Real Estate Agent · Sevierville, TN · Member since 2017 · 165 posts · 137 votes
Hi Folks
I am taking a long hard look at my monthly subscription costs paid out to tools. One of the tools I subscribe to is OwnerRez. I haven’t found much utility with it. The only distinct feature it gives me is a website that was easy to get a basic set up. To make the web site visible I would need to pay someone to finish it out and get it to show up in the search engines. I am wondering what the group’s opinion is of whether a stand alone website is worth it. OwnerRez is hitting me for $80/month.
Los Angeles, CA · Member since 2016 · 565 posts · 391 votes
7y
Most hosts who have not built their own site is either because they procrastinate (like me) or they think the website is like in the 90s, being the only or the main source of your bookings. It's not.
Just like any other business, you need to have an online identity. Those who use airbnb's host page or a FB page for that, solve that issue. (I have both and they come up easily when googled). But that's not enough.
In terms of business, when you have some volume and a few hundred emails of past clients like me (or a few thousands like some other guys), then you are missing a business opportunity of booking them directly, either by repeat business or by ads elsewhere (CL, FB, Google ads,...).
I am amazed to see that most people think airbnb costs 3% or vrbo costs 3%+499/year. You need to look at what the guest pays to see the real cost YOU are indirectly paying. Yes it's you not the guest, because the guest is ready to pay that amount to book your property .
And finally as a business owner, you need to reduce your dependency. You won't remove airbnb/vrbo as a source of income, but don't put all your eggs in the same baskets. Diversify.
And to answer your question @Karen Chenaille I think it's worth, especially for 13 properties. From your message I think you are either not comfortable with the tech part (you mention finishing the site, I don't think there is much needed to finish) or consider it as a replacement to airbnb/vrbo. It's not. It's an addition. I know that even if I get 2 or 3 bookings per year directly, per property, it pays for the cost/time spent on your site/page. (I email twice a year with specials for low season and get a couple bookings per property with each emailing. For now I manage bookings manually, e-signature, paypal, but will automate it for less interaction.)
Investor · The worst town to live in, KS · Member since 2016 · 4k+ posts · 4k+ votes
7y
My glasses kinda dirty right now. I read your post and thought the word "tools" was "fools". But after reading your post, I feel that you could substitute the word fools in there. In which case, you should stop paying the fools money or you're going to become one yourself.
Financial Advisor · CA · Member since 2012 · 128 posts · 76 votes
7y
If you need a website, make it with
https://www.wix.com/. There are different reasons to have or not have a website. If you have a website it should get people into your str and/or act as a landing page as a reference to prove you are "legitimate." Not sure if you have to prove how legitimate you are --depends on your strategy.
If you want "free", how about www.wix.com You can set it up in a half hour. Or if you want advertisiers or a blog, consider one of the wordpress sites, but don't pick the free ones because that won't allow ad revenue.
It all depends on you and your marketing strategy. If you get business from handing out your business cards, then I'd say keep your own webstie. If you rely on Airbnb then not so much but still, maybe. https://www.wix.com/
Olympia, WA · Member since 2016 · 8k+ posts · 7k+ votes
7y
@Karen Chenaille, there is always a value add to having your own site, but you don't have to pay that much for one. I am working on ours for our lake house and I am using Bluehost as the hosting site.
It is very reasonable and they have excellent Wordpress support. If you are unfamiliar with Wordpress, check out here:
It is quite easy to get started and you own the site. If you use WIX as @Account Closed suggested, you can get one done very quick, but Wix will own your site unless you opt for the more expensive account options, Wix sites can slow down with added features (any website can, but Wix is a bit notorious for it), plus it has a proprietary content management system which is not easily transferable to other platforms.
The reason I chose Wordpress is that is is open source with lots of people building tools for it and templates for free as well as paid. It is a de-facto standard for more basic web development and is easily transferable to other hosting companies.
Yes it will take more work with a bit of a learning curve but the tools are great as well as some good STR plug ins.
Rental Property Investor · Tennessee Florida · Member since 2016 · 4k+ posts · 5k+ votes
7y
Not worth it in my opinion. It’s terrible for systems. Maintain website, block calendars, have them pay with PayPal, send them RA to sign and return. Too much time wasted to save 3%
Just get a url that drives them to your Airbnb such as the one in my signature.
Real Estate Agent · Sevierville, TN · Member since 2015 · 1k+ posts · 1k+ votes
7y
@Karen Chenaille Why on earth is OwnerRez hitting you for $80/mo? Based on my understanding of their tools, it shouldn't be that much unless you've got like a dozen properties (or more!).
