In recent years, the vacation rental sector has experienced rapid and significant growth.
The Airbnb platform alone has over 7 million listings, owned and operated by more than 5 million hosts. Along with short term rentals, another industry has also expanded equally fast: namely, vacation rental software.
Technology has become a fundamental component of property management because of its numerous benefits. Most importantly, the right tools allow hosts and property managers to streamline operations, automate tasks, improve guest experiences, increase bookings, and—ultimately—maximize revenue.
However, not all short term rental property management tools are created equal and work the same way for all types of properties. Indeed, to maximize technology’s benefits, it’s key to choose the right vacation rental software for your specific property.
In this article, we’ll discuss how to select the optimal platform for your needs as a host or property manager.
We’ll examine the factors you should consider and discuss the most important features of short-term rental software. We’ll build a framework for comparing different options and—finally—provide you with specific recommendations on the best vacation rental software based on your property type.
Table of Contents
- Understanding Your Property’s Needs
- Essential Features of Vacation Rental Software
- Comparing Software Solutions
- Software Recommendations for Different Property Types
- Implementing Your Chosen Software
Understanding Your Property’s Needs
Choosing vacation rental software in the right way should be dictated by the specific needs of your property or portfolio of properties. After all, each short term rental is unique, with different features and peculiarities, attracting varying types of guests.
This means that the property management process and the tech tools used in it need to be appropriate for the property’s unique nature.
The most important characteristics to take into account when deciding on what vacation rental management platform to buy include:
Property Type and Size
In general, larger, more luxurious rentals require more thorough cleaning and restocking and more intense maintenance. Moreover, they tend to attract groups of travelers and potentially more demanding guests. This means that the owners of single family homes or townhouses require more sophisticated software tools for the relatively more complicated Airbnb management of these types of properties.
The appropriate tools go beyond simple listing on distribution channels and setting up daily prices. Meanwhile, small apartments and condos might be efficiently managed with simpler tools.
Rental Location
When choosing the right software for your vacation rental, you need to account for the market. For example, in locations with extreme seasonality, it’s an absolute must to go for a management platform that has a superior dynamic pricing tool. That’s the only way for your vacation rental pricing strategy to reflect the reality of the local market without the need to perform short term rental market analysis constantly.
Property Features and Amenities
The Airbnb amenities available on your property are another factor to consider. For instance, if you have a swimming pool, a hot tub, or any other amenity that requires regular maintenance, you need to make sure that your chosen software helps coordinate and facilitate this maintenance. This requires the presence of team collaboration, communication, and task management functionalities.
Target Type of Guests
Your property type, furnishings, market, and marketing strategy will largely determine the type of guests who frequent your vacation rental.
Properties that host families with children and pets have very different needs from properties that host business travelers or digital nomads. With the former, you need to be able to provide regular cleanings as well as answer questions at all times. The latter, on the other hand, are likely to value their privacy and do not need much attention from you. In the first case, the vacation rental software you choose should have excellent task management, team management, and guest communication features.
Property Management Team
Another factor you should consider is your vacation rental management model and the makeup of your team. If you’re a DIY host with a small support team, you need a simple, easy-to-use platform that can still help you coordinate your team’s work and integrate with Airbnb accounting software for receiving payments from guests and making transfers to your team. If you’re a professional property manager who owns a company, you need more sophisticated software that facilitates the management of a well-structured team.
Portfolio
Finally, you need to account for the size and composition of your short term rental property portfolio. In case you own or manage a number of vacation rentals listed on multiple websites, you need the best-in-class Airbnb channel manager and booking calendar.
So, the choice of software to manage your vacation rentals should be based on all the criteria listed above, in order to serve your needs.
Essential Features of Vacation Rental Software
While the technology tools available on the market are widely diverse, the best vacation rental software for small business owners needs to cover the same basic functionalities.
The following are the most important vacation rental software features:
Booking and Reservation Management
Running a vacation rental business is equivalent to being part of the hospitality industry. This means that managing bookings and reservations is at the core of what you do as a property owner or manager, and this needs to be reflected in the software you choose.
The booking and reservation system feature is particularly important for those who invest in the best short term rental markets, characterized by frequent reservations, high occupancy rates, high turnover rates, and last-minute reservations. If you own a popular property type that benefits from busy booking activities, you need to look for flawless booking and reservation management options when choosing vacation rental software.
A streamlined, user-friendly booking process will ensure that you never mess up availability and pricing and that you never miss a reservation. Meanwhile, the amount of manual work you do will be drastically reduced, allowing you to focus your energy on other aspects of your short term rental business.
Two of the most important features for this are the vacation rental channel manager and the multi-calendar. The channel manager tool allows you to manage all your listings for different properties and platforms from a single place. This eliminates the need to constantly open multiple tabs on your desktop, which can confuse you about which listing you’re currently working on.
The multi-calendar, at the same time, allows you to view and manage available and blocked nights, active and canceled reservations, and all sorts of other details like pricing and minimum stay lengths from a single calendar.
