How I Self-Manage Short Term Rentals While Traveling
You don’t have to stay close to home at all times to successfully manage your short-term rentals. For example, I recently spent 8 days in Mexico and travel often. While away, we had multiple turnovers at our Nashville and Center Hill Lake rentals, and they all turned over as if I was right there on site. Here are a few things I do to manage my property while I’m thousands of miles away and still enjoy my vacation.
Hire a Trustworthy Cleaner
Your cleaner is your eyes and ears when you can’t be there. It’s important to hire a cleaner you trust and spend time training them in advance, so they’re prepared to take on this responsibility once you’re away. Make it clear you want to know immediately if anything’s been damaged or stained after a guest checks out.
To make things even easier on your end, consider giving your cleaner full authority to dispose of and replace any damaged items after checking in with you first. This ensures your rental is consistently ready for business, even when you aren’t in town. Also, have plenty of backup linens and restock to make your cleaner’s job as easy as it can possibly be.
Have Emergency Contacts Ready
Even if everything in your rental is in great working condition when you leave, you can’t predict when accidents or mishaps will occur. A good practice is to have emergency contacts ready for essential services, like an electrician, plumber, and HVAC technician. This ensures you have someone to turn to for immediate service if an issue arises to keep your guests satisfied and your rental in tip-top shape.
Use Automated Messaging
Being available when your guests have questions or concerns is a staple of being a good host. However, automated messaging can be helpful for communicating information, like check-in and check-out instructions, so you don’t need to waste time and energy typing it out every time. Through Hospitable, you can send automated personalized messages to ensure your guests have access to key information while you’re enjoying some hard-earned time away.
Install Reliable Technology
Ensuring your guests get into the rental, stay safe while there, and follow house rules are likely top concerns of yours, especially when you aren’t in town. Using reliable technology can ease these worries. Installing keyless entry allows your guests to come and go at their convenience using a simple code that gets sent to them before arrival.
If you have neighbors and are worried about noise levels, NoiseAware monitors your guests’ volume and sends you a notification via an app if they become excessively loud. For safety concerns, a doorbell ring camera can alert you of any suspicious activity outside, so you can promptly take action.
All these features can be managed directly from your cell phone. For reference, I spent about an hour total working on my short-term rental business during an 8-day vacation. By taking preventative measures, your short-term rental will continue to operate smoothly, and you can stress less and relax more while you’re out traveling. Making money while you travel - It doesn’t get much better than that.
