STR Technology - What Automation and Home Systems Do you like?

Question

Hi everyone,

Ive acquired my first property that will become an STR.

What automations/software (pricelabs, hospitable, guesty, etc) are your favorites?

What home automations (wifi door lock, smart thermostats, etc) are your favorites?

Excited to be a part of this community!

Sarah Kensinger · Answer

Automate as much as possible! Smart locks, thermostat, PMS software, pricing, etc.

You have some great suggestions, but I'll also throw out there that I've heard repeatedly from people that have used 7-10 PMS, that Hospitable is the best for new hosts.

Andrew Steffens · Answer

Here are a few we use (mid size PM Co)

PMS - Streamline

Pricing - RevMax

Projections/Analysis - AirDNAv & LSI Tools

Home automation - Lynx

Best of luck!

Brett Deas · Answer

Pricelabs is great for pricing, but can sometimes jack up the prices way to high. So be sure to check it a few times.

I think Hostway is the best platform you can get for the price. It costs way less than others and has almost all the same integrations and automations availible for you.

For thermostats we use Ecobee, they have great remote access options as well as a good guest interface. I haven't shopped these at all so I don't know how it stacks up to the others, but it works great for my places.

Theresa Holl · Answer

Check these out too

Booking Website Builders

• Hosty is most recommended by homeowners
• Wix and WordPress are good if you have a bit more experience or tech know-how
• Notable Mentions: LiveRez, Lodgify, Lodgix, Wix, Guesty

Content Creation

• Canva is great to make a consistent post template or text overlay with property website. Also where I make most of the blog post title images.
• Social Pilot is great for scheduling your posts
• Jasper is great for creating blog posts
• Apollo is great for creating cold emails for your blog posts- shoot for retreats, wedding planners, event coordinators, local traffic, etc

Accounting Software

• REI Hub is a smaller company with great customer service, best for 2-20 home range
• FutureStay and Bookerville are a bit more all-in-one, but great tools

Thermostat and chargers

• Nest is great for remote control of the settings, even if just to turn off between guests or alerts for certain temps
• Thermostat locking containers- some like this. Or if you have charger theft issues, can lock remotely.

Digital Welcome book/ Guide book

• Hostfully all the way.
• Have a comments book physically available (coffee book style) for guests to write their own recommendations and favorite things
• Have a physical book when can, photo albums and scrapbooks work great.

Managing your Maids and Handymen

• Breezeway hands down. Love em.

Drew Smith · Answer

I run three properties through Guesty for Hosts and Pricelabs.  Guesty for Hosts was the first PMS I tried and it's been very user friendly as I've added more properties.

On our beach condos, I've had a schlage encode at one property for 3+ years now and it has worked really well.  But at the other condo I've gone through 5-6 encodes and finally switched it over to Kwikset Halo.  It's worked well the last 3 months so I may consider switching all of them to Kwikset in the future.

Margeaux Appold · Answer

Thank you!

Margeaux Appold · Answer

awesome - thank you!

STR Technology - What Automation and Home Systems Do you like?

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