Vacation rental properties can be a lucrative investment, but the question is: are you managing them properly? If you’re feeling overworked and stressed out all the time, you may not be using all the tools available right now.
When you own vacation properties, renters will probably reach out to you all the time. Everyone has several urgent questions to ask and overlapping dates to book. Every single day, there are several tasks to monitor, including:
- Cleaning schedules
- Reservation dates
- Check-ins
- Check-outs
- Property maintenance
It seems like a great load to handle for just one person, right? Hiring more people will help, but perhaps you’re not at that point just yet.
This is where vacation rental software comes in. With the right choice, any property manager can use such convenient tools and lighten their load. You’d find it easier to manage multiple properties and will hopefully see your efficiency go up each month!
How hard is it to manage vacation property rentals?
The mental and physical burden of managing properties can get overwhelming after some time. It can even take a toll on your health in various ways. With vacation properties, the demand is even more tasking because of several short-term guests.
As the manager of vacation rental properties, you might be entertaining several guests in a single month. You will need a top cleaning application like ResortCleaning to ensure a well-maintained property. However, there’s much more to managing a property than housekeeping. This software is a complete suite of tools to help you manage your rental’s housing and maintenance operations efficiently.
Residential properties usually have a lease of at least six to twelve months. Once residential property owners rent out their property to a tenant, they won’t have to deal with another one for some time.
For a vacation rental, though, you might have to spend many hours a day doing the following:
- Communicating with potential interested renters
- Answering the same questions several times
- Overseeing the maintenance and upkeep of multiple properties
- Ensure proper cleanliness, especially before the new guests move in
- Issuing invoices
- Monitoring, tracking, and following up on payments
- Updating booking records and calendars
With vacation rental software, these time-consuming tasks are much easier to manage. It gives you tools to speed up the work in some areas and automate it in others. For instance, you can focus on other aspects of your business by automating housekeeping and maintenance schedules.
Let’s have a look at the top perks of using vacation rental software:
1. Saves Your Precious Time
As the old saying goes, time is money. With vacation rental properties at your disposal, time is always short. With vacation rental software, you’d be able to save a significant amount of time due to these features:
- Robust inventory management
- Apps to keep all your staff connected
- Task management
- Reservation management
- Revenue management
- Payments processing or invoice management
- Guest Messaging
- Analytics and reports
The role of technology in property management is getting increasingly important, so you also want to keep an edge over your competition.
Since vacation rental software enables you to save ample time, you can focus more on other tasks that need your attention. For instance, you may want to consider modernizing certain aspects of the properties or take measures to increase their security. Once you enhance certain features of your properties, they will also be more attractive to prospective clients.
2. You Can Manage Multiple Properties With One Login
Vacation rental software is all about rental management. It’s especially beneficial when one has multiple properties. A person might get so caught up in some properties that they overlook the mounting problems of others.
With the use of management software, however, you can do the following:
- Stay focused on developing a connection with clients, providing the best service possible, and giving the human touch to your dealings
- Keep a close track of tasks according to priority
- Duplicate workflows, when applicable, from one property to any other
- Enjoy the earnings without worrying over menial tasks!
3. Easier to Handle Multiple Rental Channels
In this day and age, you have to stay on top of things. The real estate market includes several platforms, so it makes sense to use them to your benefit. Sticking to one account might be easier if you’re working manually. However, you do have to branch out to reach your desired audience. You also want to be visible among your competitors, so multiple rental channels are necessary.
Here are just a few major rental platforms that you need to be present on:
- Booking.com
- Vrbo
- Airbnb
- Cove
- TripAdvisor
- Apartments.com
- Expedia
- HomeToGo
- Homestay
- OneFineStay
You may easily create accounts and list your properties on several different platforms with the right vacation rental software. It will allow you to reach a wide market and hopefully increase bookings.
However, managing so many platforms gets tiring and mundane as well. Questions pour in from all ends–many of them repetitive–and there are different logins for each platform.
When you use vacation rental software, managing these channels won’t be such a huge problem. Here’s what you can do with this tool:
- Toggle several properties and check their data from a single dashboard
- Log into one place and check out every platform with your rental listings
- Update the content on each platform–new photographs, descriptions, new listings, etc.–simultaneously
4. It Might Increase the Volume of Booking
More business, more earnings! Owners and managers of rental property rarely want their investments to lie vacant. You don’t want to keep paying for the maintenance and upkeep of a place that’s not bringing in any money.
With a vacation rental, you have a limited time to get the maximum number of bookings before the peak season ends. Fortunately, vacation rental software can help out here as well. Here are some examples:
- You can set up your website so that renters can book their reservations and also pay for them on their own
- If you use the software on your business website, you don’t have to pay a portion of the revenue to platforms such as Airbnb
- Tips and assistance for creating the most attractive property listings, taking the right photos, and writing tempting descriptions
Conclusion
An investment is supposed to make life easier for you. Still, handling vacation rental properties can be very difficult if you go about it without rental management software. You (as the owner or property manager) might make costly mistakes along the way, have sick days, or succumb to the tediousness of each task. Make the most of your investment and start using vacation rental software as soon as possible!
