With loads of start up airbnb management companies poping up every year the question is:
Can someone manager my Airbnb?
Lets start with:
What is the difference between a Property Manager and Real Estate Agent?
Property Managers and Real Estate Agents both work in the real estate industry but their roles are different.
Property Managers manage rental properties – both residential and holiday. They collect rent, conduct inspections and deal with maintenance issues. In the case of residential properties, they may deal with advertising properties for rent, interviewing prospective tenants and placing tenants. In the case of holiday rental properties, they may manage bookings and organise the cleaning of a property between guests.
Real Estate Agents deal with property sales, which includes marketing a property and handling negotiations between buyers and sellers. Many Real Estate Agents businesses also include a Residential Property Management arm. In addition, if they are located in a vacation destination, they may also run a Holiday Property Management business.
Short Term and Airbnb Management
Over the past decade, Airbnb has grown its home-sharing platform to more than 65,000 cities and 191 countries. While some landlords view Airbnb as a nuisance or a threat, others see the opportunities that the platform has created.
For example: Instead of signing traditional, long-term leases on all of the units in a 12-unit property, a landlord might opt to convert two of those units into short-term rentals. Those units, when listed on Airbnb, can generate significantly higher returns than a landlord might be able to realize through long-term leases. A unit that typically leases for $1500 per month may instead be able to generate twice as much if rented for $200 per night, just 15 days out of the month.
Of course, there are tradeoffs. Traditional leases typically provide more stable tenants and cash flow, and they’re less difficult to manage. It’s also easier to build a sense of community when residents are there for the long-haul.
Short-term rentals require a lot of leg-work. You’re constantly marketing the unit and responding to inquiries; and there needs to be someone at the ready to turn the unit over each time a new guest arrives and this is why Airbnb management has become to popular.
How many Airbnb properties are the company currently managing?
This should be the first question you should ask. If the answer is: “none”, then don’t proceed any further. The Airbnb and VR property management and service provider industry is a new one, but if other hosts and owners aren’t using this service provider, that’s not a good sign.
If the answer is “10 or more”, then you need to be clear as to how many people with are working with the property manager. By my calculation, it can take a minimum of 4 hours per week just to effectively run 1 Airbnb (excluding cleaning time — which is normally subcontracted). So, given the average person allocates 40 hours per week to working, if your potential property manager has 10 or more properties you need to be sure that they can adequately scale to manage your property as well.
Legal obigation:
Short term or holiday letting Property Managers are not under the same obligations as rental real estate. Therefore this is still new ground and has lots of grey areas. As we are not permitted to give legal advice please contact a local solicitor for more information.