Hello. I am new in this forum. I am in the process of purchasing a property in Kissimmee, Florida and I am at a loss when it comes to hiring a management company. There are so many options out there. Does anybody have a management company or person in the Kissimmee area that can recommend?
I have no specific info for your area, but you are better off posting on a local Facebook hosting forum and looking for an individual co-host with a proven track record. The big management companies tend to be not that attentive to issues and can earn you less than stellar reviews.
Also keep the listing under your own account, as ratings and reviews aren’t transferrable should you decide you aren’t pleased with whoever you employ to manage and want to switch.
And be sure to check on local short term rental laws before plunging ahead.
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THIS! We had a managing agent running our Airbnb listing, and after a few months, we decided to not continue with her. I’d taken all the photos, written the text, etc., but because she’d built the listing under her own name, when we took over, we had to start building up our apartment’s reputation from scratch. Still working on that – just got a second review out of 3 stays. It’s a slow (but fun!) process.
Anyway, I’m curious to know how many folks rely on management companies? What do people think are the advantages and drawbacks?
I know a lot of people say the advantage is that they bring in lots of guests to maximise occupancy, but for tax reasons we can’t rent our place more than 50% of the time, so that wasn’t an advantage for us. Meanwhile, there were enough drawbacks that we decided to manage the place ourselves.
I’m glad we did! I thought I would find it overwhelming, but I’m finding it really enjoyable to meet and welcome people and I love provided little treats for guests, making sure there are flowers, etc…
So I’d love to know what other people’s experiences have been with managing agents.
I’m a cohost and it’s such a shame when management companies/co-hosts dupe new hosts into letting them set up their listing under the cohosts profile rather than the host. The only one that benefits is the cohost.
Why do you feel that cohosts bring in lots of guests to maximise occupancy? @lisanddavid Anything they do such as listing on multiple channels is something you can do yourself.
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In some ways, it made sense to me – it means that anything the managing agent did with our apartment would reflect on her profile and her overall rating, not ours. It incentivised her to do a good job with the apartment.
It slowly became apparent to me that it wasn’t working for a few reasons that I won’t bore you with here, but the straw that broke the camel’s back was when she kept giving her personal code for the smart lock to every guest. She said she had to keep giving them her code because guests kept having difficulties opening the door using the codes assigned to them, but she wasn’t changing her code after each guest. (As I explained to her, that’s like giving each guest a key to the apartment and then letting them keep it after they leave; it was a serious security risk and she didn’t seem to find anything wrong with it!)
Because she’s a superhost, I assumed that would automatically boost us in the rankings. In part, because of Airbnb’s algorithm, but also, I assumed that any guests leery of a new listing would feel reassured that it was being run by a well-established host.
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That does make sense. But some hosts have had problems getting their listing back from difficult and unscrupulous property management companies.
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We basically had to do a whole new listing. But since I had written most of the text for the original listing, and taken all the photos myself, it wasn’t too hard, it was just a cut-and-paste, upload pics process.
and now you have the freedom to make listing changes and add new photos as often as you like.
I am probably tweaking my listing details every week, based on things guests do
eg, yesterday had a guest who couldn’t get in, they hadn’t bothered to look for the check in instructions, and even though i tell them to dl the app to their phone to access arrival instructions with photos, he did not. he was standing outside using the browser on his phone to access the listing… and got cranky and messaged us. Turns out there is nowhere on the airbnb site that even tells guests to install the app! So i sent a msg to support suggesting they provide easy links to the App Store and i added a bit more text to my first “thanks for booking” message.
Spring is almost here so i have to tweak a bit of info about the pool, and the cattle have broken fences and now now are across the whole property, so i have to warn guests about that too.
i’ve heard - no idea if it’s true - that making regular changes to your listing also gives you a small boost.
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Someone local has a STR in a very rural setting.
Our local hospital booked it for a female doctor.
She demanded that the cattle be removed because she didn’t want to open / shut the first access gate.
She wanted lots of external lights installed because there were no street lights.
She wanted a security guard to come and check on her at night.
She lasted a week……
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@Debthecat omg. what a nightmare! She sounds like the cliche or the meme of an inner city princess who is so out of touch with the planet and her own soul.
we actually have a standard farm gate, manually opened and closed by the human… and even though our cattle have no access to the house area (about 10acres) the rules on most farms are: shut the top gate! (We are looking into a new system of automated entry, and the gate codes can be programmed to match the guests’ reservation times, expensive, about 3K)
Fancy thinking a security guard was necessary!
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O_O It’s hard to imagine that people with this level of entitlement exist!!
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I cohost for listings and would never put a hosts listing under my profile as it would be unfair to them.
I haven’t had any issues attracting bookings to new listings . Guests can see the new listings are linked to my profile that I have other long established listings and am a superhost @lisanddavid
So new hosts have all the advantages of being linked to a long established SH without having to give away the rights to their listing.
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She was a female Dr and from a different culture, who thinks they can be entitled princesses.
Her response to the wide range of bugs that were battering the windows because she left every light on all night was hysterical.
ha, I’ve formed the picture.
Thankfully all of our guests love coming to the country, or at least love the idea of it, haha.
She sounds very entertaining!