The area where you live is not always one of the top short term rental markets. Sometimes you need to invest out of town to access affordable property prices, to achieve high occupancy rates, and to maximize profits. In this case, you need to manage your Airbnb remotely. While this sounds like a daunting task, the process becomes entirely feasible and even easy if you follow 8 straightforward steps.
Rather than manage your own Airbnb remotely, you could delegate to one of the best short-term rental management companies to handle it for you. With full local teams, it’s the level of service you could provide if you were living next door..
Managing an Airbnb Remotely Overview
For various reasons, Airbnb hosts end up in situations where they need to take care of their property remotely. No matter where your Airbnb is located and how far from it you live, the distance between your rental and you cannot affect the quality of services offered to your guests and the level of care provided to your property. Otherwise, you will end up with unsatisfied guests writing negative reviews and a worn down property that will lead to zero vacancy, no revenue, and negative cash flow.
To help out owners who live away from their investment property, we’ve put together a detailed step-by-step guide on how to manage an Airbnb remotely. Here are the steps that you need to follow:
- Use a Key Management Service: This will automate the check-in and check-out process while guaranteeing the safety of your Airbnb.
- Use Short Term Rental Management Software: This will help you streamline and automate some of the most time-consuming tasks associated with managing an Airbnb.
- Hire a Cleaning Service: This will guarantee professional-level cleanliness that meets and even exceeds guest expectations.
- Find Maintenance Personnel Available 24/7: This will help you tackle both emergency repairs and preventive maintenance works.
- Create a Comprehensive Guestbook: This will boost guest experiences and cut down unnecessary back-and-forth with guests.
- Install Safety and Property Monitoring Technology: This is needed to protect both your investment and your guests and to avoid liability in case of injuries.
- Set Up a Guest Screening Process: This will help you protect your property from unreasonable damage by unreliable guests.
- Steamline Guest Communications: This will ensure that guests have all necessary information throughout their journey without wasting your time.
The 8 steps to setting up remote airbnb management are:
1. Use a Key Management Service
The first thing that you need to do after deciding to manage your Airbnb remotely is to figure out the access to your property. If you live in town, you might be able to welcome guests in person and provide them with physical keys during check-in as well as to personally send them away and collect the keys during check-out. However, this is not possible with remote management.
To address this issue, most remote hosts opt in for installing one of the best smart locks for Airbnb which allows them to automatically provide guests with keyless access to the rental for the duration of their stay. Passcodes are changed between stays to guarantee the safety of your guests and your property. Moreover, many popular smart lock brands integrate with vacation rental management software to automate the sending of codes to guests prior to their arrival.
Additionally, unique permanent passcodes can be provided to housekeeping and maintenance staff to facilitate their access to the property on a regular basis.
With so many possible options out there, you have to research a few top brands to choose the smart lock that best fits the needs of your property, your expectations, and your budget. You can choose between more simple and affordable deadbolts and more sophisticated and costly locks with cameras and other features.
In any case, installing a keyless lock will help streamline check-ins and check-outs and manage your team.
2. Use Short Term Rental Management Software
The next step in setting up a remote Airbnb management process is to get vacation rental management software tools that will help you automate many day-to-day activities. While managing a short term rental requires a couple of hours per day - between pricing your rental and communicating with guests - a lot of the tasks can be streamlined with the help of the right tools.
The must-have types of Airbnb management software include:
- Dynamic Pricing Tools: Dynamic pricing is a must in the vacation rental industry to maximize occupancy, daily rates, and revenue in line with seasonal trends, supply, demand, and other local market peculiarities. Using an Airbnb pricing tool becomes even more important when you invest remotely and are not familiar with the uniqueness of the market where your short term rental is located. The right tool can help you set up the optimal rate for each day when your property is available for renting and push it to all channels where your property is listed. Wheelhouse is one of the most solid tools available to remote hosts that bases prices on reliable data.
- Channel Manager: You should list your property on multiple channels, including both major websites like Airbnb and Vrbo and more niche platforms such as Golightly and Misterb&b. You need to get a channel manager to avoid double bookings, provide uniform pricing, unify your booking calendar, and streamline communication.
- Multi-Calendar: Another important software tool for Airbnb hosts is the multi-calendar. This is a booking calendar that brings together reservations from all channels for easy planning and evaluation. It also allows hosts to mark when their property is unavailable for booking and send this information to all listing websites.
- Unified Inbox: The best short term rental management software also provides a single place from where all communication with guests can happen, no matter which booking channel it comes from and in what form (email, message, or SMS). In this way, remote hosts can make sure that they respond to all questions on time without the need to keep dozens of internet browser tabs open all the time. Moreover, the unified inbox helps automate a big chunk of communication.
- Team Management Tools: When managing an Airbnb remotely, hosts rely even more heavily on their local team of cleaners, maintenance personnel, and others. Thus, they need an effective way to organize the work of their entire housekeeping team without tasks falling through the cracks, and this is achieved by a team management software tool where each member can get a designated role and tasks.
