Vacation rentals are a different ball game from real estate. You can’t simply set things up and forget about them for a long time. This business demands time and active effort.

Have you been wondering if you should hire a professional management service to help with your beach rental in Outer Banks?

Here are 5 ways a professional property manager (PM) can help with your rental and actually make it more profitable.

Let’s dive right in!

1. PMs Help You with Setting up Your Beach House and Scaling up Your Business

Whether you are new to this business or expanding your portfolio, setting up a new beach rental is much easier when you have a property manager overseeing things.

PMs have the expertise to guide you in everything from buying the right furniture and installing the right amenities to photographing everything and crafting a superb listing page.

At Village Realty, we know how to make a rental stand out right from the outset. We rely on a very capable team that takes care of staging and makes sure your beach house is spotless when you take your pictures. We also count on a professional in-house photographer who knows all the ins and outs of what makes beach house photography great. 

Once the listing is up, it’s all about employing the right tactics to secure bookings and gain traction, not to mention getting the first good reviews you need to really take off.

To rely on such expertise is valuable for anyone aiming to scale a vacation home business, and it doesn’t matter in which step of the journey you find yourself.

2. They Take Care of Daily Operations

When we say vacation rentals are time-consuming, we’re mostly talking about the work that goes into daily operations. The everyday life of a property manager revolves around a set of defined processes that, in truth, can be pretty demanding and repetitive.

Here are a few mentions:

24/7 Customer Support

Attending guests’ needs is one of the most demanding aspects of hospitality as a whole — and disregarding that is like shooting yourself in the foot.

Customer care is what will make your business thrive in the long run. Just think of how crucial five-star reviews are for any rental’s success.

PMs deal with guests at every stage of the process, even when they’re still only considering the idea of renting a place. This is when questions begin to roll in, and then comes check-in instructions, the actual check-in, addressing questions and needs during their stay, check-out procedures, follow-ups, remarketing…

Phew! It’s an endless process, and it all happens simultaneously if you have more than one rental.

We’ve worked the numbers: Outer Banks property managers of our size typically have an average of around 120 guest interactions per month for any property!

Dealing with Questions Effectively

Speaking of interactions, a big part of them is answering questions. PMs know how to do it efficiently. Not just that, but they can automatically answer most of them before they’re even asked, by working well with descriptions and photos.

Still, guests always find something to ask, and sometimes these questions pop up in the middle of the night.

Here’s a key point: you must reply to them as fast as you can. Helpful, friendly, and timely replies very often lead to good reviews. By the same token, the reverse logic applies.

Also, if these questions are coming from a potential guest still evaluating your rental and you don’t reply fast enough, you risk losing this guest to the competition. 

In the communication game, PMs are pros. We, for one, have a 24/7 phone line where guests can reach out for help.

That means that if you partner with Village Realty you don’t need to worry about losing a good night’s sleep answering emergency maintenance calls.

Handling Emergencies

Emergencies happen. It’s not rare, for instance, for owners to get notifications from guests who got locked outside their property because the smart lock is not working or else complaining that the air con is not cooling. 

Now, imagine receiving these messages while you’re on holiday with your family. What do you do then? Should you bother your neighbors asking for help? Will you drop your quality time with your family to call in that handyman who’ll certainly double charge for emergency services?

When you work with a management company, they are the ones dealing with these minor emergencies. At Village Realty, our help desk always saves our owners major headaches and finds the right person to jump into action when needed.

PMs like us deal with emergencies every day, so we have systems in place to address any situation. You can rest assured that someone will show up quickly to open the door to your guests or send someone to check the air con. And since we work with service providers we have trusted for years, we have leverage for the best prices in the market.

House Maintenance & Cleaning

As a beach rental owner, it’s important to keep up with maintenance and inspections to ensure that the property is always looking fresh and in good condition for new guests.

Maintenance of rentals is more intense than that of a regular home. This is where professionals like us come in again. With our systems, we take care of small things like keeping track of inventory, replacing supplies and cleaning.

PMs partner with trustworthy cleaning companies to ensure that your rental is spotless for new guests. At Village Realty, we really value our cleaning staff and trust them to take care of our beach houses and report any issues.

3. They Handle Complex Tasks 

While routine tasks are a big part of property management, more complex needs are not rare. We’re referring to more complicated issues that affect the habitability of the home. These are items that need specialized attention, like HVAC issues, plumbing, electric repairs, and so on.

When these problems arise, owners need someone to take care of them immediately. Furthermore, there’s the need for yearly inspections, such as checking if the extinguishers and fire detectors are in order, among other things that require attention.

Property managers not only take care of everything but also make sure you’re paying the right price for services — most times this leads to cutting your costs. 

At Village Realty, we have a long list of contractors we fully trust to deal with complex tasks. We’ve been working with the same professionals for years on end, which means we get the best prices from them and that the quality of their work is already proven. Sometimes we even get competitive bids from them, which leads to even lower prices.

Still, our team generally troubleshoots before the specialized vendor gets to your beach house.

How does it work? For instance, we often have owners contacting us during the off-season because they’re surprised by high water bills. Then our team steps into action to look for the cause, which is usually a leak of some kind or perhaps a failed toilet seal causing water to run continuously.  

With storms being relatively common in OBX, we help owners secure their homes with established procedures for safekeeping all outside furniture and securing doors and windows. Sometimes, our team will also turn the power and water off.  

Besides precautions against disruptive weather and home repairs, PMs will also effectively deal with unscrupulous guests. We have the know-how to identify potential refund scams and to avoid problematic guests before they even book the rental.

Moreover, while it may seem easy, declining requests to bring pets can often be a complicated matter. PMs must pay attention to local legal requirements, especially in cases involving “service animals,” but we make every effort to establish additional guidelines to minimize faulty occurrences.

Our primary aim is to ensure the safety and security of your beach rental. In a nutshell, we’re here to save you time and rescue your wallet!

4. PMs Take Care of Admin

Admin is a major part of day-to-day tasks that can be quite complex in this business and it involves managing the booking calendar and income sheet, among other things. 

There are software solutions out there to help make your business more efficient by, for example, managing dynamic rates and maximizing your earnings.

Here are two of our favorite tools:

• Wheelhouse 
• Pricelabs

Having these tools at your disposal is very helpful but they alone don’t do the job. Having a sharp mind paying close attention to data and monitoring the dynamics of this business makes all the difference.

At Village Realty, we have an experienced team that constantly monitors the market stats and works hard to improve them when possible. We even count on a full-time revenue optimization manager who spends her entire time working for rentals like yours to make more money.

5. They Actually Boost Your Revenues

Even with all the advantages we’ve mentioned so far, we understand that some vacation homeowners still prefer to avoid the costs associated with hiring a professional. We know that depending on the OBX property manager, this cost can be high.

However, it’s essential to look at it from another perspective. Instead of considering the cost, think of how much property managers can save you and how much additional revenue they can generate with their expertise.

As we mentioned above, property managers can protect owners from overpriced services and cleaning agencies. Their marketing and pricing strategies, as well as their hospitality skills, are sure to attract more bookings, increase your nightly rates, and maximize occupancy and earnings.

As Outer Banks property managers, we’ll not only save you valuable time and effort but also enhance your rental revenue.

Whether you’re in Outer Banks or anywhere else in the world, experience is key in short-term rentals.

Village Realty is a professional property management company with decades of successful operation. Our team knows what it takes to make your short-term rental a success, from photos and decor to customer management and revenue optimization.

Learn more and get a free revenue estimate on our website, and stay tuned for upcoming blogs on managing your rental property!