Monetizing Your Home (Step #5 to Your Property Management Success)

The monetization of your home is arguably our most important work. Our Reservations Team is following market trends and market demand so that we can achieve the highest occupancy rate and nightly rate possible to earn you the greatest return on your investment.  Their goal is to address any changes we are seeing in the market with you to ensure your home is occupied.

Our goal is for you to sit back, relax, and let us handle everything related to the monetization of your home and the guest experience.

You will receive a monthly disbursement for the guests that stayed in your home the previous month. We handle every step of the process including; preparing your Welcome Book, vetting the guests, booking the home, managing check-ins, 24/7 communication, check-outs, inspections, and cleaning the home among other things.

During the vetting process, we follow all California fair housing laws, while looking for the tell-tale signs that guests won’t respect your property.  We believe that this industry must be built on mutual trust, and we read previous guest reviews and take into consideration the tone of their messaging and request to book to ensure they will treat your home and neighborhood with respect.

During the check in and check out process, our property managers and cleaners will conduct inspections of your property to confirm if anything is misplaced, stained or broken.  While each homeowner is required to have home insurance that specifically states that you will be renting short term, we also have insurance through Airbnb, VRBO or Safetly Insurance (for direct bookings) as our first line of defense.  We should note though that if a guest damages your property and books through a site like Airbnb or VRBO, we make every effort to collect payment for the damages, with Airbnb or VRBO acting as a middle-man for the payout.  We make every effort to fight for your damage claim on these sites, but on occasion these sites settle damages which may appear unfair to you as the homeowner.  We want to be up front that this is somewhat the cost of doing business, and while it isn’t a perfect system, we strive to hold sites like Airbnb and VRBO accountable to uphold the integrity of their insurance.

Should a guest ask for a refund, or ask us to purchase an item that will make their stay better, we will work with you to determine if their request is a reasonable one, with the main goal of always ensuring guests have a positive experience and leave a great review.

While refunds and unhappy guests do occur on occasion in this industry, we have learned that guests are generally very happy if the beginning of their stay is flawless. With that in mind, here are a few areas we put extra focus on.

Cleaning:

The cleanliness of your home is often the most important thing guests are thinking about when they step foot in your home. We partner with multiple local professional cleaning services to ensure we always have trusted cleaners available at a moment’s notice. Our cleaning teams are key to the success of our company and we have built great relationships with our cleaners who in turn go above and beyond what a normal cleaning service would do.

Check-Ins:

Our team checking in a guest

Particularly after traveling to get to their vacation home, guests want a smooth check-in process and we are there to greet them and give them a full tour of the home to ensure they are aware of how your home works and are aware of the rules we have in place to protect the community.  We have all guests agree to our Good Neighbor Policy, and follow the guidance set forth in each individual city for short-term rentals.

Maintenance:

While home maintenance is so important it has its own blog post, we wanted to reiterate the importance of thorough and constant home maintenance. Appliances and home features like pools and spas will eventually have maintenance issues with continued use, and if your guests are the ones to discover the pool heater or air conditioning is no longer working, that alone can ruin their entire vacation and lead to a negative review. The best way to prevent these issues is to be monitoring all aspects of the home before an urgent problem arises, so we can preemptively deal with any issues before they impact a guest’s stay. With multiple local property managers on staff, we are able to inspect your home between guest stays to ensure everything is running smoothly and properly document any damage to the home that guests may have caused.