- Task Coordination Tools: Managing a short term rental requires a lot of repetitive tasks, and it’s easy to forget whether the property was cleaned after the last guest and whether the annual maintenance of the garage door was performed. A task coordination tool ensures that this never happens as all team members have a detailed, organized list of their tasks with deadlines and current status.
- Vacation Rental Website Builder: Being able to create your own Airbnb rental property website is key for driving direct bookings on which you don’t have to pay Airbnb fees. Most Airbnb property management softwares have a website builder feature designed for the needs of vacation rentals that are easy to use and require no software development knowledge.
- Guestbook Builder: Providing customized guestbooks is an easy way to offer your guests all the information about the property and the area that they need for an excellent stay without having to be in constant communication with them. Some short term rental management software features guestbook builders for smooth implementation.
Instead of getting each necessary tool on its own, Airbnb investors usually resort to subscribing to a software platform that offers access to all of the above-listed features. Some of the most popular names in the vacation rental management software industry include Guesty, Lodgify, Hostaway, and Hospitable.
Using Airbnb management software, you can not only save a lot of time but also rest assured that all parts of the management process are duly fulfilled.
3. Hire a Cleaning Service
As part of the hospitality industry, you have to offer your guests an impeccably clean and hygienic property. You cannot afford to have a guest find something dirty in your rental and report it in their review as this will push away future guests. To this end, when you manage Airbnb remotely, you need to hire a professional cleaning service for the housekeeping of your vacation home.
Hosts can find cleaning services in the following ways:
- Check Out Specialized Airbnb Cleaning Apps: Platforms like Turno and Cleanster specialize in providing housekeeping services to short term rentals. These apps emphasize the automation of the cleaning process.
- Find Local Professional Cleaning Companies: You can search for cleaning companies that operate in the market where your vacation rental is located and see if they can provide regular services at hospitality level.
- Build Your Own Team of Local Contractors: You can look for individual cleaners and hire a couple of them to have around-the-clock coverage. This might be a cheaper option than working with a company.
- Ask Local Hosts: You can connect with other hosts in the area and see how they handle the cleaning and housekeeping of their rentals.
When searching for the best cleaning solution for your Airbnb property, you should pay attention to these things:
- Included Services: What services are included in their packages? Do they cover linen change, laundry, and supply restocking or just cleaning?
- Pricing: Do they charge per cleaning or per month? What is the cost? Are there any additional fees?
- Reputation and Reviews: Do they have a strong reputation? What are their average ratings on review websites? What do customers say about them?
- Turnaround Time: How long does it take to thoroughly clean a property? Are they available every day including weekends?
- Communication: How do they communicate with hosts? Are they willing to use your Airbnb management software for task management and communication?
- Photo Proof: Do they send photos of properties after cleaning to confirm the quality of services? If this is not their standard practice, are they willing to do it for you?
As a remote host, you cannot underestimate the importance of finding a good cleaning solution for your Airbnb. You won’t be able to check up on the property on a regular basis, so you have to be able to trust the provider.
4. Find Maintenance Personnel Available 24/7
The next step in managing an Airbnb remotely is figuring out what maintenance will look like. Short term rentals are associated with elevated levels of wear and tear due to the high guest turnover and the different types of guests, some of whom could be rather reckless. Since you live away from your property, you cannot inspect it and prevent issues. So, you need to have a 24/7 maintenance team that’s available to handle urgent situations at all times of the day to avoid negative reviews by guests and excessive damage to your property. You also need a team to conduct preventive maintenance.
The types of maintenance personnel that you need include:
- Electrical
- Plumbing
- HVAC
- Key services
- Garage doors and windows
- Landscaping
- Gutter cleaning
- Roof repairs
- Pest control
- Amenities including swimming pools and hot tubs
- Snow removal
Before hiring maintenance staff, it’s important to carefully vet them to rest assured that your property will be in the hands of professionals with the right qualifications.
In vetting your maintenance personnel, check out:
- Available professional certifications
- Customer reviews on third-party websites
- Background checks
- Recommendations from local Airbnb hosts
It’s recommended to sign a contract with your maintenance contractors to confirm their around-the-clock availability, to specify the scope of services, and to lock rates.
5. Create a Comprehensive Guestbook
Personalized guest books are the standard in hospitality as they provide out-of-state guests with all the information about the property and the location that they need for the best possible experience. As a remote Airbnb host, you might not be familiar with the area and local attractions, so you need to conduct diligent research to figure out everything you should highlight to your future guests as well as everything you should warn them against. Moreover, you should connect with local businesses like restaurants, cafes, shops, and attractions to ask for special discounts for visitors referred by you.
In your Airbnb guest book, you should include:
- Property description
- Instructions on how to use appliances and amenities
- Necessary passwords and passcodes
- Popular tourist attractions
- Unique activities in the area
- Different types of restaurants with local and world cuisine
- Coffee shops
- Grocery stores
- Pharmacies
- Artisan shops
- Local mini courses in languages, arts, and crafts
- Promo codes for local businesses and destinations
- Emergency contacts
To fully optimize guest experiences, you can customize your guestbook to the specific interests of different types of guests. For example, newly engaged couples are likely to have very different expectations from families with children or business travelers. You can use software tools to easily create and personalize your guestbooks.
