How to find a GREAT Property Management Company for your Airbnb

What’s up guys, in today’s video, we’re going to talk about how to find a great property manager for your short term rental property. I’ve recently spoken to quite a few people who have bad property management companies or who are in search of great property management companies to manage their short term rentals. And they have found out what a lot of us have discovered along this journey is that finding a great property manager for your short term rental property can be pretty challenging. There’s a lot more that goes into managing a short term rental property than there is in the managing a long term rental property. For example, their rates just on the base level, setting your rate is not a one time thing with a short term rental with a long term rental, you can take a look at what properties are renting for set your rate, and then basically forget about it, put one tenant in there, they’re going to keep paying you as long as you’ve done your job, right. That’s a whole other conversation there. But it’s really just a one time set and forget job with actually crafting your rate, short term rentals, you’re going to have different pricing on weekends, and weekdays different seasonal periods throughout the year, there are going to be long weekends and events that happen in town. And you’re going to want to factor all those things into your pricing strategy overall. And so finding a great property manager means finding a property management company that understands your local market understands pricing strategy, and can make sure that they set their rates at the right amounts so that you’re making as much money as possible. On your listing. I recently spoke to someone who was working with a larger property management company that had totally forgotten to adjust the rates for high season as market. The reality is this property management company manages properties in hundreds of different markets. And so they were just too big and cumbersome to actually do a good job managing one lonely little property. So they forgot to update the rates for high season and a lot of money. 10s of 1000s of dollars was left on the table as a result, because a whole bunch of people booked at way lower rates than they should have been booking for. So that’s just one factor, not to mention that you actually work with a property management company that understands how to optimise your property itself. Make sure the listing is beautiful, the photos are great. Do you want to have a property management company they can often recommend to you different improvements you can make on your property that will result in outsized financial returns for you, for example, they might tell you, you can add a $400 projector in the basement or make a little movie theatre down there and get $5,000 more bookings over the course of a year, you’d probably want to know that sort of thing. You also want to make sure that you have a property management company that’s going to do a great job of actually responding to gas and making sure their needs are met, make sure they’re satisfied. You also want a property management company that has good maintenance and cleaning support all these different things you need to consider when finding a really great property management company. And the difference could literally be 10s of 1000s of dollars, and hours and hours of your time plus stress and headache that you can alleviate if you find a great property manager, or you can accelerate if you find a really bad property manager. So let’s dive into it. Let’s talk about how you can actually identify the best property management company for your short term rental. Guys just want to take a quick break here to say that for those of you watching, who want to build cashflow, and long term wealth by purchasing Airbnb and short term rental properties, there’s a link in the description right down below for a free training that will walk you through my exact strategy for investing successfully in Airbnb. Now, if you’re not ready to actually buy properties, and you want to get started managing other people’s properties on Airbnb the same way I got started and build a full time income managing other people’s properties. There’s actually another free training linked in the description down below as well, there’ll be a really great fit for you. So whether you want to invest in short term rental properties and actually build amazing cash flow and long term wealth by acquiring the assets, buying the properties themselves, or you’re looking to earn a full time income managing other people’s properties on Airbnb, we’ve got some awesome trainings that are linked in the description down below, that will definitely help you out. When you sign up for the trainings, we’re also going to send you a few other tools and resources completely for free just to help you get started. Again, the links to sign up are in the description down below. And both trainings and all the tools are completely free. So make sure to register for the trainings, links in the description down below.

