Property manager says 30% but fees come to 65-80% of nightly rate

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Thanks again, all! I really appreciate all the thoughtful replies. I hope this giant reply post doesn’t mess with the way discussions usually go.

@HostAirbnbVRBO I see my hour of calculations overlapped with your new reply. I’ll definitely look into the other thread and contact that person. I also agree that it’s a lot of work! We’re really grateful they have a handyman available and are happy to pay those costs to keep the place really nice. I wish they would allow us to co-host, but they are really controlling all of the platforms and communications. They won’t use the copy I wrote for the ads, even. They allow me to put a Welcome book in the place, so I guess that’s good?

@Annet3176 I’ll reach out next week probably if that’s OK?

@Muddy, I agree that an hourly rate is a good way to make sure you make enough. Thanks for all your thoughts/comments!

@SleepingCoyote , the idea of using Next Door and Craigslist is great. I was also going to look into the local community college to see if there’s a way to scoop people up to become reliable PMs, cleaners, or handypeople. I thought I might also ask at the grocery store and post office (small town). And thank you for the well wishes :slight_smile:

@icenisf This is how the previous owner did it -they had the next door neighbor clean. I’d like to do that, but we haven’t hit it off yet and she keeps backing out of actual get togethers with me, which makes me a bit worried about how reliable she’d be as a cleaner.

@Rolf good point about profits vs. revenue! That’s the kind of thing that people like us, who are new to running businesses in general, have to keep in mind.

@twokgrad that’s exactly what we’re wondering…

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I would advise you to run from this company. You really don’t want to be dealing with a property manager who insists on controlling everything. And booting you out of your own place because they decided to take a booking instead of blocking off dates when you would be there? That’s pretty outrageous. You should be the host, and the manager the co-host. Otherwise if you decide to disengage with them and hire other managers, you have to start from scratch with a new listing and no reviews.

And there are hosts who have had property managers like this refuse to give up the listing, continuing to take bookings. And Airbnb will not help you out on this- you would have to go the legal route to get the pm to cease and desist.

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Just a note about this forum. If you are familiar with “online” anything you know it has a cross section of people. This is not a support group, it’s just a way for hosts to connect with other hosts. Some here will be helpful and quite worth the trouble. Others aren’t such happy campers and never have anything nice to say. The best strategy is probably just to scroll on past such contributors. People who are ignored are more likely to go away. If you want to get into a tit for tat exchange, it’s less likely to go away.

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You literally start your post with: “ This is our first investment property”

You thought it was easy money, and come here on this forum expecting other users to solve your problems, like you expect from your property manager.

And if you don’t like what you hear you start playing the victim role.

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Thanks, @KKC. I’m actually a scientist specializing in the potential for online communities to benefit mental health, so I always like to assume people are willing to use online communities for positive reasons. But of course I know, like we all do, that people sometimes don’t use them that way. It’s really quite sad. But also interesting from a scientific perspective.

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After being in “online communities” in some form since the mid 90’s, I always assume people use online communities to serve their own needs and like real communities, there are always bad actors. In any case, neither you nor Chris really accomplish anything by scolding one another. Many people come here expecting a “support group,” as if all hosts are of a mind. We aren’t.

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@mccarras

Im happy to chat with you. I’ll post the short (ok long version) version here.

  1. Stock rental well with cleaning supplies & tools (mops, brooms, cloths, rubber gloves, etc.) including antibacterial wipes like Clorox wipe-ups.
  2. Provide laundry detergent & fabric softener
  3. Include in the rental description & first correspondence to guest: to help keep this rental affordable, it is a “guest does exit cleaning” rental. The guest is to do the exit cleaning & wash/dry/stow the towels & bed linens you used (many guests bring their own so they are not doing laundry the morning of checkout)
  4. Send message to guest the day before checkout: I hope you are enjoying your stay. Sadly tomorrow is check -out at 1:00. To protect yourself if the next guest claims the rental wasn’t cleaned, send pictures to me if the cleaned unit (including under toilet seat & bathroom mirrors). In the meantime if you have any questions let me know.

There is a checklist posted on the refrigerator.