Communication Tools
One of the things that guests value the most in their experience is the host’s availability whenever they have a question or concern, no matter how small or big. From a host or property manager’s point of view, this translates into being present 24/7 to address your guests’ inquiries before, during, and after their stays.
Otherwise, you run a number of different risks that might hurt your business. For example, you might lose a customer if you are not there to answer their questions when they are choosing between your vacation rental and a competitor. In addition, you might upset your guests and get a negative review if you don’t respond to their messages while they rent.
Finally, you might miss an opportunity to get a positive review if you don’t send them a kind message after check-out to check up on them and remind them to share their experience with the Airbnb community through a guest review.
As you can imagine, managing all this guest communication can easily become a full-time job, especially if you own a multifamily rental or several properties in a busy market.
Thus, when choosing your vacation rental software platform, you need to look for a solution with efficient communication functions. In the industry, this is usually referred to as a unified inbox, which means that all guest communication comes to a single inbox, no matter how many properties you manage and on how many channels you distribute them.
Moreover, the best communication tools allow you to streamline and automate a large portion of communication through automated responses to common questions and saved responses to less frequent inquiries.
Cleaning and Maintenance Schedules
One proven way of how to get more bookings on Airbnb or other websites is to keep your property in impeccable condition through thorough cleaning and restocking between guests, frequent property inspections, and ongoing repairs as soon as a need arises. Your efforts to present a flawless property to your guests will be rewarded with 5-star reviews, which will help you rank higher on Airbnb SEO and get more business.
Nevertheless, having your property always ready on time before check-in times requires solid coordination between you and your cleaning team. Collaboration has to be absolutely top-notch for properties that experience high occupancies with short turnover times between check-outs and check-ins.
Thus, the best software for different property types in busy markets needs to offer features that facilitate and speed up turnover efficiently. This means easy-to-navigate cleaning and maintenance schedule functions with clear roles for different team members and automated deadlines.
Financial Management
Just like any other business, starting an Airbnb business necessitates financial management among other tasks and activities.
On the one hand, you have to be able to easily and effortlessly receive payments from guests.
On the other hand, you need to be able to pay Airbnb management fees to your employees, contractors, and vendors for cleaning, restocking, maintenance, and all the other services that they provide. You also have to be able to pay local taxes and fees, short term rental insurance, and all other business expenses.
In addition, as a business owner, it’s crucial to be able to access real-time financial reporting that includes both inflows and outflows, as well as your balance and ROI. Things can get particularly complicated for managers of multiple short term rental properties listed on multiple platforms.
Thus, when choosing vacation rental software, you have to pay close attention to the financial management features that it offers. This includes but is not limited to integrations with payment getaways, invoicing, and reporting. You don’t want to waste your precious time on financial and accounting tasks rather than on strategically optimizing and growing your business.
Vacation Rental Business Growth
Finally, it’s a feature most vacation rental management solutions don’t offer, but it’s key for property owners who want to continue expanding their portfolio and growing their business efficiently.
One of the main reasons for hosts to want to facilitate and automate the management of their Airbnb-style properties is to have the time and energy to add new rentals to their portfolio, along with the ability to generate passive income. That’s why the best vacation rental software offers this capability through additional features.
Such a platform should provide access to reliable Airbnb data, which helps investors find new profitable markets and money-generating vacation rentals for sale. Some important features in this regard include a market finder, a property finder, and an Airbnb calculator.
Comparing Software Solutions
When choosing the right vacation rental software for their property, hosts and managers should rely on a solid framework based on quantifiable factors.
Here are the most important factors to include in your decision:
- Features: First and foremost, once you’ve analyzed your rental and identified its needs, you need to look for software that covers the features and functionalities that you need. While all properties require a channel manager, a multi-calendar, a unified inbox, and dynamic pricing, some might have more complicated needs, calling for additional features.
- Integrations: Second, it’s crucial for the top vacation rental software tools to integrate with the most popular listing websites, such as Airbnb, Vrbo, and Booking.com. They should also work seamlessly with other third-party tools related to cleaning, accounting, team collaboration, and team management. This is especially important for bigger and luxury properties with complex needs.
- Scalability: Airbnb management tools should be able to grow along with your portfolio. This refers to access to features, number of listings, number of users, and pricing. You don’t want your business growth to be limited by the tools that you use as an owner or a manager.
- Customer support: You should aim to choose vacation rental software that comes with 24/7 customer support available both during implementation and afterward. Ideally, the customer support team should be accessible by chat, phone, and email.
- Pricing model: It’s important to go for a solution that is cost-efficient. After all, the software subscription fee adds to your business expenses, and you have to be certain that the cost is lower than the savings you’ll be making through implementing the tool. In terms of pricing, check out the monthly or annual subscription fee for the tier you need as well as any implementation fees and add-on costs. Meanwhile, remember that you can include the cost of the software in your short term rental tax deductions.
