All Forum Posts by: Sean O'Brien

I run a STR property management business and i'm trying to help a client get out of a Vacasa contract, but they are trying to tack on some crazy fees to let her out of the agreement.

 A client i'm trying to transition to my management company is looking to get out of her Vacasa contract, but they are being extremely difficult. One item on a point of contention is that they did a terrible job of setting pricing and allowed a guest to book for $800 on a weekend that should be ~ $2500. 

The guest booked via VRBO which has no financial penalties for the host to cancel. Vacasa is now saying that in order for her to cancel the reservation she might need to pay change fees for the guest to rebook. 

Does anyone have any advice on how to help guide the host out of this crummy situation Vacasa put them in?

If you are going to outsource management, nickle and diming on property management isn't the call. It's much more important to make sure the manager knows what they are doing instead of saving 2-3% here or there. 

Your putting your whole investment in their hands, so this is something you want to make sure you have the right partner for. 

I've been using guesty for hosts and it is decent, but I'm going to switch to hostaway due to the wider breadth of integrations and i like the look and feel of their direct bookings sites. 

 You can adjust prices on booking.com so that they are higher to make up for the larger commission fees. 

Additionally, for anyone new on booking.com be very careful when you are first setting up your property. You need to enable payments online, the default setting is that people can check into your property without having to pay. 

You can get some really sketchy guests there if you aren't careful. Once the prepayment is setup it is fine. 

If the numbers don't work, you aren't going to be able to force them to work. I'd recommend looking into other areas and saving the time/stress/money there. 

Systems and softwares will be your best friend. 

Definitely purchase a PMS, Guesty for hosts and Hostaway are well reviewed. This will handle all of your guest communications and make sure that your calendars are synced across airbnb, vrbo and booking.com 

-Splurge on the interior design, often times the interior design is a major differentiation between like properties. If it isn't your strong suit find a friend or family member who can help you out there. 

-Spend on the professional photos, all of the work/money you are investing is going into 20-30 photos, hire someone who has shot Airbnbs before if possible stage the property in a way that makes them emotionally connected to the property. Think smores by the fire place/ floaties in the pool/burgers on the grill etc. 

- Pricelabs for dynamic pricing is an incredible tool to help you manage your pricing. You can get pretty granular here with things like orphan day pricing, adjusting minimums as it gets closer to the actual date and creating seasonal pricing too. 

-I'd also purchase Airdna for your market for the month. It is 10 or 12 dollars and it will show you all of the top performing properties in the area. Look and see which ones are performing the best and try to incorporate as many of those elements as possible into your property. 

There are a few other things, but if you do all of these you will set yourself up for success. 

 Hi Julia, We have a property manager too, kind of awkward timing as we were literally switching when we got this bill. This should definitely be something they should be leading the charge on right? 

You can also go on AirBNB/Vrbo set the time frame for a month and see how much competition/ prices are at. 

It's manual but I haven't found anything better at it to give you a good sense of demand. 

 We appealed and they denied us somehow. I'm pretty dumbfounded about how this is shaking out rn