  1. I have a cleaner who wants to work as her schedule allows. In a separate message, “if you prefer to use a cleaning service, contact xxxxx at xxxxxx. She accepts jobs based on availability so contact her soon. She accepts payments via Zelle & cash.”

  2. During peak season, there is usually an odd night or two each month that is not booked. I’m close enough I can pop in to restock supplies & clean.

While yes different people see clean differently in most cases the guest does a better job than the services who zoom in, spray tubs with Clorox, clean toilets, vacuum & zoom out.

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“Positive” reasons may not mean the same thing to everyone, though. Satirists make a living out of making fun of things- some people would characterize that as being “negative”. And how something is perceived is also quite individual. You could give the same advice to 2 different people, and one might be the type to not take themselves or things too seriously, and say, “Hey, thanks, that never occurred to me before” and another take it as some personal criticism and be super defensive.

While there’s never a need to be downright nasty, on almost all public forums there are posters who are very tactful and weigh their words, and some who offer non-sugar-coated, blunt, tough love. The latter is not necessarily at all negative, we just all have different communication styles. Most people are trying to offer and share valuable knowledge, even if they aren’t always “nice” about it.

I dread a world where everything has to be seen as “positive”, and not offend anyone. Can you imagine if all movie, book, and product reviews only had positive things to say? Reviews would then become pretty useless. “If you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say anything” is good advice if your aunt asks how you like her new decor- even if you think it’s revolting, saying so would serve no purpose other than to be hurtful. But it doesn’t pertain to giving advice on online forums or leaving reviews, IMO.

I say there are 3 things which are considered to be major sins in this millennium- smoking, gluten, and being “negative.”
:wink:

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That’s actually changing after a number of recent lawsuits. The reason college creds are given is that internships are meant to be real world educational opportunities. It has nothing to do with if the intern is paid or not.

Ofcourse it’s unfortunate that corporations and unscrupulous businesses have taken advantage of workers. Aside from being unethical to not pay for intern labor, companies (and business owners) now run the risk of being sued for back wages + fines.

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Wow! I love how you build in some accountability there by having guests take photos. This might actually be a good fit for me because I do have someone who lives next door who has done cleaning in the past for the place, so between asking guests to clean it themselves and having her available if someone doesn’t want to do that, it seems like it might work out. I’m so intrigued…

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Yeah, I was out of line; having a crap day. I usually don’t bring my baggage into my online existence, but I’m not immune to the pull of being anonymous.

I think you’re right about people using online communities to serve their own needs. The cool thing is that sometimes this leads to really supportive and inclusive communities, which is really fascinating. These don’t usually get as much press as the communities that are not as supportive and inclusive.

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Sorry Chris, I was being a jerk with my response. No excuses; I was just having a bad day. I don’t like or agree with what you said, but my apologies for how I responded .

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I agree, and isn’t that interesting? My aunt is Mormon (Latter Day Saint) and I remember a few years ago she went offline on social media for a week or two because the LDS leadership suggested that church members should take a breather from social media; the implication was that they needed to reconnect with the real world and escape the negativity of online communities for a while. The underlying assumption seemed to be that social media was competitive, triggering, and causing mental health issues. I know that’s a stereotype about social media, and I’m sure that’s the case for some people that they experience negativity (especially if they are celebrities) and FOMO and whatnot, but my use of Instagram (where I used to post stories and pictures of my wildlife rescue) is that you can find remarkably supportive, positive communities. If I told a story about having to euthanise a badly injured animal, I’d get an outpouring of virtual love and “hang in there” messages; if I told a success story about rehabbing an animal, I’d get a mess of enthusiastic “well done, that’s great!” messages. I almost never saw any negative comments.

Anyway, I’d love to read your research, @mccarras!

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This particular community has sometimes been very supportive and inclusive. There were some terrible bigots a few years ago and the majority here said, “we don’t want you here.” We can offer a lot of help, almost free. But it’s not a “support group” and people are free to be negative if that’s their style.

I’ve definitely been in some great online communities and have met people IRL from almost all of them that I spent effort on.

Your area of interest (“scientist specializing in the potential for online communities to benefit mental health”) is somewhat new and needs the investment. Thanks for doing that.

