All Forum Posts by: Andrew Steffens

Hi Han!

A couple of thoughts:

- We have been on and off Superhost for 7 years and never received any noticeably higher revenue being one versus not being one.  

- The "perks" Airbnb offers to Superhosts certainly is nothing special.

- Our industry is Short Term Rentals not Airbnbs.  I know these terms have become synonymous but I think it is important to differentiate being in the industry.  We used to only be on Airbnb and Vrbo and it was about 85/15 & bookings respectively.  Airbnb frequently lets guests out of reservations, refunds incorrectly etc making our job harder.  With a little bit of effort we are now on Booking.com, Marriot Homes and Villas, JetBlue, Allegiant, and more.  Also a lot of marketing to previous guests to book direct.  Our occupancy rates are up in slow season and we were only 42% Airbnb last month.

This is just my humble opinion based on experience mainly in Tampa, but I hope it helps you in some way.  Best of luck!

 My pleasure! Let me know if you have any other questions.  I imagine you could use their template if they are ok with it for your private bookings.  Best of luck!

We are a mid sized STR PM company and our PMS (Streamline) sends it to all guests emails and our reservationists make sure it is signed through the built in software before any check in info is given. I do believe some smaller PMS have this option as well. If not, any one of the other recommended softwares such as Docusign, SignNow, etc should work.

I am curious why your PM is requiring you to do this - this is something essential to PM duties I feel?

 Hey Chris - Really this is opinion based but if you can get a King there without it being asthetically too unappealing and people can get in and out of bed ok and there is ample light etc I would do that over a Queen.  Im not even that large but will 99% of the time personally book a place with a king over a queen.

That said we manage over 60 units and there are a lot of different bedding options and we have never determined units with queens have done worse than those who have kings.  Most have a good mix.

 I agree with Ken - I am not fan of airbnb as a company but they have the largest market share and if you are not there as will you are doing yourself a disservice.  We are also on a variety of other sites (Marriott/Jetblue/Allegiant) that only work with larger PM companies, but I believe you can get on Booking.com as a property owner.  They also help filling in the gaps.  I hope that helps!

 Hi Mireille! We are a full service local short term rental management company.  Please let me know if I can help in any way.  Thanks!

 Hey Jonathan! Atlantic City native here who lives in Tampa now and manages 60 units or so here in Tampa.  I have a NYC client who has several houses in FL I manage and he asked me last year to manage one for him in Ventnor.  I agreed because I still have a network in that area, and it has gone very well.  The house is a new construction 4 bed 4 bath 2 blocks from the beach.  It has been a full year and occupancy was about 60% overall but nearly 100% from mid may to mid Sept.  I hope that helps, let me know if you have any other questions!

Hey Dom - We are in FL (Tampa Bay area, 60+ units) and use Duvet/Duvet inserts from HotelSupply and they work well.  You have to buy from there by the case, so if you only have 1 unit that may not make sense.  Target has decent ones for around $30 each (the cover not the insert).  We launder the inserts monthly and the covers after every stay.  There is a technique our Housekeeping Manager wants to implement known as "double sheeting" that is getting more popular.  You can use two bedsheets and fold them in a certain way to avoid using Duvet Cover.  Youtube as some videos.  Hope this helps!

I agree with Leo - You do not need to spend a lot on a course.  You can easily with little effort educate yourself on BP and other sites, and if you have a specific question, ask!

This is interesting, following to see if anyone has had success.