7 Essential Vacation Rental Management Tips All Landlords Should Know

Renting out a second property to tourists and others can be appealing for more than a few reasons. It’ll let you generate a decent income year-round and could be a great way to save for your retirement. But, that doesn’t mean this is the easiest process to get through.

It takes quite a bit of time and effort to manage, which takes a lot of work. Thankfully, more than a few vacation rental management tips can help with this quite a bit. They’ll help you avoid more than a few challenges, like:

1. Finding the right guests.
2. Making sure your property is appealing.
3. Improving your rental property’s profitability.
4. Increasing the amount of bookings you get.

These are all great benefits to see, but you’ll have to work to see them. You’ll already know this, but you could think it needs to be a long and overwhelming process. It doesn’t.

Focusing on the right tips should be more than enough for this. While there’s no way around getting a few things done, you shouldn’t have to deal with nearly as much stress or hassle as you might’ve thought. It’s just a matter of knowing which ones actually help.

Seven of these stand out because of the impact they can have, making them more than worth starting off with.

1. Plan for Cleaning & Maintenance

You’ll need to worry about the ongoing cleaning and maintenance of your property for more than a few reasons. When you have quite a few guests, it’ll end up going through a lot of wear and tear. And, some guests mightn’t be as tidy as you would’ve liked.

Have a plan for how you’ll deal with this. Cleaning between guests is obvious, and it’s also worth having a proactive maintenance schedule to avoid any large issues later on. This also helps you predict your general maintenance costs as time goes on, too.

2. Know & Highlight Local Amenities

Many potential renters will base their decision on how close you are to various amenities. They wouldn’t want to be too far from everything, after all. Take the time to highlight all of the local amenities on your listing and in any relevant marketing materials.

Don’t just focus on the obvious, either. If your property is in a nice location in New York, for example, you might want to highlight luggage storage Penn Station and similar amenities. Consider which ones potential renters would want most and highlight them.

3. Be Careful About Guests

You could end up getting quite a few people wanting to rent out your property at various times of the year. But, that doesn’t mean you should accept anyone and everyone. You’re much better off being careful with this so you can avoid any potentially problematic guests.

Take the time to vet your guests before accepting a booking. Thankfully, many platforms have features that let you do this, and you can look into reviews from landlords they’ve previously rented from. You’ve no reason not to put the effort into it.

4. Watch Out for Expense Creep

You’ll already know that there’ll be quite a few costs involved in owning and renting out a property. What you mightn’t have realized is these costs can creep up more and more as time goes on. You’ll need to be on the lookout for expense creep so you can avoid it.

Make sure you know what your essential costs will be so you can make sure they’re covered. Anything outside of that is an optional extra, though these can often be worth it if they help you bring in more tenants for a higher cost.

5. Invest in On-Call Assistance

As much as you’ll put into looking after and maintaining your property, it doesn’t mean there’s no chance something would go wrong. There’s always a possibility something will happen. Have a plan in place so you can deal with it whenever it comes up.

On-call assistance is a significant part of this. You could need to invest in emergency repairs and similar situations, for example. Know who to call for this and who’ll actually be worth it. It’ll keep the stress and hassle to an absolute minimum as time goes on.

6. Properly Communicate with Guests

Communicating with guests in your property should always be a priority, especially during the check-in and check-out phases. It helps to make sure everything’s done the way it should and prevents more than a few issues later on.

This is especially true if you have any property rules and if the guests have any allergies or other conditions for you to be aware of. Communicate with your guests in advance of their stay to make sure you avoid any hiccups during their stay.

7. Advertise Your Rental the Right Way

At some point or another, you’ll need to advertise your property for rent. While online rental platforms can help with this, it doesn’t mean just listing on them and leaving it at that. You’re much better off actually investing in a bit more marketing than that.

Social media marketing and similar options gets your property in front of people who might be interested in renting it for a vacation. You could end up getting more bookings with it than you might’ve thought, making it more than worth the investment.

As appealing as using your property as a short-term rental can be, there’s a lot of work involved in it. A lot of budding landlords often aren’t prepared for that. This doesn’t mean you’ve to settle for being overwhelmed and struggling through the process.

Quite the opposite. You might just need to use a few vacation rental management tips, and you mightn’t have anything to worry about. They’ll help a lot more than you’d think.

It’s just a matter of actually putting the time and effort into it. There’s no way around putting the work into your property, but this shouldn’t have to be nearly as complicated as you could think. You’ll end up getting more out of it than you would’ve thought.