07/02/2024
Why Owl Stays is the best STR/MTR Management Company in the United States.
1. We have the most transparent pricing model in the industry. We only markup our 20% management fee. Other companies will sell a discounted management fee, but hide their true cost in labor, software and service markups.
We have zero markups on cleaning, supplies, onboarding, software, labor, maintenance, etc. The only way we make money is if you make money.
2. We don’t charge ANY onboarding fees. It’s free to try us out and we make it very easy to switch if you decide that we’re not a great fit.
3. You actually own and control your listing and Airbnb account.
Many companies will add your property to their account. This will make it painful for you to switch companies as you will lose all your review history. We believe that your property as well as the listing is your asset. Because you own your listing, you can take this with you if you ever decide to leave.
4. We are the most organized business out there when it comes to operations. Some of the key points that separate us are but not limited to:
- We collect, track and can produce at will, all receipts for any expense that we expense to you on our statements.
IF we lose the receipt, I will and HAVE refunded, clients in which we cannot prove via receipt verification, that money that we spent was allocated towards their unit.
Other managers say that XYZ expense was associated with your property. We can prove it upon request with details such as the number of coffee creamer packets purchased or the number of dishwasher pods that we purchased. We are that detail oriented.
- We open a trust account for each client to ensure that your money doesn’t get mixed with our corporate expenses and it also protects your account from getting banned from Airbnb (read my article on how to mitigate getting banned by Airbnb).
5. We have the best cleaning rates in the business. Our clients typically see savings between $300 - $600 a month in just cleaning fee related savings because our process is so efficient.
We don’t charge any cleaning markups and we don’t “own” the cleaning business in which is servicing your units… So we don’t have any reason to choose one cleaner over the other.
We’re solely focused on just 2 things when it comes to cleaning. A) Quality and B) Savings.
We can do this because we’ve completely automated our cleaner recruitment process. In fact, we have over 2000 cleaners in our database. We are always recruiting, and we are always using market forces to reduce those cleaning fees.
This is a major distinguishing factor between my STR Management company and my competitors. We are killing it in this space.
6. Our Quality Control Procedures are the strictest out of ANY STR management company.
We require photos, video and cleaners are time tracked in Real Time. Our checklists are so thorough, we often get complaints from cleaners because of how thorough it is. Honestly, we just don’t care because we have an abundance of cleaners willing and able to do the job.
Our cleaners our graded by our staff as well as, receive bonuses as well as penalties based on their cleanliness ratings.
When I say we have the MOST thorough Quality Control Procedures in the industry, it’s a true statement.
7. Our competitors hate us. They often leave 1-star reviews on my Facebook and Google pages because they can’t compete with us operationally so they hope to make up for it in marketing.
Speaking of marketing.
8. Our company is set to invest in StayFi marketing, a company that produces specialized WiFi pucks that redirects users looking to log into the property’s wifi, to a landing page where we collect the guest’s email, phone and birthday prior to logging into the wifi. The success rate on guest contact info collection is staggering.
We estimate that we traffic anywhere from 12000-18000 guests per year.
Our plan is to purchase these wifi pucks that range from $155 - $205 per unit and cost about $10/month/unit. This is probably a $15,000 investment running at around $1100/month.
We are going to make this investment without raising ANY of our fees or charging our clients anything.
We believe that this investment is for the OwlStays Brand and therefore, it would be unfair to charge the client / property owner for this expense. However, we have done research and we believe that we can achieve 30% direct bookings in 2 years. Which is absolutely massive.
I haven’t heard of another STR management company that is doing this, much less, at no expense to the customer.
9. Our response time to Clients is the same as our guest response time – less than 10 minutes, 24/7.
We provide a dedicated client hotline that is ALWAYS staffed. You can call, text or email us.
In addition to that, I believe that clients choose our company in a large part because of me… me personally… So I will always be available to my clients. I promise same day response when requested and I often answer the client hotline myself. I NEVER close myself off to my clients.
10. Our supply management is the best out there.
We have system that tracks every single penny and item from the cleaner who reports the inventory shortage, all the way to shelf where the item gets placed.
Our supply workflow starts with the cleaner then goes to the requistioner, then it’s approved by a supervisor to ensure that we don’t over supply a unit, and then I PERSONALLY review every month the supply orders to ensure that my team is tracking all supplies efficiently. We’re not perfect in this area, but we are the best.
11. We are in 9 states, soon to be in 11 states and about to go INTERNATIONAL with our first out of country unit in Portugal! Our model has been ironed out to be scalable across the country in even some of the most remote areas. Nobody else can do this, very few managers can do this.
12. Our Claims and Review Disputes are the best in the business. I have a former case 3 Airbnb supervisor on our team and she knows better than pretty much anyone else how to win claims and get those reviews removed. There’s nobody better than us because we have someone on our team that used to be on the other side of the claims and the reviews. We have a 99% success rate on our claims and whatever claims we don’t win, we have partnered with a collection agency to follow up for us. So, we always win.
13. We have Extensive Advertising. We advertise on Airbnb, VRBO, OwlStays, BDC, Google Vacation Rentals and we’re currently experimenting with Furnished Finder.
14. 100% Chargeback protection. We provide 100% guaranteed / insurance on chargebacks for guests who dispute charges on their direct and VRBO bookings! If we don’t win the dispute, we will pay you out of pocket! Ask your current manager if they do this…
15. On top of everything I just listed out we do custom dynamic pricing (I review weekly and we have someone on our team that reviews it daily, we don’t just set it and forget it) for every property, automated guest check-in and remote lock control (every cleaner gets a unique code, nobody is stealing your stuff), guest support, financial reporting, etc. etc.
When you look at our pricing for what we offer… when you factor in that we don’t charge any markups… When you factor in our UNBEATBLE Cleaning rates… We are THE BEST STR Management company out there right now and we ALSO have THE BEST pricing.
I have competitors out there… mainly one in particular… that instead of focusing on their businesses to make them better… they’re focused on trying to discredit my business. Check out my reviews, you’ll see all of the 5-star reviews from clients, guests and employees… and then you’ll see the 1-star reviews from my competitors mainly… a couple from some disgruntled guests from years ago… nobody’s perfect right.
Here's the point. My competition would like to paint this picture that I’m young, naïve, not experienced but when you look at what we are doing and what we’re offering. We’re the best out there right now and more and more people are starting to realize that.
I’ll soon be crossing 70 Short-Term Rentals in 11 states and soon to be 2 countries. If I was so naïve or inexperienced, how could I manage all of that? Doesn’t make sense.
My story is one full of failure as much as it is triumph. Last year I lost a bunch of units, got banned a bunch of times but… I learned… I adapted and I got better and better every year.
If I have a request, please share this post on your page.
I want positivity to trump negativity. I’m not a millionaire by any means. I’m looking to pay myself 60k this year. I’ve reinvested into my business and I’m ALL IN!
My story is one of perseverance and a willingness to improve, day by day…. Little by little. I don’t hold grudges, I started renting a room 7 years ago.
And for 7 years straight, I’ve done nothing but try to help people succeed in the best ways that I’ve known.
Still to this day I run analysis for people for free on properties so that they don’t make mistakes on their investments. I’ve routinely refunded, reimbursed, put my own money into my clients hands for the slightest mistakes me or my teams have made.
This isn’t an advertisement. It’s a story. It’s a story to defend what I’ve created from the crabs that are out there trying to pull us back into the bucket and a reminder to all of us that if we focus on one thing, and we just try to make that one thing a little bit better every day… we will eventually succeed.
Success is nothing more than steady pursuit towards a worthy ideal.
Please share this! Thank you and God Bless!