Re: your own site, it's something I've been wanting to do for ages, mainly for returning guests - so they can bypass paying THEIR booking fee to the OTAs. But like @Luke Carl said, the amount of trouble it is vs. the actual return you're getting weighs heavily in favor of not bothering.
One feature OwnerRez provides that I really like is automating guest messaging, but YourPorter does that for me wonderfully for like $7/mo.
Real Estate Agent · Sevierville, TN · Member since 2017 · 165 posts · 137 votes
7y
@Lucas Carl
After reading everyone’s responses I tend to agree with you. Not to mention the only pricing engine they work with is PriceLabs, so you have to maintain prices on their site. I am all about putting in as little time possible for max return.
Yes...and by the way..even the Wordpress that you pay for is way cheaper than $80 a month depending on your host. I think you can get Bluehost for less than $5 a month.
Olympia, WA · Member since 2016 · 8k+ posts · 7k+ votes
7y
Regarding maintaining the site as @Luke Carl mentioned, there are a lot of ways to automate a lot of the things. Like syncing the calendars, there is a plug in for Wordpress to do that with all major listing sites. Someone books on your site and the calendars on all the listing sites you setup are all blocked.
You can also use Signly or eSign for the rental agreement. You can automate that as well.
There is also a plug in to pull reviews from your listing sites and populate on your website.
It all depends on how much work you want to put into your site. I have seen a few sites that point to AirBNB/Verbo so that is a good way to go as well. I might try that first just to get going.
I am taking a long hard look at my monthly subscription costs paid out to tools. One of the tools I subscribe to is OwnerRez. I haven’t found much utility with it. The only distinct feature it gives me is a website that was easy to get a basic set up. To make the web site visible I would need to pay someone to finish it out and get it to show up in the search engines. I am wondering what the group’s opinion is of whether a stand alone website is worth it. OwnerRez is hitting me for $80/month.
Thanks a million!
Karen
Has anyone used Lodgify? I thought this is the entire purpose of their business
Investor · The worst town to live in, KS · Member since 2016 · 4k+ posts · 4k+ votes
7y
You people make things difficult. I just go by each address every 7 days, the tenants are expecting me around 5:45 (they get off work at 5:30), and they pay me. I give them a receipt and come back a week later.
You people make things difficult. I just go by each address every 7 days, the tenants are expecting me around 5:45 (they get off work at 5:30), and they pay me. I give them a receipt and come back a week later.
Heady play - arriving 45 mins before the prostitute to ensure you get paid before she does
You people make things difficult. I just go by each address every 7 days, the tenants are expecting me around 5:45 (they get off work at 5:30), and they pay me. I give them a receipt and come back a week later.
Heady play - arriving 45 mins before the prostitute to ensure you get paid before she does
Never thought about it that way. I just want to get home and count money while cooking dinner and drinking beers. My wife helps me do the last 2 things. After collecting rent and coming home, she would ask me "What is that bulge in your pants?" and I would whip out a big wad.
Rental Property Investor · Arlington, TX · Member since 2016 · 706 posts · 611 votes
7y
I personally think websites are dying much like the newspaper. A more effective model would be to have a FB page where you can drive ads to the page and also have a book now button where they can book the calendar on there. Then FB will give you full insights on how your advertising is working compared to the revenue that you are bringing in. I personally have a website only due to certain limitations that I have with the number of listings that I have. If you only have a few listings I'd dump that $80/mo on some FB advertisements. FB page is also free.
Hatfield, PA · Member since 2012 · 1k+ posts · 629 votes
7y
I use ownerrez and the only problem here is you seem to be clueless about how to use it effectively. 13 properties? The hosted website is $10 monthly! You get your own website then the support, management, construction is all your problem. They channel manage all the large listing sites. Good connections to card processors. They provide e-sign functionality. Email templates and triggers. Pricelabs is only the first. They're cheap compared to the others like guesty. They do almost everything and do it well.
I got it because people sing its praises on multiple forums and they are right.
I am taking a long hard look at my monthly subscription costs paid out to tools. One of the tools I subscribe to is OwnerRez. I haven’t found much utility with it. The only distinct feature it gives me is a website that was easy to get a basic set up. To make the web site visible I would need to pay someone to finish it out and get it to show up in the search engines. I am wondering what the group’s opinion is of whether a stand alone website is worth it. OwnerRez is hitting me for $80/month.
