I do a 3-night minimum. 

Hopefully, this helps any current or future rental owners. I will add more later.

I spend about 15 minutes a week managing the property

@Bill Ames

How was the first year?