How to manage multiple vacation rentals without an agency (and stay sane)

Multiple properties refer to different types of tourist accommodations that a single owner can manage at the same time. These include:

• Tourist rentals: Apartments or houses rented on a short-term basis (also known as "vacation rentals").
• Holiday homes: Homes intended for rental to tourists for varying periods of time, ranging from a few days to several weeks.
• B&B (Bed & Breakfast): Establishments that offer lodging and breakfast.
• Room rental: Single or multiple rooms rented within a residential structure.

Managing multiple properties presents many challenges, including coordinating daily operations, managing finances, and centralizing reservations. However, by taking a few precautions and leveraging technology, it is possible to address these issues efficiently. Let's see how!

Managing multiple properties, perhaps in different areas of the city or province, requires excellent logistical organization to coordinate daily operations, ensure maintenance, and respond promptly to guest requests.

To avoid service disruptions that could impact guest satisfaction, occupancy, and revenue, it is important to standardize management to make it smooth and efficient. Here’s how to do it:

• Establish standard procedures

Ensure that each property follows common guidelines for check-in, check-out, cleaning, and maintenance. This ensures consistency and quality across all properties.

• Select and train the staff

It is not enough for your staff to be trustworthy. Make sure they have all the training they need to work independently in the various locations. They should have a thorough knowledge of each property and the procedures you have established.

• Manage time efficiently

Coordinating check-out times, cleaning and subsequent check-in is critical, especially when locations are far apart. Effective time management reduces downtime and maximizes occupancy.

To do this, choose a property management software (PMS) that includes the ability to synchronize the booking calendars of all your properties with cleaning schedules and send automatic notifications to staff.

The most common mistake made by those who manage multiple vacation rentals or non-hotel accommodations is setting up financial management poorly, perhaps using different methods for each property. When financial data is scattered across multiple sources, spreadsheets, and non-integrated systems, it becomes difficult to get a complete picture of the economic situation, which leads to the risk of errors and lost revenue.

To avoid this, it is important to have a centralized system that helps you keep track of the income, expenses, revenues, and costs of all your properties simultaneously. For example, you can choose a hospitality accounting software or a property management system (PMS) that integrates accounting and financial analysis functions.

Only by simultaneously monitoring the daily operations, expenses, and revenues of all your properties will you always have a clear picture of the situation and be able to respond quickly to any issues.

Like financial management, bookings need to be managed centrally to avoid overlaps, overbooking and guest service issues. Here are the two basic requirements to achieve this:

• Single website with booking engine

Bringing all your properties together on a single website with a smooth and intuitive booking engine will improve your online visibility and simplify the booking experience for your customers, allowing them to browse your entire offering, check rates and availability, and select the property that best suits their needs.

• Software to manage bookings and distribution channels

The combined use of a property management system (PMS) and a channel manager is essential to centralize booking and communication management, eliminate the dispersion of valuable information, and ensure a smoother and more coordinated management of your properties.

While the PMS allows you to efficiently manage bookings, prevent the risk of overbooking and ensure a clear view of the calendar, the Channel Manager saves you hours of manual work by synchronizing availability and rates across all online booking platforms in real time.

If you manage multiple vacation rentals and you are the one handling most of the activities, your keyword should be 'automation'.

This is the only way to improve your operational efficiency, reduce manual work, and focus on more strategic and value-added activities.

• Automate payments

Automating the payment process not only streamlines operations by eliminating cash management, but also ensures maximum transaction security and guarantees that payments are made before guests arrive, eliminating the risk of fraud and missed collections.

• Automate check-in and check-out

Self check-in and check-out solutions, or even better, contactless check-in and check-out, not only eliminate the need for constant travel between properties, but also reduce your operating costs and ensure maximum flexibility for your guests.

Centralizing revenue management is an essential practice for getting a clear and consistent view of each property's performance, as well as the overall progress of your business.

Not only that, but having everything under control in a simple way will also allow you to make more informed and timely decisions to maximize your revenue.

Here's how it works in 3 steps.

Move beyond the logic of fixed rate lists and implement an effective revenue management strategy that is fundamental to optimizing revenue from your multiple non-hotel properties. At the core of revenue management is dynamic pricing - rates that vary based on demand and other variables such as seasonality, competition, local events, and booking trends for your lodging properties.

Collecting data is useless if you can't read it. Continuous monitoring of your key performance indicators (e.g. occupancy, RevPAR, booking window, etc.) is essential to understand and optimize the performance of your properties.

For example, an activity undervalued by many hoteliers, such as booking window analysis, can prove to be highly strategic. To learn more about this topic, we recommend reading our article on how to use the booking window to increase bookings.

If you feel you don't have the skills or time to collect the data, analyze it, and implement a dynamic pricing strategy that fits the characteristics of your properties, don't give up!

Even in this case, you can get help from technology by considering the implementation of a modern Revenue Management System (RMS) that will assist you by automating the entire data collection, analysis and pricing adjustment phase.

Creating a brand is much more than choosing a name or logo for your accommodations. It means building their identity, clarifying their values and their communication style.

If you manage multiple properties, you need to be able to bring them all under a unified brand that will help you stand out from the competition and appeal to your target audience. Here are the characteristics of a unified brand:

• Recognition and consistency

Use the same colors, communication style, and recurring themes for all of your facilities, while highlighting specific features and strengths.

• Standardization of experience

Ensuring consistent quality standards, such as cleanliness, customer service, and amenities, means that guests receive the same level of service regardless of which property they choose.

If you are considering delegating the management of your properties to a real estate agency or property manager, there are some important aspects to consider:

• Costs vs. benefits

Real estate agencies and property managers may charge significant fees for managing your properties, which can significantly impact your bottom line. However, they can also offer benefits such as reduced workload and professional management of day-to-day operations, which can offset the costs.

• Control

Outsourcing management means delegating many of the day-to-day and operational decisions. It is important to consider whether you are comfortable with this loss of control and whether the agency you choose shares your vision and quality standards for your properties. For example, you may not have the same flexibility to customize offerings or interact directly with guests.

In this article, we have seen the main challenges of managing multiple vacation rentals and how to overcome them. However, if your main goal is to quickly increase the profitability of your properties, the best way to do this is to implement a dynamic pricing strategy to maximize each booking.

Smartpricing is the perfect dynamic pricing and revenue management software even for vacation rentals and non-hotel accommodations that helps you create effective pricing strategies for all your properties from a single platform. In just a few steps, you will have prices that are always updated based on the characteristics of each property and your target market.

Want to see how it works? Request a free, personalized demo!