On its face, it can seem like Airbnb is a comprehensive tool for short-term rental owners. It offers dynamic pricing, its own booking engine, and a clean interface through which to communicate with clients. However, if you are truly looking to maximize your rental revenue, you’ll want to work with more than just Airbnb–and the first step you’ll want to take is in the direction of Airbnb management software.
Great question! Airbnb management software is a special tool that helps short-term rental owners automate the day-to-day tasks of property management, in order to shore up their profit margin and build more freedom into their daily schedules.
At the end of the day, each short-term rental owner operates like the CEO of their own small business. As such, it’s their job to see the big picture and spend their time growing the business, not on the minutiae of the day-to-day. That’s why people opt to invest in Airbnb management software, to take tasks like guest messaging, calendar syncing, review solicitation, cleaning and repair management, and price management off of their hands. This allows entrepreneurs to dedicate their time to growing their vacation rental businesses, building other revenue streams, or even investing it in themselves and their families, in order to increase their overall quality of life.
Airbnb management software works in one of two ways. Either the software integrates directly with Airbnb through a partnership connection, or the software uses automation outside of the booking platform to create similar outcomes. One option is not necessarily more or less effective than the other, but you’ll want to learn about the specifics of any software you are interested in doing business with, in order to find a software that will best work for you and your business.
These software are simple to register with. Most simply ask for basic identifying information, information on your property, and maybe information on your goals for participation in the platform, so that they can do their best to ensure your goals and needs are met. At the end of the day, these software exist to save time for property managers, so that they can get more done while living a life of greater freedom, and that begins with a simple registration process.
There are some pretty exciting reasons to jump into using automated Airbnb management software. Keep reading to learn some of our favorites, based on return on investment.
Airbnb management software allows you to take your business one step further. Rather than equipping you to list only on Airbnb, it allows you to list across a variety of booking platforms, which increases your property’s visibility. The more people who are able to find you, the more money you stand to make!
Additionally, with tools like dynamic pricing and other automation tools, you are able to follow market best practices without having to invest a lot of your personal time into research. This will allow you to spend less time managing individual rentals and more time diving into your business as a whole.
Now, rather than logging into each platform, Airbnb included, to make changes, you’ll be able to opt for a singular management dashboard. From this dashboard, you’ll be able to list your platforms, edit your listings, and more. In fact, many users report that they save at least ten hours per week by automating them through an automated Airbnb management software. What could you do differently in your life with an additional forty hours a month?
Airbnb management systems include a variety of services. While these services can be itemized and sourced out to different providers, by going through one central service provider, you don’t just get convenience, you’re likely saving money by bundling services.
Airbnb software is critical to your business, and as such, you should put some homework into finding the right software for you. Compare it to hiring an associate–you wouldn’t just pull anyone in off the street, would you? The same applies to software. Be judicious of which software you trust to manage your business.
Maybe you’re just starting out, and the idea of owning a fleet of properties seems far in the distant future. Perhaps it is! But at the end of the day, you’re not going to want to find that level of success and then completely overhaul your business model. You’ll want something that will grow with you!
Some tools will only work with you if you are just starting out, while others want clients who have many, many properties. Make the smart decision and select a software that will be with you through every stage of growth, so that you can keep your internal practices consistent.
There are a variety of short-term rental property types, and first, you have to be aware of what type you are running. Are you an owner-occupied property, renting out a room or section of your house to guests? What about a single-family home that is empty, except for when you have renters in town? Or have you expanded your business into multi-family units?
Either way, there is likely software on the market for you. But you’ll want to dig in and determine whether or not the software you’ve selected is appropriate for your type of rental.
Nothing is worse than paying for software that’s supposed to solve all of your problems and then finding out it only solves about seventy percent of them. You wouldn’t want Airbnb management software that lists your property on some websites, but not all. This is why it’s important to know which websites you expect your property to be listed on, and do your homework, to ensure that the Airbnb management software you are considering is able to meet your needs in that respect.
When interviewing your prospective management software, be sure to also ask about what platforms they integrate with. Some platforms, like Google Vacation Rentals, can be particularly tricky to get into, and if the software offers a foot in the door, that could prove beneficial to your business.
Some tools require that you be a seasoned property manager, while others cater specifically to newbies. Although you can shop around for something that aligns with your current preference, we recommend choosing something that will appeal to you now, as well as something that will work for the version of your business you hope to have ten years from now.
Consider which tasks, if taken off your hands, could add more time to your day. Which of these tasks do you trust someone else, or better yet, a software, to handle? Take this list of tasks shopping with you as you consider the options. How will the features of this particular software impact your business? Will it help save you time by managing client bookings, listing optimization, or something different? Decide which things would free up the majority of your bandwidth and go after those.
Nobody wants software that is going to take more time to learn than it would take to simply do the tasks yourself. The goal is to find something that will reduce your time spent on the business while making you more effective. If you don’t feel like that’s what you’re getting out of your software, it’s time to look elsewhere.
Some of this comes in when you research the customer support processes for a given company. Are they easy to get in touch with if something goes wrong, or if you get stuck on how to use it? At the end of the day, the software you select should feel like an extension of your business, and not just another tool.
Over time, there are some features that we’ve come to realize have saved us time in our business, and we want to pass those features on to you. When shopping for Airbnb management software, we recommend looking for the following:
Channel management allows property owners to save the time they would have otherwise spent on listing a single property twelve different times on twelve different websites, and consolidate it into one listing that is then posted across all of these sites. This is incredibly beneficial because of time saved, both in the one-off tasks like publishing and editing your listing, but also in the more routine tasks like booking management. Having software that connects all of your platforms can help you prevent double bookings, which is critical to maintaining an organized business and client success.
Dynamic pricing lets you adjust your prices to maximize revenue. You could spend hours analyzing the market, looking at competitor prices, and then adjusting your rates to keep up with demand. But why would you? There is software on the market that is ready to do this for you and save you time and energy. There are a lot of different solutions out there, but we suggest finding one that integrates the most comprehensive data for your market. More data means more accurate insights, allowing you to make the best decisions for your business.
There are a million different ways to get your listing discovered on the Internet. Whether it’s making sure your profile is filled out as clearly as possible, advertising the right spots with the right words, or even using strategies to make your listing more discoverable on Google. There are entire marketing agencies dedicated to this, with entire teams who do nothing by playing with the Google algorithms all day. Save yourself the time, headache, and marketing spend, by letting the software take the lead on this.
The more you know, the better equipped you are to grow your business. You’ll want data like who is booking, and when. How long they are staying for? And at the end of the year, you’ll want data reports to allow you to do your taxes. You’ll need to know what profits you made and what expenses you incurred, in order to ensure your end-of-year statements are in order and to project the success of your business in the years to come.
Futurestay is different because it’s a company founded by short-term rental owners to help other short-term rental owners. That means we’ve walked in your shoes, and now we aim to pave the way to greater success as owners spend less money on property management and gain back more time to do the things they love.