3 Tools I Use to Manage My Airbnb From Out of State
When I decided to buy a vacation home with my sister in Florida, my main concern was how we’d manage her property from afar. How would we work with cleaners? What if something went wrong in the home? How would we know if guests were throwing parties? What if they weren’t respecting our home?
The following 3 products not only save us hours each month but also around $12–15K in management fees a year.
#1 SCHLAGE ENCODE LOCK
I think the main priority for superstar hosts is creating a top notch experience for guests. You want people to feel relaxed and taken care of. You also want them to have a stress free experience. The best way to start off on the right foot with your guests is to make checking in very easy and safe. When we were getting our property ready for Airbnb, I knew we needed some sort of smart locking system. I did a lot of research and talked to a few hosts and that’s why I went with the Schlage Encode. With this lock I’m able to give each guest their own password. I schedule it to start when they check in and expire when they check out. I do this at the beginning of each month to save time and stress.
I put the name of the guest and the number of the month to track (Erica is our cleaner). At the end of the month I delete all the past guest names. You can have up to 100 codes, so I could do this at the end of the year if I really wanted to. I choose to delete them each month to keep things less cluttered. I also love that I can unlock and lock the door from my phone! Overall, this product has been a game changer to managing our Airbnb out of state.
#2 BLINK OUTDOOR CAMERAS
My sister and I purchased our home in an area that we grew up going to often as kids. When we started the home search she was living in New York City and I was in Austin and we were in the middle of a pandemic. None of us were really flying, so, I depended on our realtor to Facetime us and show us homes. And yes, we did buy this house sight unseen!
Once we had renovated our home and set up the listing on Airbnb and had found a cleaner, we thought we were good to go! We had guests start to check in and they seemed to really enjoy our home. After a couple of months, we had a couple guests mention that the grass was too long and the plants were overgrown. I also felt a little out of the loop because I didn’t know when packages were arriving or if the guests knew exactly where they needed to take the trash.
That’s when we decided to get outdoor cameras! This way we could check to make sure things were running smoothly while we were away. I set up 3 cameras. We put one by the front door, one that looks into the backyard and the third camera was in the carport. This is where we store all of our beach gear and bicycles.
I’m not really sure how we were managing our rental without cameras! It has been very helpful to be able to keep an eye on our property. I can make sure the bikes are being returned and the trash is being taken out. I can even now see if the grass is looking too long. I think we will have much happier guests because of these cameras. They are making me a way better property manager! Although, I did recently see a teenager sneak out at 2am…but I won’t tell.
#3 NEST THERMOSTAT
The Nest thermostat is also a very helpful tool for managing from afar! If we don’t have guests coming for a while in the off season, we can easily switch to “eco mode” and save money on our electricity bill. I also love getting updates on how efficient or inefficient our home is. I tell guests to leave the AC at 75 when they checkout, but if they forget, no problem, I can control it from my phone!
STR’s (short term rentals) are super lucrative and popular in many markets right now. If this is something you’re interested in learning more about, make sure to sign up for our waitlist to be the first to know when we release our Airbnb course.
