Hosting a vacation home can be an incredibly rewarding business venture. Although the process of marketing the property, scheduling cleaning, and answering guest requests can get a bit overwhelming, most hosts can handle one property at a time.

Vacation rental management starts to get complicated when you have to keep up with multiple rentals in different locations. More reservations means more income, but they also mean more work on your end.

For this reason, many vacation rental owners shy away from expanding their rental portfolio. But, there’s a way to manage multiple rentals across several locations with ease! Start by understanding the unique challenges that come with owning and managing several vacation homes.

Challenges of Managing Multiple Airbnbs

In order to secure the maximum amount of bookings per month, vacation rental hosts should list their properties on multiple online travel agencies (OTAs). The more OTAs you’re on, the more visibility your properties receive. However, advertising properties across multiple platforms comes with three key challenges:

Learning Multiple Algorithms and User Interface Designs

Every booking platform is different. Although Vrbo and Airbnb share many of the same features, they operate differently behind-the-scenes, which means they do not push forward your properties in the same way.

In order to make sure that your properties stand out on all booking platforms and not just one, you need to understand how each booking platform works, who their target audience is, and the basics of their algorithm for ranking properties.

Algorithms change often and each platform has its own unique, user interface design. Learning how to navigate these aspects of booking platforms is a time-consuming task that can take away from other important components of your business such as staging, property renovations, and expanding your rental portfolio.

Adjusting Prices Regularly

Another challenge of managing multiple Airbnbs is the need to regularly adjust prices for seasons and special events. Optimizing revenue streams requires hosts to alter pricing for each listing according to local demand.

Depending on where your property is located, you’ll need to raise prices in the summer and lower them in the winter, or vice versa. You’ll also want to pay attention to your city’s social calendar of events to keep track of conventions, sporting events, and concerts.

These large-scale events provide hosts an opportunity to raise the price of their vacation rentals for a certain period of time, whether it be a day, a weekend, or an entire week. Ignoring these important events will cause you to forfeit higher profits.

Preventing Double-Booking

Perhaps the most challenging aspect of hosting rentals across multiple platforms is avoiding double-bookings. Canceling a reservation is a situation you never want to be in as host, and if one of your properties happens to double-book, that’s exactly what you will have to do.

Canceling a reservation is usually met with negative guest reviews, as well as unfavorable consequences from most OTAs. You certainly won’t be able to achieve “super host” or “premier host” status with multiple cancellations on your hosting account.

Manually keeping up with multiple properties across a variety of platforms is a huge undertaking and requires hosts to respond immediately. You’ll have to stay on top of reservation notifications and promptly block out dates that are taken as soon as guests finalize reservations. If you happen to be asleep or simply unavailable at the time, you could end up with two guests booking the same property for the same period of time.

Managing Multiple Airbnbs with a Centralized Channel Manager

Luckily there’s one solution to all three problems mentioned above! Investing in a centralized channel manager will help hosts navigate multiple booking platforms, adjust prices accordingly, and prevent double-booking.

A channel manager is a software tool designed specifically for property managers who are using more than one channel to advertise their listings. All details regarding properties such as photos, descriptions, and prices can be sorted out on one dashboard and then disbursed to the OTAs on file.

Best of all, channel managers are intuitive and will block out dates on all other booking platforms once a property has been reserved. Some channel managers also offer a centralized inbox, allowing hosts to respond to all guest requests across all platforms from just one tab. To get the most out of your channel manager and guarantee your vacation rental business runs as smoothly as possible, heed the following advice:

Create Organized & Consistent Systems

Even if your investment properties are vastly different from one another, you want to keep one consistent system of operations. Business tasks such as marketing, cleaning, and paying property taxes should all be handled according to one master schedule.

If there are a few deviations here and there, that’s perfectly normal, especially if you have properties in different counties or cities. However, as a vacation rental manager you should aim to streamline your daily workload whenever possible.

This eliminates the time-wasting task of jumping from one responsibility to another. An organized and consistent system also allows you to seamlessly transfer responsibilities to a vacation rental management company in the future. An organized system of operations should include all of the following:

Ready-to-go templates for anything written such as: frequently asked questions, responses to guest requests, house rules, marketing emails, property descriptions, etc.
Universal cleaning checklist for housekeeping team to reference.
List of hosting essentials to be bought in bulk (soap, paper towel, toilet paper, toiletries).
Process for screening guests, including a list of questions to ask before approving a reservation.
Expectations for copywriters, photographers, or any other essential contractors on your team.

Put Together a Team of Professionals

In case you’re still in denial, operating several vacation rentals is not a one-man job. Hosts need to outsource a variety of services to keep their properties up-to-par. It’s important to put together a list of qualified and reliable vendors in essential areas such as:

Management: one channel manager that can serve as an emergency contact for guests, marketing assistant, and pricing analyst.
Repairs: someone who can handle a variety of home repairs or has a trusted network of electricians, pool and hot tub technicians, plumbers, gardeners, HVAC technicians, etc.
Housekeeping: a company with direct experience working in a hotel or vacation rental setting (they’ll be better prepared to take your directions and meet your expectations).
Photography: someone who specializes in real estate photography
Accounting: someone who knows how to save you money in the long-term and accurately report your earnings as a vacation rental host in your state.

Schedule Regular Property Maintenance

Aside from check ins and cleanups in between guest stays, you also want to schedule regular property maintenance at least once a season. Homes can sustain non-obvious damage that worsens over time, so it’s important you stay on top of larger maintenance tasks such as checking the boilers, cleaning the gutters, and fixing the pipes. This is especially important if you host Airbnb long-term rentals, as you will have less opportunities to check in on the property while guests are living there.

You also want to make sure all home appliances and electronics are working smoothly. Faucets, sinks, and showers may need to be unclogged or simply replaced after excessive use. Take advantage of these seasonal maintenance checks to improve your properties’ curb appeal. Consider trimming trees and bushes or planting new flowers to enhance the appearance of your vacation rentals.

Contracting a Full-Service Vacation Rental Management Company

Running a successful vacation rental business is an exciting and lucrative opportunity. But, the day-to-day tasks of managing multiple properties can be frustrating, leading to missed opportunities, poor reviews, and wasted time or money.

Improve your business operations by hiring a full-service vacation rental management company. MB Experiences is a boutique rental management company, offering personalized services that are guaranteed to set your property apart from the competition. Call us today to get started!

How to Manage Multiple Airbnb Properties with Ease