Don’t Feel Getting a Team for a Short-Term Rental – Do it Yourself

The short-term rental industry has been growing significantly over the past few years, especially when COVID shut down (or at least tried to shut down) hotels. There’s enough reason to believe that switching to short-term rentals may significantly increase your revenue compared to staying as a long-term rental devotee (you can read more about that here).

We’ve explored a number of expansive options for your short-term rental game, like building teams, using property managers , or leaving everything to property management companies. But what if you don’t want this short-term rental “kingdom”? What if you just want a good cash flow without the bells and whistles of the “grind and hustle” mentality? Don’t worry. We’ve got you covered. Continue reading for some tips to help you get started on short-term rentals – the DIY way!

 

Starting with a Plan

In order to win, you have to know what it takes to win. At a basic level, you have to understand the nature of the short-term rentals and what’s needed to run them. Here’s a list of the minimum things you have to do:

Making sure that all your listings are updated. This includes checking on multiple platforms (i.e., Airbnb. TripAdvisor, etc.) for potential double bookings. In addition, updating your calendar is a must, too (link here).

Financials. This entails handling payments from guests and lodging the oh-so-ever-bothersome tax requirements.

Coordinating with maintenance and cleaning personnel or third-party companies. You could do them yourself, but not everyone’s as skilled as you.

Actually being a host. Everything else mentioned is more from a business standpoint. But to be successful in the short-term rental game, you have to take care of your guests. You need to be hospitable. Make them feel welcome by creating an experience for them, or make the property look inviting and cozy.

Do note that besides these, many other unexpected scenarios may happen. But that’s just how business goes, right? Some of you might have thought, “Yeah. That’s a lot of work.” You’re right. It IS a lot of work. That’s why we encourage investors to build teams or employ property managers.

But we also know that some of you stand by the DIY-mentality. Now that you have an understanding of your responsibilities, you can prepare yourself for the mental (and even emotional) burden that this business will put on your shoulders. The next step for you, as mentioned earlier, is to build a system to make the job, as redundant as this sounds, “systematic”.

 

The Use of Available Apps and Services

There’s an internet meme featuring Dave Chapelle that goes, “Modern problems require modern solutions.” We’re not here to explain why that’s supposed to be funny, but we’re here to get inspiration from it.

Take this as an example. Not being able to cook is a modern problem since kids these days never seem to have the time to learn. Phone deliveries are already there, but only from places that could afford deliveries. What’s the modern solution to solve this complex issue? Uber Eats!

Short-term rentals are relatively modern business practices that produce modern problems. If that’s the case, they’d also need modern solutions! Whenever you deal with issues in a huge industry, always know that someone else has likely gone through it earlier and may have already found an easy fix for it. Or, even better, someone else might have experienced the same struggles and actually MADE the solutions for them.

These are where apps and services come in. We’ll give you a quick list from an article we had earlier, but you can read more about them here (link here).

For property management, Airbnb’s platform already allows you to become a property manager. From messaging, payments, bookings, etc. They all have it. But if you want to expand into other platforms like TripAdvisor and HomeAway, updating listings and checking bookings between platforms can become a chore. Thus, services like Your Porter App, iGMS, SmartBNB, and many others are made!

Part of updating listings is bumping prices up or down, depending on what the market says. But what if you don’t have the time to listen to the all-knowing market? Here’s where pricing tools could help you out. Pricelabs, BeyondPricing, and Wheelhouse are some examples.

These apps and services allow you to automate a lot of the manual labor you’d have to do. Why not extend this idea of automation to the next level?

 

Home Automation

In this day and age, almost everything can be controlled by your phone. (Heck, one could even make the argument that we ourselves are controlled by our phones!) Home automation is an incredible advancement for the short-term rental game. How so? Let’s take a look at how things have changed because of technology.

NoiseAware

As the name suggests, is a tool that detects noise and alerts you if they’re loud or are already excessively loud. Instead of having to hear from the neighbors or getting a complaint, you can give your guests the heads up!

Smart Locks

We’re not sure if you heard of this one yet, but checking in and out can now be done over the internet! This works wonders if you won’t be able to meet the guests (e.g., You’re on vacation in another country) or if the guest will be arriving later than expected. There are various options available, such as automated lockboxes or Wi-Fi door locks.

Automated Security Measures

Even security can be automated! Surveillance cameras and alarms are commonplace, but it might be good to know that there are newer versions that can be connected to your phone! For example, some motion sensors can send your phone a notification if it detects any movement in the home! (Of course, when it comes to these things, make sure that you let the guests know what you have. They might be the type to be concerned about privacy.)

 

Housekeeping and Maintenance

Unless the technology for a maid robot is out there, “automated” housekeeping services shouldn’t be available just yet. (Elon’s robot comes close, though.) But, even if machines haven’t taken over these two main aspects of short-term rentals, there’s still an improvement to how they are implemented.

Before, you had to rely on your contacts to find a reliable cleaner. Agencies were there, but they weren’t really targeting small-time businesses. You may have had a different experience, of course. But that’s precisely one of the issues. It wasn’t easy to find reliable and consistent people to do the job for you.

But now that the short-term rental industry has shown its potential, housekeeping and maintenance services particularly aimed at short-term rentals are now popping up. While we can’t guarantee the quality of service for the price, we can assure you that their availability is now more prevalent than ever. A quick Google search can show you “who’s doing what” in your area. Try it out! Want to see reviews? These people and companies have Facebook pages for their work. You can look at the comments to see what kind of service you’ll get.

If you don’t have the luxury of finding a great cleaner or handyman, count yourself lucky that you’re getting into short-term rentals in this era! All the help we need for our short-term rental business is now mostly within our fingertips.

 

But if you feel like you’re unlucky to have gotten into short-term rentals, there’s an easy way to quit! Why not just sell the house for cash? Try contacting us, Shorefront Investments! We’re Florida-based real estate investors looking to buy and sell properties fast. You can contact us by giving us a call at (850) 713-4866, sending us an email, or filling a form on our front page. Trying to buy instead? You could be one of our buyers by joining our buyers’ list!