All Forum Posts by: Valerie Budd

I am just seeing this conversation thread. We are a nightly rental property manager for stand alone homes in the Branson market since 2005.  Rent Branson.  We do not act as realtors for buyers or sellers but are very familiar with our market place.  For the most part we

focus on homes/cabins (not condos).   Please feel free to reach out to me should you have any questions. 

@Clint Thezan We (Rent Branson Vacation rental property management company along side the buyer) have had success this past year in gaining permits from the county to allow an SFH conduct nightly rentals. It is a process but is achievable if the SFH is in the right area and meets the counties criteria. Specifically, these properties were in Stone county. For Taney you should make sure the property is located in an NR1 or Commercial zoned area that P & Z has rezoned in 2021.

We are a  vacation rental property manager in the Lake Tablerock area serving our owners and guests for over 17 years.  We have been asked to manage at Lake of the Ozarks.  At this time since our Branson market place is strong we have been focusing on our marketing place.  If you are interested in talking about our area of the Ozarks please reach out. 

What are you looking at financing?  A long term or str?  I use Oakstar Bank and work direct with MicAh Scott the VP.   They understand str very well.   The Springfield Business journal just listed top lenders and oakstar was number 1.  Another great option is Guaranty Bank work with The VP Kristy.  

@Wilson Hunter. Yes in regards to price labs workings you are correct. . Price labs does Work off of a base rate. In our area seasonality is a big part of our pricing strategy because of the nature of our market. We just do not believe that using price labs didn’t do very much additional to what our current pricing solution already does for us. It’s a very basic system, with not a lot of customizations available compared to other market products and compared to what we needed. It would’ve been double the work for us to try to use them even though they do have a seasonality function that could theoretically be used.

@Greg R.. Your comment is a generalization about property managers. Each property manager handles their business differently. Those items you talked about we incorporate into the cleaning fee so the guest pays those.

Quote from @Greg R.:

Quote from @Valerie Budd:

As each private managing owner is different each property manager company is different.  We are property managers and our pricing is higher than individuals.  In fact we had to stop using tools like Price Labs since they kept trying to bring down our rates.  
What you’re not taking into consideration is with a great p.m. their cost will be absorbed by the higher rates they book.   

Valerie, can you tell me how you're able to get higher rates as a PM company? Why would the guest care whether the property is managed by a professional management company or owner? If I understand your comment correctly, professional management companies charge more for the same exact rental? Help me understand. 

We can offer more services to the guest then a remote located manager due to our on the ground maintenance team, on the ground guest concierge services, our internal Housekeeping and our own internal laundry. We have a lot of value added to our guest with these items as well as all the knowledge and experience we have an connections with venues and activities.  If we get a guest need late at night we can be at the property 

@Jacqueline Mee  We use Streamline PMS.  In fact I just came back from their annual Streamline Summit that is held annually for their PM's to show us new tools available.   

 I own a nighty rental Property manager that manages over 200 properties.  My suggestion to you is to set up your processes now so that you are scalable.  As mentioned by @Leslie Anne Morris you should use a PMS system that can scale as well.  In regards to the funds you will need to collect all funds and fees and then disperse after the 1st of the month to your owners.  You can get the OTA sites turned over to you.  You will need an operating bank account and a trust bank account.  Good luck and happy growing.    

Thank you for your comments.I stated tools like PriceLabs since this company was in the dialogue.    We actually used another company to do the evaluation.  I only referred to PriceLabs as the example.  @Wilson Hunter my comment was to  give Anthony a different perspective.  What self managers need to consider is what is the value of their time and the guest experience.  What happens when the self property manager is on vacation, has a full time job, on an airplane.  Who manages the phone during that away time?   We have a 24 hr dispatch that is available to dispatch all hours.  Again, just a perspective to evaluate.