All Forum Posts by: Rob Hilton

@Leslie Anne Morris, so you don't charge a fee for a late checkout?  Do they usually ask for one on the front end of the reservation, or during the stay?  It almost feels like a red flag if guests are asking for a checkout past 10am.  I always communicate to my cleaning team when I have guests asking for a late checkout, so that they can prepare themselves to potentially walk into a mess.  Have you had your cleaners show up past checkout time and guests are still there?  

@John Underwood I understand your logic on 1-night stays.  I actually don't allow 1-night stays at my FL beach property, but I do allow 1-night stays in Joshua Tree, where most stays are 2-night weekend stays, and so I don't turn away opportunities to make money during week nights.  People party on weekends as much as they will on a 1-night stay.  Market specific, I guess.  People tend to party in Joshua Tree, as far back as 1973 with Gram Parsons being the Legend.  Google that story. 

@Michael Baum, thank you for that insight.  I guess I could allow early or late checkin/checkout if I'm not booked on both ends.  I suppose it's really a matter of cleaning crew schedules.  I'm more than happy to allow early access if my cleaner is cool with it.  

Thanks for that Carolyn.  I actually make it a habit to always discuss these issues with my cleaners before I make a decision on early or late checkouts.  I have a rock star cleaning crew, and I treat them as such. 

Also, I would split all late checkout fees with my cleaners.  

Hey STR Family,

We are self managing an STR in Joshua Tree, and one of the most frequent inquiries I get is late checkout requests. Especially during this time of year in JT, we have A LOT of same day turns, and I simply do not want to offer late checkouts when our cleaners have such a high volume of turns. Our checkout is at 10am and I have backed checkin time to 3pm (from 4pm), which helps for 1-night stays. My thought is to charge a $50 fee for every 15 min past 10am checkout. My hope is that $100/hr will motivate people to wake up and check out. Have any of you done this? Have you built something like this into your AirBnB or VRBO pricing? I'm using Guesty and most of my pricing is coming from PriceLabs. Thoughts on this is appreciated.

Happy New Year, 

Rob

Hi BP Family, 

I'm located in SoCal, and I have an STR in Perdido Key, FL, and I'm moving away from a VERY BIG property management company and setting up self management. ANY recommendations or contact information for STR cleaners would be highly appreciated. I'm scouring social media sites, and I wanted to make sure that I checked here too. Many Thanks, and Merry Christmas.

Rob 

Thank you for the reply.  We found a cleaner. 

Kindly, 

Rob

Hey BP family, 

We are going to remote self management of our STR in Perdido Key, FL, and just wanted to know if anyone could recommend a local reliable cleaning service. We are scouring the Google machine, but I wanted to check here as well. Many thanks!

Rob

Quote from @William Beck:

Yeah I got a side-by-side comparo from my client with the following screenshot. I've edited for confidentiality sake but I'm quoting what the local property manager shared. 

This is good stuff to know and share with the BP Community: 

Hi ____,

Thanks for reaching back out!
It's also important to know that Vacasa is able to offer a lower fee because they charge guests extra booking/management fees that they keep 100% of, which means they have to charge a lower nightly rate. Here's a side-by-side example of a Vacasa property in the ____ development (left) alongside my listing (right):

You can see that while the total price for both properties is similar (within 5%), with Vacasa, they've marked up the cleaning fee to nearly double and have also added an 18% "Booking" fee In order to then stay price-competitive with other listings in the market, they've had to reduce the nightly rate to $85.33 per night, compared to the $124.95 in my listing.
In other words, assuming Vacasa pays their cleaners the same as I do (reportedly they pay closer to minimum wage, whereas I contract with highly-skilled professional cleaners), Vacasa is making $148.52 on this $534.29 booking and the owner is only making $204.80, whereas on my plan, I'm only making $93.71 out of the $553.37 booking and the owner is keeping $281.14. So despite the lower fee, Vacasa ends up keeping more of your money due to hidden fees.

*Updated post with better high def images of the booking summary breakdown*

 Thank you for sharing this.  More people need to see this.  

Hey BP Family, 

Just went under contract on an STR in JT. Any recommendations for homeowners insurance in JT area? Many thanks everyone.