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Thanks! My team has one paper out here: https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2021.575224/full

And are working on getting another published where we show the results of the formal evaluation research.

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Hi all-final update. After a terrible end to the year (two adult kids with COVID, one hospitalized for a week because she developed severe colitis before the COVID appeared), we finally got the 30-minute talk with the PM company. They said they were unable to break down the costs by line item because their platform doesn’t allow it. They had told me prior to this that they were using Hostfully. During the call with the PM I chatted with a Hostfully rep online who said that users can create customized owner reports.

My guess (or perhaps naive hope?) is that the PM doesn’t know this and just thinks there’s a single report type available, but I’m not willing to stay on with them and convince her to figure out how to do that in any case. We gave our 30 day notice. They’ve since removed the listing from their website and the STR platforms and asked us which days we’ll be using it before they “release it to us”, which sounds worrisome. We can no longer see a calendar.

Thankfully we have the smartlocks installed which show us when people come and go. I plan to get out there during the week next week to have a look at how things are after the New Year’s guests leave.

Wish us luck that nothing bad happens in the final 30 days.

We’re talking with the next door neighbors next week about formally co-hosting (the wife used to do cleanings for the previous owner), so wish us luck. I’ll be scouring the boards for info on co-hosting now!

Thanks again, everyone! Your advice and support here has been invaluable in our journey.

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Wow, this sounds bonkers. Completely, totally unethical. If they have a booking, they should inform you, not ask you when you’ll be using it so that they can do whatever they want with it.

I really think you should tell them that they need to inform you the precise dates that they have bookings over the coming month, and ask them to show you evidence of that in an online STR platform’s calendar. Tell them that they should accept no further bookings and that you will be using the property yourself in all the times the property isn’t already booked.

I used to have a property manager and I thought it would be a big relief and time saver to have someone else manage my little Airbnb apartment (I work full time; I didn’t think I’d have enough time to manage an Airbnb property as well), but we had a bit of conflict – nothing overt or awful, just those sorts of unpleasant, stomach-churning, polite battles for control. The final straw was her not wanting me to enter the apartment without informing her first, even when I could see on the ABB calendar that no one was there. After that, we gave her 2 months’ notice, and she instantly said, “You can have it, I’m not doing this anymore.” It was weird but a relief for everyone, and we’ve been managing the place ourselves every since.

I find I love it! It turns out it’s not too much work. That’s partly because in Sydney, by law we can’t offer short-term rentals more than 180 days per year, so it’s only half the time, which means I can set things up so there’s a day in between each guest, so cleaning is never a mad rush. And I enjoy interacting with guests. They’ve almost all been lovely, interesting people.

So you might find that it’s really enjoyable to host yourself! The opportunity to work with the next door neighbours sounds like either a dream or a nightmare. It sounds really convenient for everyone (especially having someone right on site to keep an eye on things) and if it works well it will be fantastic. But if things go south, like they have with your property manager, then you have the additional headache of awkwardness with your neighbour!

So sorry to hear about all the illness in the family! I hope people are lots better now? I spent New Year’s Eve/New Year’s Day in hospital emergency with my son who now has 8 stitches as his souvenir of 2022, but in the overall scheme of trampolining accidents, that’s relatively minor.

Happy New Year to you all! (Here in Sydney it’s already 2023.)

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Geez, now I realize why the whole time I was reading your post, I kept thinking to myself, there’s something about this that is just kind of futuristic. :wink: (really, it’s just so been so dark here all day I had no idea what time it was, lol). Happy New Year to You!!!

I hope 2023 treats you right!!! :kissing_heart: :kissing_heart: :kissing_heart: :tada: :tada: :tada:

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Bahaha yeah I’ve seen the future and… it looks pretty much the same as last year. (Humid and warm here in Sydney.)

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Many property managers (or co-hosts) charge a commission on the Accommodation fare (anywhere between 15-30%), plus they usually keep the entire cleaning fee and sometimes they don’t take any burden of the Airbnb host fee or refunds. You need be sure you read through the pricing section of your contract and make sure it is absolutely clear without any ambiguity.