Day: 6 November 2019

Wondering whether it’s worth investing in a property manager for your Airbnb?

After all, you could do the work yourself and pocket a few hundred dollars extra. But what you might not know is this — NOT having a property manager can be costing you more than you’re saving.

While you’re hustling every hour of the week trying to keep your investment property clean, checking in guests, and doing all these other management tasks — another property owner is spending time with their family and just watching their money roll in.

In the end, that other person will be earning more money and living a happier life.

No, the difference isn’t that they chose a property in a better area or that they’re just ‘lucky’. The difference is that they have decided to outsource their lower-value tasks (or automate them) in favour of spending time doing things that matter.

This could mean spending more time with family or friends, studying the market for new investment opportunities, or working on another side hustle in their spare time.

But with that said, before you can make a decision, you have to know exactly what a property manager can do for you.

What A Property Manager Can Do

Hiring a property manager can decrease your time spent doing menial tasks such as:

• Changing your sheets
• Checking the keys
• Cleaning the bathroom, bedroom, and furniture
• Inspecting the property for damage
• Ensuring all electrical goods are switched off when guests leave
• Securing the property by inspecting doors and windows

While these might sound like quick and easy things to do, the average Airbnb host spends 2-5 hours preparing for a guest turnover (making the property ready for the next guest). But on top of that, there is the time spent communicating with guests, which can take up a few hours.

Airbnb property managers handle all these time-consuming tasks. For example, at Oasis Stay, we handle the basic Airbnb property management tasks required to turnover guests, provide 24/7 support so you don’t have to spend hours answering questions, and we even help style your property to maximise your Airbnb listing performance (leading to more bookings, better rates, and positive reviews).

But apart from handling the boring stuff, having a property manager for your Airbnb can actually increase the money you earn from short-term rentals.

How A Property Manager Can Increase Your Rental Income

One major factor that determines your rental income is your occupancy rate.

After all, no matter how expensive your rent is, you’re not going to earn a cent until a guest books it and pays that deposit.

Ideally, you’d want your Airbnb to be occupied by a paying guest 100% of the time. But this isn’t possible due to multiple factors.

Some factors influencing your occupancy rate include:

Price

If your property isn’t being rented out at the proper rate, you’re not going to have it booked out as often. While artificially hiking up your prices might increase how much you earn this month, it’ll damage your long-term rental income.

You need to find a sweet spot that makes your property appealing (i.e., people browsing Airbnb think it’s ‘good value’). One essential step to achieving this is to research your competitors.

This includes:

• Finding out how much other Airbnb owners are charging in your area
• What a property like yours can demand in rent
• Determining any differentiating factors your property may have

While there’s more to competitor research than this, these are enough to get you started.

Action Step:

Find out how many properties similar to yours are charging in your area. Charge slightly less and get some traction for your Airbnb listing. This way, you’ll increase your booking rate and hopefully generate more positive reviews. Later on, you can increase this price and work on differentiating your listing to maximise your rental income.

Location

The location of your investment property can impact your occupancy rates. For example, some locations are better suited for summer holidays and others might be better suited for popular local events.

Understanding your location and what makes a guest decide to visit the area is a key component to increasing your occupancy rate.

For example, you don’t want to optimise your listing for summer getaways when people actually visit your location for business conferences. This would be a mismatch between the marketing of your property and the existing market demand.

Action Step:

Do your research and find out why people come to visit your area. Maybe it’s a hotspot for tourists, there’s a popular annual event, or it’s a growing trend for a certain demographic.

Reviews

Social proof is one of the most powerful ways to boost your Airbnb occupancy rates.

Before booking, a potential guest wants to know if the place is clean, if the owner is nice, whether it’s convenient to get to places, and so much more information. It’s one thing to say yourself that your home is clean, but it’s another for a verified guest to leave an ecstatic review detailing their amazing stay in your property.

Action Step:

Be considerate. Your guests are trusting you with their stay and just one bad experience can make their trip a disaster. Keep this in mind and do whatever you can to help them have a good time. Hopefully, this will turn into a positive review and help you as well.

Listing

Having an optimised Airbnb listing is one of the best ways to boost occupancy rates.

Just like having good reviews, potential guests want to have easy access to all the information necessary to make a decision. One important factor that many new Airbnb hosts overlook, is photography.

High-quality photos that accurately depict your property are essential. While over-promising your property might lead to more initial bookings, it’ll increase your cancellation rate and lead to negative reviews — harming your income in the long run.

On top of photos, there are other ways to optimise your listing, including:

• Search optimisation
• Listing titles
• Positive reviews
• Regular updates
• Instant booking availability
• And so much more…

Action Step:

Have a look at your property photos. Do they look up to standard? You want your photos to be higher quality than your competitors, show more information, and create a deeper connection with your guests.

