What are some effective strategies for managing multiple properties?

[Calvin173]

My wife and I were thinking of expanding our business and buy a new property. The thing is, the more properties you have, the more you have to work and put effort in your business. That said, I was wondering what are your strategies for managing multiple properties. Do you have tips or thoughts about it? Do you recommend any PMS, specific measures, checklists or something similar?

[Mike-And-Jane0]

@Calvin173 The first thing you need with multiple properties is to switch on pro tools from your account. The most important benefit is that this gives you the multi-calendar that allows you to see all property changeovers at a glance.

Next I would consider what you buy for a second property. We have 3 apartments in the same building and chose to make them 1 bed, 2 bed and 3 beds so that we do well with the larger property in high season and well with the smaller properties over the low season. This then spreads the work and captures all markets open us.

We also have a 4th listing, only available in low season, which is the 3 bed place with 1 bed locked off.

[Calvin173]

Yes, I spent a lot of time thinking of it. Not only how many, but which ones to buy. My wife wants to give each property a personality. I think we should make everything more neutral as possible. No visual pollution, light colors, no unnecessary furniture... Do you know what I mean?

[Lorina14]

Hi @Calvin173!

What if you did a test - you had a listing that is your style and she had one with hers and see which one does better?

Someone in the Greater Seattle area has a Viking themed airbnb and it’s an awesome listing, they went all out and their guests love it and it’s booked often! It depends on where your listing is, how big of a fan base your themed room will bring in, etc. I remember in Japan they have love motels that have themed rooms — I was surprised to hear this from some Japanese friends. 

Let us know what you decide. Neutrals are nice but definitely have some character to your space to make it different than just a furniture ad. Tastefully chosen decor and a spunky write up can make you stand out.

[Walter501]

Hey @Calvin173 ,

I definitely understand where you're coming from with figuring out how to manage multiple properties. My wife and I are in the process of doing the same.  Although we only have two so far, we have one in Maryland and one in California, so we definitely needed to have some type of management process that can sort of run itself and be easily scalable while being remote. With our current setup, managing two properties across the country is less work than handling one locally. 

I personally recommend getting detailed checklists for your properties and trying to have them be as parent/child as possible. Every property will need 80ish% of the same supplies, cleanings, and maintenance routines to keep it going. That can be your general purpose checklist that you work from and then you have specifics split out for each property's special needs (maybe one has a hot tub, or one has a gas grill vs a charcoal grill, etc. Once you have this setup, you can use some type of chat platform to manage your team. Copy/paste your checklist there, and add your team. I recommend Slack/Discord for something like this so you can split this out into specific channels for each property. This way your team can always come back to this content without having to ask you every time. 

I also recommend connecting with a channel manager to sync up your properties, cleaners, handymen, and calendars all in one place so that everything is automated based on your incoming reservations. 

Sorry for the mini brain dump lol I can talk all day about this stuff. Send me a message if you want to brain storm or just have questions!

[Calvin173]

@Walter501 No need to apologize, I just loved your answer, man! I just got very curious on how do you manage through Discord haha. Also, this is very smart, bc Slack and Discord are free platforms! Well done!