- Customer reviews: Last but not least, check out online customer reviews on independent, trustworthy review websites such as Trustpilot, G2, GetApp, and others. Customer experiences will give you an excellent idea of each software’s main strengths compared to competitors and what issues you might expect.
Before you go for any particular software for your vacation rental business, it’s a good idea to sign up for a demo with a few different tools. In this way, you can see how each one works in practice and ask all the questions that you might have.
Ideally, you should be able to sign up for a free trial to test the compatibility of your chosen software with your operations. However, keep in mind that not all products offer a free trial.
Software Recommendations for Different Property Types
Finally, it’s time to examine how to choose the right vacation rental software for each of the most popular types of properties.
Single Units and Apartments
Owners and managers of single units, apartments, and condos rented out on a short-term basis should focus on simplicity and cost-effectiveness when selecting their software tools.
As a small-scale operator, you need to make sure that the product will be empowering rather than overwhelming. You want a tool that’s easy to implement, easy to get trained on, and easy to use.
Moreover, you should look for a product that does not cost more than a few dollars per month.
Software like Host Tools offers access to the basic features of vacation rental software but lacks some more complex options.
Entire Houses
Managing a few single family homes or townhouses comes with more responsibilities and requirements. For instance, you need a tool that helps with keyless entry for guests and staff, cleaning and maintenance scheduling, and guest and team communication.
In this case, you can afford a product that costs a bit more in exchange for providing access to more sophisticated features to cover the needs of your property type.
Guesty for Hosts could be a potential fit.
Luxury Villas
If you invest in or manage luxury short term rentals, you need tools that will allow you to offer premium services to your guests. In addition to impeccable cleaning and restocking, your renters are likely to expect high-quality services such as above-average amenities and personalized guest experiences.
Hostfully reviews emphasize the Digital Guidebooks that hosts and property managers can create for the benefit of their guests.
Best Vacation Rental Software for All Property Types
At the same time, there is a vacation rental software platform that can meet the needs of all hosts and property managers, regardless of the property types they work with—Mashvisor.
The Mashvisor vacation rental software brings together all the tools and features that you might need to streamline and optimize the management of your rentals, including:
- Dynamic pricing: To automate your pricing strategy in a way that maximizes revenue and returns, rather than occupancy rate.
- Channel manager: To manage all your listings from a single platform for easy and efficient Airbnb listing optimization, dynamic pricing, and booking management.
- Multi-calendar: To view and manage available nights, blocked days, active reservations, and canceled bookings, including all necessary details and insights.
- Unified inbox: To facilitate and automate guest communication before, during, and after guest stays.
Moreover, the power of the Mashvisor platform is not limited to managing short-term rentals. You can use the available Airbnb data and analytics, as well as tools such as Market Finder, Property Finder, and Airbnb Calculator, to continuously grow your portfolio.
With the Mashvisor vacation rental investment tools, you can locate the best markets and properties for sale that fit your budget, expectations, and current portfolio.
Mashvisor’s Dynamic Pricing tool allows you to automate your pricing changes based on your chosen strategy. Whether you’re managing one or 100 properties, this feature can help you maximize your revenues in one click.
Implementing Your Chosen Software
Once you’ve chosen the best vacation rental software for your property type, it’s important to implement it in an efficient way to boost the positive results for your business.
Following are the steps towards the right implementation of your selected tools:
- Work with the customer support team to get started: As a first step, you should partner with the customer support team of your chosen software to implement the product correctly. The exact process will depend on the specific tool, the required features, and your portfolio of properties.
- Implement necessary integrations: Next, you should integrate all necessary third-party platforms, including distribution channels and other tools. Before proceeding, you need to ensure that integrations are working as expected.
- Assign team member roles: Depending on the composition of your team, all software users need to be assigned specific roles and given access to the features they need to use.
- Provide staff training: Finally, you and your team should be trained on how to use the software correctly and efficiently. This can be done through training materials on the software website or through live training provided by the customer support team.
As soon as you’ve set up the software and started using it to manage your vacation rentals, you need to start monitoring its impact on your business. Some key things to keep an eye on include the time you spend managing your properties, your earnings, occupancy rate, expenses, cash flow, and profitability.
Ideally, implementing the software should reduce the time spent managing your rentals and increase ROI. If that’s not the case, either the product has not been set up correctly or the software is not the right one for your property type.
Choose the Right Vacation Rental Software for Your Property Now
Choosing vacation rental software that’s best for your property type might make the difference between running a profitable and a non-profitable business. Introducing the right tools to your operations can help you save time, cut down operating costs, boost revenue, and increase profits.
But to achieve this, you need to find the best fit for your specific needs, considering your property type and size, your market, your guests, and your team and portfolio.
To reap the benefits of streamlining and automating the vacation rental management process, you should start by analyzing your property’s needs and then diligently researching the best options for hosts and managers.
If you’re looking for a comprehensive vacation rental investment platform that can help you both manage your existing properties and find new profitable opportunities, you should check out Mashvisor. This is the only one-in-all short term rental software solution on the market.