If you’ve been in the short term rental market for a while, you may have noticed that it has taken up a fair chunk of your free time. If property management is your full time source of income, then you’ll definitely know what I mean. Managing properties can be quite a time and energy consuming activity, as it requires your brain to always be on and ready for any hiccup that may come your way. If you are managing many guests on a regular basis, I can guarantee you’ve thought about different strategies to minimize time spent on each guest, while also maximizing the quality and income of your rental. One strategy that is sure to help is becoming a remote host for your properties.
What’s involved in becoming a remote host
For those of you who are new to the short term rental space, a remote host is a host like yourself, who is able to manage their property remotely. With every new business venture, at one point or another, you’ll notice that you can never distinguish your at home life from your venture life. Being able to distinguish these two aspects of your life will not only improve your home life but also give you a greater sense of everything around you. Separating yourself from your business will also allow you to have moments where you aren’t constantly thinking about your properties, thus giving your brain a break.
Obviously distancing yourself from your property seems like a great idea, but what’s the catch? Well, in order to become a remote host, you are going to need some sort of framework that you can depend on to take care of things so you don’t have to. The easiest way in my opinion is to use property management software. As mentioned in other articles, PMS can drastically reduce time spent dealing with the small things that take up the most time. If you find you are spending a lot of time communicating with your guests about trivial things, PMS can actually help you. Some software’s offer scheduled messages for check in, checkout, and anything in between. Other software’s take it even one step further and offer message templates or even automated replies! Just like that, you’ve carved out some time for yourself.
With PMS, you can save time with guest communication and many other areas. Another tricky spot could be the optimization of rental pricing or your rental data. If you’re trying to determine rental prices by hand, and tabulating how well your business did, you’re wasting your time. Property management software’s can automatically do this for you, and even set rental prices to competitive amounts depending on location and events that are happening (think New Years Eve or Labour Day).
If you’re not currently at the stage of thinking about becoming a remote host, or you really prefer to still have a hands on approach, that is totally up to you. But one thing is for sure, and that is property management software can drastically reduce time spent on the small things, while also improving the overall efficiency of your rental business. As always, if you have any questions regarding becoming a remote host or anything else, feel free to reach out to contact@ensoconnect.com.