As I’m sure you can probably guess at this point, one of the biggest things that I look for when finding a great property management company is local expertise. I prefer to work with a small or medium sized property management company and I highly recommend this to most people over working with a great big massive property management company like evolve a casa. He’s really really big names. The reality is that these larger companies, they’re kind of jack of all trades, master of none in a certain sense. They’re going to have some expertise in almost every market in North America and almost across the world, but very little actual expertise in every given market. The other factor is that they have 10s of 1000s of listings So if you’re working with them, you’re just such a small, small part of their overall business, that they’re generally not going to really go out of their way to optimise your property and give it the individual attention it needs. And so a lot of mistakes tend to get made, like, for example, forgetting to price the property for high season. So you want to look for a small or medium sized property management company, generally, one that manages anywhere from one to 30 to 50 properties is kind of the sweet spot, because generally they’re going to be operating in just one market. So the big advantage there is that they’re going to really understand that local market, they’re going to have a lot of expertise there, they’re gonna have a lot of focus there. And they’re also working with few enough, a small enough number of clients that they can really give individual care and attention to each one of the properties that they manage. So that’s one thing I look for is a small to medium sized company, so that we’re not working with someone that’s just too big and not going to be able to actually care about our property. The other thing I look for is that they specialise in me, I want them to be someone that really understands exactly what it’s like to be me. And so I look to for me, as an investor, that’s kind of the hat I wear. When I’m managing my short term rental properties, I want to find a property management company that specialises in working with investors, specifically investors in the market that I invest in, because it means that they’re going to tailor all their services to what I specifically am going to be looking for the financials, the numbers, the actual ROI, rather than someone that maybe worked with vacation homeowners, because those people are gonna have a slightly different category of kind of concerns considerations. So it might just not be tailored to me as an investor. I also want to, like I said, look for someone local, so they have that local expertise. And I also want to find someone that’s dependable. I always tell people when looking for cleaning company, when I’m looking for maintenance people, and the same goes for property management companies, I want reliability overall else, I’m okay with having a cleaner that does a 95% cleaning job, if they’re 100% reliable, I’m not okay with a cleaning team that does 100% of a cleaning job, but is only 95% reliable, because the reality is reliability is really, really crucial to success. And it’s also crucial for peace of mind for me. So my property management company is no different. I’m looking for a property management company that’s going to be there absolutely always, for me to take care of everything. So they’re just gonna be 100% reliable and take that on. Generally, I also look for the fee that they’re charging, I specifically want to look for a property management company that charges a percentage management fee. And I know for a lot of you guys, that’s kind of counterintuitive. You think, Well, man, in long term rental property management, I can just pay a set fixed monthly fee, and that’s a lot better, because then I don’t get penalised for the property doing better. And a lot of people look at short term rental management that way. And that’s a huge, huge mistake, you actually want to be paying a percentage of your overall revenue, because it gives the property management company a vested interest in the success of your property. Meaning that if they can make you more money, they make more money as well. So they’re going to be incentivized to do exactly that. That’s what’s going to make your property management company really go the extra mile trying to optimise your prices and optimise your listings performance, if you just pay them a flat monthly rate, they’re not going to have any reason to do that. So you really want to look for a property management company that has a pricing structure that ideally is based off a percentage management fee. And in my experience, you don’t want to pay a dime less than 20%. Sometimes if you have like a number of properties, you know, 345, you can get a bit of a deal on it and find a property management company that will take you on for 80 or 90%. But trust me when I tell you how they experience actually running a property management company, that there’s just not enough money to be made. And when you’re charging 10 or 15%. And so what’s going to happen is that property management company is going to be cutting corners, if they’re charging you less there, it’s going to end up resulting in less money in your pocket. Yes, you will save a little bit of management fees, but trust me, you will pay for that more than once over in decreased performance. So look for a property management company that can create a win win with you. The goal is not for you to just take all the money and keep it for yourself, the goal is for it to be a win for the property management company as well. So look for a property management company that’s charging anywhere from 20 to 30%. management fees is pretty standard in most markets, with some markets being as high as 3040, or even 50%. I tend to stay in the sweet spot of 20 to 30%. That’s what I feel is really fair, really reasonable and what really allows you to find a great property management company, but in a certain market, I may be willing to go a bit higher than that. Depending on what the competition’s like beyond that, it really just comes down to after I found someone that is reliable. I found someone that has local expertise. I found someone that operates in my market specifically to small and medium sized company and charges fair rates of 20 to 30% management fee. From there, I really just want to find someone that I trust someone that I know I can give my properties over to and have them do a really phenomenal job with it. And so trust is something that I can build for a few different through a few different methods. I can ask them to speak with testimonials. I can ask them To speak with referrals from clients they work with, I can just ask them about what kind of training they’ve got, what kind of experience and expertise they have. So I really want to build that trust with the person because ultimately, I’m going to be handing over the performance of my property to this team. So I want to make sure it’s in good hands. Those are the main things that I look for when it comes to selecting a really great property management company. I’m sure there might be a couple things that I missed, let me know in the comment section down below if there’s things that for you are an absolute must when it comes to finding a really great property management company, because this is one of the most important and impactful decisions that you’ll make when it comes to optimising the success of your short term rental property. So let me know in the comment section down below if there’s anything else that you specifically look for, or if there’s any questions you have any other other advice you’d like on this topic. If you liked this video, if it was insightful for you, if it was helpful in any way, make sure to give it a like hit the like button, give it a thumbs up it really does help me out tremendously with growing this channel and getting these videos in front of more people are going to shows me that you guys like and support this content. So I really really appreciate it just give the video a quick tap on the like button. Last but not least, make sure you hit the subscribe button so you can stay up to date with the two new videos we post every single week on this channel. Hit the subscribe button down below to stay up to date. All that being said, thanks so much for watching, and I’ll see you in the next video.