My thoughts would be to keep property as full as possible for as high a rent as possible to stay full.
Ways to do this is by researching your competition and use the free analytic tools that HA/VRBO offers.
Look at demand in the graphs and also notice what average rents are for your competition and adjust as necessary. No that I have a bunch of 5 star reviews I price my high house slightly higher than my competition because I can get it especially during the peak season and during peak events. Lower your prices slightly below the competition when it is slow. Set high minimum days for stays during peak season and peak events and 2 day minimum stay during off season.
Check amenities with your competition and make sure you offer comparable or better ammenities.
Try and have same day check in and check out instead to maximize revenue instead of worrying about charging more for late or early arrivals.
Have a Pet friendly house and charge pet fees. Many people travel with fido and if you don't allow fido you are reducing the pool of people that will look at and book your property. You can use some of the extra revenue to steam clean carpets in the off season.
In addition to VRBO/HA and AIrbnb I advertise on Craigslist (Facebook Market is also hot) I drive them to my HA listing but also take direct listings with a rental agreement and photo ID.
During the peak season my cleaning lady is extremely busy cleaning our Lake house as soon as people checkout so that it is ready that afternoon for another arrival.
Know your market and make sure you are taking advantage of events that you might not have of though about if you hadn't done your research.
Discounts in the off season also increase your days rented and reviews which puts you higher in the search position for when you are getting top dollar.
@John Underwood, how do you represent your price on Facebook Market? I don't like that it only allows me to put the monthy rent price, rather than a nightly rent. And since most people aren't doing a search for the crazy monthly price that my rental would be if someone really were to stay a month, I have ours listed at $1 just so it'll pop up in the search results, but I really don't like doing it that way. Do you have a different system for Marketplace?
Jen,
I haven't personally needed to use FB Market as Homeaway keeps my Lake house slam full. I do know that FB market is like the new Craigslist for many people. On a side note I refreshed my CL add yesterday and had 3 people inquire about dates that same night. For the most part I just direct them to HA/VRBO as I have had phenomenal success there and I stay in the top 3% of all listings in my area. I keep an active Airbnb account also but it just gets me a handful of rentals per year.
Peoria, IL · Member since 2015 · 99 posts · 52 votes
8y
@John Underwood, that's pretty much what I do, too, but since you mentioned Marketplace, I was just curious. VRBO is where most of our traffic comes from, with a handful through AirBnb, HomeAway, and TripAdvisor. Every once in awhile, I will update Craigslist and direct people back to VRBO, but I don't keep up with CL very well.
Investor · Orlando, FL · Member since 2016 · 152 posts · 86 votes
8y
Couple of things:
We switched from a refundable security deposit to a fixed cleaning & damage waiver fee. For $225 on each reservation we cover any damage the guest may do during the stay and the cleaning of the unit. So far we're WAY ahead on this deal, the vast majority of our guests don't damage anything at all. Plus the guest doesn't have to deal with any third party insurance company. No pushback from this, we made the change about 5 months ago.
A few guests have asked for early/late checkin/out. We charge a small fee for this, $25 and most guests who ask opt in for that. Usually the units are ready anyway so it's a good deal. We don't allow late checkout on tight turns.
We are thinking of adding a pre-stock option where we'll supply the basics, eggs, milk, bread, etc etc for a fixed fee but so far haven't gotten around to figuring out the logistics of this.
We switched from a refundable security deposit to a fixed cleaning & damage waiver fee. For $225 on each reservation we cover any damage the guest may do during the stay and the cleaning of the unit. So far we're WAY ahead on this deal, the vast majority of our guests don't damage anything at all. Plus the guest doesn't have to deal with any third party insurance company. No pushback from this, we made the change about 5 months ago.
A few guests have asked for early/late checkin/out. We charge a small fee for this, $25 and most guests who ask opt in for that. Usually the units are ready anyway so it's a good deal. We don't allow late checkout on tight turns.
We are thinking of adding a pre-stock option where we'll supply the basics, eggs, milk, bread, etc etc for a fixed fee but so far haven't gotten around to figuring out the logistics of this.
That's interesting because I did the opposite. I stopped charging and requiring insurance and started collecting a refundable security deposit. My thoughts on this were if you rent a car and pay for their insurance then you don't care if it gets dinged up because you already paid for the insurance. Now if you paid a deposit when renting a car you would be treating it as your own and parking in the back of the parking lot so that you got your deposit back.
Since I switched to refundable deposits I have not had any problems.
Also this makes the total cost of the rental lower. If I were renting a place I would quickly realize that the deposit is not part of my trip as I get that back.
Just what I have done and it has worked well for me.
Now if someone did substantial damage neither of us would be covered much unless we filed a claim on our insurance.