Hi all
Some of the regulars will know me by now. I am the admittedly disgruntled airbnb owner who is very unhappy with his property management company. I’ve taken the really frightening step of creating my own listing and sourcing for co-hosts and cleaning providers. I won’t be hosting immediately, likely when my contract with the company ends, which is in about 2 months time. I will also need a co-host as I will be out of state at least 50% of the time.
If an hosts are hosting remotely, appreciate any tips and advice particularly around workflow management. How do I organise cleaners and key exchange? I’m thinking of appointing a co-host / cleaner (2 in 1) who would get access to my calendar and self-organise the cleaning, linen, laundry and key exchange. Is this a sound working arrangement??
What about emergencies where the host has to be around physically? I don’t see this happening very often but if it does, I would need someone who can manage guests during emergencies. I don’t see the cleaners as being willing to step up to this role of course. At the same time, I need someone who’s willing to be deployed on call very irregularly - that’s going to be really difficult without sharing a big chunk of my booking revenue?
What do you guys think?
I think a host is asking a hell of a lot from a cohost will the host is remote. I am lucky that my homes are close together and I have 2 retired neighbor ladies who help me manage them. When you are a remote host you need someone who is available 24 hours a day for any issues, because guests will have issues at any and all the time!. And how much are you willing to pay for this availability?
I am a remote host in that I live 30 minutes away from the property. During the day my office is 2 minutes away. Sometimes I have had to pop down to help the guest but I think in 3 months that has been twice and both times they resolved it themselves by reading the house manual.
I have a housekeeper who does the turnover. I generally go and put the complimentary food in the kitchen and leave a personalised note for the guest…but my housekeeper would be willing to do that. With summer ahead I will need to find an extra person as the workload will be too much. We have 3 accommodation options on the same property.
Management
I use Google Sheets and the housekeeper can log in, see the bookings and the date housekeeping is required. Any special information etc. Today is my first day of using supplied linen so the housekeeper will just have to bag up dirty linen for the service collection as I was doing the laundry and 120 loads later it’s too much alongside my day job. Appears to be very cost effective.
I have and am looking at Properly to manage the hosuekeeping better - it sends the housekeepers a request for the turnover as well as a check sheet of everything that needs to be done. It’s an app.
Also Guesty but it doesn’t integrate with two of the booking platforms that are popular in NZ so I may not go with that. It looks pretty good though.
I haven’t gone down the route of co-hosting as it seems a little unusual to be essentially in partnership with your competition? Also the timing demand is the same for each - the 10-3 window of time to do the turnover.
Payment
I have structured a table of payments based on
base fee, extra for full house, extra again if done at the weekend
If and when I get her to take care of the other laundry that I don’t contract out I will pay her for that also.
The amount is enough to be worth her trouble but not so much that it is a major cost from a one night booing (90% of ours are one night). IF she works hard and fast it’s very good hourly rate, she will sometimes do extras if the house is left very tidy and clean,
Hope that helps
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What would be a fair price? I’m paying my current manager 20% of all bookings (and he literally handles everything), so it wouldn’t make sense to offer the same or more.
Thank you very much for the detailed response. It was immensely helpful !