How a property manager boosts your occupancy rate:

At Oasis Stay, our Airbnb management services help you develop a complete short-term rental strategy that is designed to help you create a passive income.

This means we take into consideration your location, competitors, and pricing. But on top of that, we give you the tools necessary to accumulate 5-star reviews. Features such as 24/7 customer service for guests, hotel standard housekeeping, and professional styling to optimise listing photos — these are everything you need to make your investment property and journey with Airbnb a success.

On top of that, we use automated systems to decrease the time spent to turnover guests. This further decreases vacancy rates and maximises your earning potential.

Do you want to spend more time with your friends and family, earn more money from your investment property, and have a professional guide you through your Airbnb journey?

Click here to get in touch with our team at Oasis Stay today.

Want to spend less time managing your Airbnb?

It shouldn’t take hours to clean your property after a guest leaves and you shouldn’t have to spend hours answering questions you’ve been asked hundreds of times before.

Investment properties are supposed to be as hands-off as possible. After all, you’re trying to generate a passive income. You want to spend more time with your family and friends, instead of catering to every guest’s needs, right?

To help you cut down the time spent managing your Airbnb property, we have provided you with 10 tips that will make management a breeze.

#1. Keep it simple

If you follow just one thing in this list, this is the one to follow. It’s too easy to complicate everything from the way you hand over the keys to how you clean up the house after they leave.

When you’re trying to make a decision, ask yourself which one is simpler. Both you and your guests will appreciate this in the long run.

#2. Include instructions

Just like how you want to keep things simple, you want to make everything easy for your guests as well. This means leaving instructions on how to use your complicated washing machine, giving them a quick guide on how to get to the station, and any other information that might help them.

One effective way to do this is to leave a stick-it note where they’re more likely to need this information.

#3. Provide exceptional customer service

Huge problems that can lead to massive headaches, poor reviews, and canceled bookings, can oftentimes be avoided by one simple thing — communication.

If your guests have a problem, you want to be easy to reach. You also want to respond as quickly as possible.

By effectively communicating, you avoid any potential management headaches and allows you to develop rapport with your guests.

#4. Give yourself enough time

Unrealistic expectations, like the amount of time it’ll take you to clean a house before you book another guest in, can make managing your Airbnb property a headache.

Give yourself enough buffer time between guests to allow you to comfortably prepare the property. If you own multiple properties, you also want to give yourself plenty of time to travel and prepare to check-in or check-out guests in your other locations.

#5. Use a security lockbox

One easy and affordable way to save time with checking in or checking out guests is to use a security lockbox. This is also convenient for your guests and might even earn you a positive review.

Basically, instead of traveling to your Airbnb property to give your guests keys, you can just supply the code to a safe or lock. Inside this will be the keys to the property. This allows you to spend time relaxing at home, instead of traveling back and forth.

#6. Or a keyless lock

Similar to a security lockbox, you can simply install a keyless lock for your door. This allows for guests to check themselves in and out, for cleaners to come in and prepare the property, and for the new guests to arrive without a hassle. Notice how you didn’t have to visit the site at all?

#7. Hire a cleaner

It’s tempting to handle all the cleaning and preparation for a new guest yourself. But then, your investment property has just become a workplace for your new job — a cleaner.

Instead, hire a professional to handle this task. They have the necessary equipment to clean your property in a portion of the time and to a better standard. Plus, this allows you to spend more time on other tasks which could generate you more money than you’d spend hiring a cleaner. Remember, you’re now an investor building your passive income.

#8. Leave extras of everything

While your guest is in your property, they’re probably in a completely new area. It’s difficult for them to head out to purchase a towel, toilet paper, or any other basic essentials. But for you, it’s easy to leave a few extra rolled-up towels in a drawer, an extra tube of toothpaste on the sink, and even an emergency box of cereal on the kitchen counter.

By leaving extras of any essentials you think your guests might require, you decrease the chances of them needing to contact you for help and boost the likelihood of receiving a positive review.

#9.  Follow a process

Even if you follow all the previous tips, you don’t want this to take up too much time or energy. This is why you should create a process so that you don’t have to spend hours thinking about what you need to do before every new guest.

You could create a simple checklist to follow every time. Or you could even hand this checklist off to someone else to manage for you.

#10. Hire an Airbnb property manager

If you want to make Airbnb rental management in Australia as easy as possible, hiring an Airbnb property manager can save you hours every single day.

They can handle tasks like:

• Cleaning your property after guests leave
• Checking to make sure keys are returned
• Inspecting your property for any damage
• And so much more…

But, do you need a property manager for your Airbnb?

That depends on how hands-off you want your investment property to be. By simply investing just 15% of your rental income, Oasis Stay’s property management service can handle your Airbnb listing, property management tasks, customer service, property styling, and more. This leaves you tens of hours saved a week, that you can spend with your family and friends.