How To Choose A Good Airbnb Property Management Company?
Anyone can and do promote themselves as the best property management company in town. It’s hard to understand truly what separates them from each other. A good property management company will not find you. You need to find it.
Choosing the wrong property management company will cost you time and money. Choosing the right company will save you time and earn you more money.
Pros of Hiring a Good Property Management Company
- More “you” time!
- Year-round impeccably clean home
- Professionals handling home maintenance, repairs, and upgrades
- Faster respond times to guests (increases conversion rate from inquiry to reservation)
- Round the clock on-call emergency contact
- Knowledge (how short-stay rentals works, handling insurance claims, recommendations for trusted smart locks, etc.)
- Connections (established and trialed cleaners, maintenance staff, etc.)
- Increased occupancy and nightly rate as they should be monitoring this regularly
Cons of Hiring a Bad Property Management Company
- A time suck if you have to deal with cleaning, maintenance, or guest issues
- Lower occupancy and nightly rates
- A big problem if you want to take over management but your listing is on their account!
- Bad guest reviews
- No personal touch with guest
- Stolen or damaged items going unnoticed
Questions To Ask Your Potential Airbnb Property Manager
Choose a few of the below questions to ask based on what’s important to you or what’s lacking from the information you were able to gather from them with your online research. Always dig for more. Ask ‘why’ and ‘how’ often:
- Do you monitor guest reviews?
- There’s only one right answer: yes. You can also ask if they respond to guest reviews.
- What is the biggest issue you have with managing all of your properties?
- The only wrong answer is if they say none. There is always room for improvement. This answer should be rather thoughtful and quickly determined. They shouldn’t be trying to sell you. Instead, they should be trying to ensure you’re a good fit for them. If you sense they’re hiding information, kindly let them know that you’re both trying to decide if this is a good fit.
- What percentage of their existing hosts are Superhosts?
- It’s hard to achieve Superhost status. The reason you ask this is to see if they start defending why they are not. It’s ok to not be a Superhost, but if they place the blame on others, etc. then you probably want to avoid this company.
- How do you handle early check-in and late check-out requests?
- They should be able to accommodate this when possible, most of the time.
- Will I have my own account or does my listing go on your account?
- How do you hire cleaners?
- Bad cleaners will cost you money. It’s the number of complaint of guests. The company should have a process in hiring cleaners. They should send the same cleaners to the same properties whenever possible. Ask about their cleaner turnover. You do not want a constant flow of new cleaners into your home as it’s a security risk and inefficient. Do they randomly quality check cleanings?
- How do they price your calendar?
- They should have a very specific answer here. They should not use Airbnb’s Smart Pricing. Manually is ok, if they actively do this. However, a connection to a third-party vacation rental pricing partner is ideal.
- How long does the average host stay with the company?
- If a new host leaves after six-months on average, this is a red flag. Anything more than one year is good.
- Who would the guest contact at 11pm on a Friday night? Or 6am on a Tuesday morning?
- Here you will understand how they deal with emergencies.
- Do they use an Airbnb message automation service?
- They should say yes. Quick responses get more reservations.