Your response is unnecessarily harsh to a reasonable question which has generated a generally productive discussion. This forum is here to support and encourage current and future STR owners.
Hatfield, PA · Member since 2012 · 1k+ posts · 629 votes
7y
Response is totally accurate. You're being harsh on a fantastic product because you are being cheap and refusing to do your homework.
1 property, I get it. 13? extremely pennywise and pound-foolish.
hosted website on owner reservations is mindlessly simple. It pulls from the property listings that are also used for the booking sites.
SEO is practically useless for vacation rentals. Firsr search result page is dominated by the listing sites own advertising and their own SEO. But having your own website can capture the approximately 7% of What's called the billboard effect. That is people who look at booking.com or Airbnb or TripAdvisor or VRBO and just come directly to your site. That's not worth $10 a month?
using them also saves having a monthly subscription to something like DocuSign.
Los Angeles, CA · Member since 2016 · 565 posts · 391 votes
7y
Most hosts who have not built their own site is either because they procrastinate (like me) or they think the website is like in the 90s, being the only or the main source of your bookings. It's not.
Just like any other business, you need to have an online identity. Those who use airbnb's host page or a FB page for that, solve that issue. (I have both and they come up easily when googled). But that's not enough.
In terms of business, when you have some volume and a few hundred emails of past clients like me (or a few thousands like some other guys), then you are missing a business opportunity of booking them directly, either by repeat business or by ads elsewhere (CL, FB, Google ads,...).
I am amazed to see that most people think airbnb costs 3% or vrbo costs 3%+499/year. You need to look at what the guest pays to see the real cost YOU are indirectly paying. Yes it's you not the guest, because the guest is ready to pay that amount to book your property .
And finally as a business owner, you need to reduce your dependency. You won't remove airbnb/vrbo as a source of income, but don't put all your eggs in the same baskets. Diversify.
And to answer your question @Karen Chenaille I think it's worth, especially for 13 properties. From your message I think you are either not comfortable with the tech part (you mention finishing the site, I don't think there is much needed to finish) or consider it as a replacement to airbnb/vrbo. It's not. It's an addition. I know that even if I get 2 or 3 bookings per year directly, per property, it pays for the cost/time spent on your site/page. (I email twice a year with specials for low season and get a couple bookings per property with each emailing. For now I manage bookings manually, e-signature, paypal, but will automate it for less interaction.)
Rental Property Investor · Nashua, NH · Member since 2014 · 587 posts · 477 votes
7y
I'll play the devil's advocate and say that you absolutely do need your own website/mailing list/CRM/etc because those are the only platforms you can truly own your customer data and engage directly with your customers without the filter of an intermediary stepping in to define the rules of engagement.
Don't get me wrong, I love the ease of using someone else's STR platform as much as everyone else. AirBnB's done a great job using VC money to build a better VRBO, but basing an entire STR business on one platform is volunteering to play by someone else's rules: rules that are aligned to very different objectives than the ones each of us have as owners.
More importantly, as we've seen with Google, Facebook, and virtually every other "free" platform, it's only free until you're hooked, after that it's pay to play. I've seen this on my own STR in just watching the search rank change once I turn on Instant Booking or tweak settings to be more in line with what the latest "feature" that AirBnB has a vested interest in promoting. Smart pricing tools are perhaps the best indicator of this: leveraging huge pricing data sets to show how AirBnB's own "smart pricing" as primarily a tool to allow AirBnB a competitive advantage against hotels vs maximizing long term profits of STR owners.
Depending exclusively on someone else's system isn't growing your asset, it is turning what you own into an asset for someone else with much less skin in the game.
Seth Godin had a far more articulate explanation, using the analog of "share cropping" for modern social media and platforms. I'll even save you the trouble of listening to the whole episode and cut right to specific section of the podcast episode. It's an insightful couple minutes of audio from a perspective we don't hear enough from in the age of social everything:
How to do it? Lots of great ideas already posted here. Tons of options on WordPress or templated website builders out there for the DIYers or maybe you just invest the $1k you would have wasted chasing ever-rising FB ads over the next couple years and have a developer build it for you. Either way, the goal is investing in a system that allows you full ownership over customer data beyond the platform so you can actually build a business around your customers, not customers that look like yours but are really someone else's.
In my own STRs, I view each of the major platforms as basic lead generation only. Once first-time customers become guests, it's my job to ensure they come back by "owning the channel" and keeping folks out of AirBnB's shopping aisles to get picked off my another, cheaper option. None of that's easy so I welcome others' thoughts on what's worked best for you in getting repeat customers to come back again and again.