6. Install Safety and Property Monitoring Technology
For the remote management of an Airbnb rental, hosts also need to ensure that their property has all the necessary safety, security, and monitoring technology. Most local authorities impose specific requirements in terms of fire detectors, smoke alarms, carbon dioxide monitors, and fire extinguishers that need to be installed in each room and in common spaces in their short term rental regulations. Additionally, there are other devices that owners need to set up to turn their property into a smart home and facilitate its management from a distance.
The typical list of safety and property monitoring technology as well as smart home devices required for remotely managed Airbnbs includes:
- Smart locks (discussed above)
- Smoke detectors
- Fire alarms
- Carbon monoxide monitors
- Fire extinguishers
- Water leak detectors
- Noise monitors
- Home security system
- Outdoor cameras (indoor cameras are prohibited in Airbnbs)
- Smart WiFi router
- Smart TV and streaming services
- Smart thermostat
- Smart lighting
To what extent you will convert your Airbnb into a smart home depends on your budget and preferences. Generally speaking, the more smart devices you install, the more control you will have over managing your rental from a distance. In any case, providing and regularly inspecting the legally required safety items is a must to comply with local regulations and protect your guests and second home.
7. Set Up a Guest Screening Process
To avoid excessive damage to your Airbnb, you need to screen guests before confirming their reservations. This might look like a time-consuming task, but it’s one of the best ways to protect your property from expensive repairs. While Airbnb provides AirCover for Hosts with each reservation, not all platforms have a similar service, so you need to do some active work.
When screening guests, consider the following:
- Check out their Airbnb guest profile
- Read their reviews by past hosts
- Ask them some basic questions to learn more about the purpose of their travel and their plans for the stay
- Google them (without stalking them)
- Have them sign a short term rental agreement
After a few rounds of guest screening, the process should become quite quick and easy as long as you’ve ironed out the necessary steps. Moreover, you can look for vacation rental management tools that have an in-built guest screening functionality to automate the process and eliminate the need for your personal intervention.
8. Streamline Guest Communications
The final step in managing Airbnb remotely is to put guest communication on autopilot to the extent possible. On-time and comprehensive communication is crucial for smooth short term rental business operations. Guests expect all their questions to be answered immediately at all stages of the journey: When choosing a property, when preparing for their stay, during their stay, and after check-out.
The good news is that you can automate a lot of the guest communication with the right tools. Most Airbnb management software offers customizable templates that you can set up based on certain events (making a reservation, check-in, check-out, etc.) to provide guests with the bulk of the information that they need.
They key information that you need to send in your communication includes:
- Check-in and check-out times and instructions
- Passcodes
- Instructions how to get to the property
- Anything guests need to bring with themselves (sunscreen, umbrella, etc.)
- Local events during their stay
You can also use a chatbot to respond to the majority of guest questions 24/7. Don’t forget to automate follow-ups with guests after the end of their stay to check on their experience and to ask them for a review.
Streamlining guest communication is a surefire way to enhance guest satisfaction while retaining your own sanity.
Alternatives to Self Managing an Airbnb Remotely
Investing in remote locations doesn’t necessarily mean that you have to manage your Airbnb remotely all by yourself.
Popular short term rental management alternatives include:
Find a Co-Host
You can look for a local Airbnb co-host who can do the vast majority of the legwork. This can be an investment partner, a relative, or a friend who happens to live in the market where your short term rental is located. Your co-host doesn’t have to do all the work on their own, but at the very least they can help you build the local team (for housekeeping and maintenance) and do regular inspections of the property to confirm that everything is as expected.
This option is a good choice for hosts who already know someone in the local market whom they can trust with the management of their Airbnb.
Hire a Half-Service Airbnb Manager
Alternatively, remote Airbnb hosts can find a half-service vacation rental manager. This is a professional Airbnb manager who offers services that focus on the automation of certain tasks like listing, marketing, communication, and reviews. Meanwhile, you still need to find out housekeeping and maintenance solutions. Popular half-service Airbnb management companies present in multiple US markets include Evolve and RedAwning.
This strategy can work for remote investors who would like help while keeping control over the overall management of their property.
Work with a Full-Service Short Term Rental Management Company
Probably the best option for remote Airbnb hosts is to hire a full-service Airbnb management company that will take care of everything, from listing and pricing, to maintenance and insurance. While there are many full-service short term rental managers, like Vacasa and Air Concierge, Summer stands out from all competitors by providing comprehensive services that guarantee passive income at industry-low rates starting at only 20% of booking revenue, excluding cleaning fees. As a result of the high-quality services, Summer-managed properties earn more than at least 95% of comps in each market.
Hosts who want to optimize the performance of their remote investments and make passive income should consider this alternative.
Bottom Line
Successfully managing an Airbnb remotely boils down to building and following a diligent process. With the 8 steps outlined above, you will be on the right track to taking proper care of your short term rental, no matter the distance. And if after some time you decide that managing a vacation rental from a distance is not working for you, you can always hire one of the best Airbnb management companies.
