This week, we are highlighting one of our own. Steve Clark joined OwnerRez in 2021 with a background in technology and firsthand experience as a vacation rental operator through his business, WoodHaven Rentals. After buying his first vacation home in the North Georgia mountains, Steve quickly immersed himself in the short-term rental world, becoming an active member of the OwnerRez community long before officially joining the team. Today, Steve is the Director of Customer Success at OwnerRez, leveraging his real-world experience as a vacation rental owner to drive customer success and help shape the product.
Can you tell us a little bit about your history?
I grew up in Northern Virginia and moved to the Tampa, Florida area in 1988. I’ve lived here ever since with my wife and our two kids. One day, we took a vacation to the North Georgia mountains, and after living in the Florida heat for so many years, we absolutely fell in love with it. We thought the area was amazing, and it felt like such a great change of pace. We ended up buying our first vacation home in 2020, right after COVID started.
What is your background?
Right after high school, I joined the Army and served for four years as an ammunition specialist. After I got out, I started going to college, but I was offered a job at a company doing the kind of work I really wanted to be doing. A lot of my friends who graduated college were struggling to find careers at the time, so I took the opportunity and ended up stepping away from school.
My first role was as a certified technician doing desktop and computer support. After that, I worked on a project with AAA South where I traveled to different states upgrading computers. This was around the year 2000, and we were upgrading systems from Windows 95 to Windows 98. We’d go into a branch after closing and had to finish everything before they opened the next morning, so it was a fast-paced job with a lot of hands-on troubleshooting.
From there, I moved into purchasing, then later into sales, and spent several years in business-to-business sales. Later on, my wife was diagnosed with cancer, so I left my job to stay home with the kids and take care of her. After she recovered and returned to work, I stayed home and became a stay-at-home dad for about eight years. Then we bought our vacation rental, I got immersed in the short-term rental world, and eventually that led me to OwnerRez.
Were you always in vacation rentals or property management, or is this a 2nd/3rd career?
No, I wasn’t always in vacation rentals. Most of my career was in technology and business-to-business sales. I’ve also done a little bit of everything, including pool remodeling, serving, and bartending. But we bought our vacation rental in 2020, and that’s really when I entered the vacation rental industry.
A fun part of that story is that in 2020, when everything was shut down, I spent a lot of time on the OwnerRez users group and unofficial community forums while I was learning the software. I joined Zoom calls with other users, worked through issues, and shared tips and ideas. I really liked the community and stayed involved, answering questions and helping people.
At one point, another user messaged me and told me I should work at OwnerRez. She reached out to the OwnerRez CEO, Paul, and it turned out they had an opening at the time. I applied, and it worked out. I started with OwnerRez about five years ago, and I’ve since moved into a leadership role. Today, I’m the Director of Customer Success, supporting both the inbound and sales sides of the business. So now I’m not only an owner and self-manager, I also work in the industry and attend a lot of industry events.
Are you from the geographical area where your properties are located, or did you move there later?
I live in the Tampa, Florida area, specifically in a small town called Lutz, just north of Tampa. My property is in North Georgia, in Mineral Bluff, just outside of Blue Ridge. It’s about an 8 to 9-hour drive for me, depending on how long we stop at Buc-ee’s on the way up. Because I’m managing from a distance, I realized early on that if I wanted to self-manage successfully, I needed strong software to support me, and OwnerRez was the solution I landed on.
If you moved there later, was there something that drew you to that area?
Even though I don’t live in Georgia, I absolutely love the area. After living in Florida for so many years, we wanted a place where we could actually be outside more. In the Georgia mountains, we spend more time hiking, visiting waterfalls, and being down by the river. It’s also just a slower pace of life, less hustle and bustle, and it feels like a true getaway for our family. That’s what really drew us to the area.
What do you love the most about the vacation rental business?
Honestly, I think what I love most is the people. It’s really cool meeting guests from all different walks of life. And working in the industry, I also enjoy going to conferences and events, connecting with other property managers, and hearing their stories. My LinkedIn is filled with short-term rental professionals, and it’s just a really great community. At the end of the day, this is a hospitality business. It’s people-oriented, and I don’t think everyone realizes that. Some people get into vacation rentals thinking it’s just an easy way to make money, but to really be successful, you need to have a hospitality mindset and be empathetic. That’s what I love most about it.
What do you dislike the most about it?
Is it bad to say the people? (laughs) Most guests are great, but every once in a while, you’ll get someone you just can’t please, no matter what. You put in the time and effort, the home is clean, everything is ready, and they still find something to complain about, or they aren’t being completely honest and are trying to get something for nothing. That’s probably the hardest part for me. I wish everyone was more honest and reasonable. Sometimes there might be a small issue, but it gets turned into a huge problem, and suddenly they’re asking for a big refund, even though they’re still getting a beautiful three-bedroom, three-bath home for the price of a hotel room.
How do you use OwnerRez to manage your business?
I use pretty much every part of OwnerRez. Since I live about eight hours away, I do have a cleaner who acts as my boots on the ground. She uses Turno, so I have that connected through the API, and I handle a lot of coordination through that.
For pricing, I rely heavily on PriceLabs. I probably lean on it more than I should and could tweak things more manually, but overall, it works well and saves me time.
Messaging is the biggest piece for me. It’s funny because if you look at my guest reviews, people always say things like “Steve was the most communicative host I’ve ever had,” or “he was so quick to respond.” And it makes me laugh because half the time, I never personally talked to them at all. For years, it was templates and triggers doing the work, and now it’s Rezzy answering a lot of those questions automatically.
I also love SMS. Even if a booking starts on a channel, once we’re past the booking stage, I try to move communication over to text messaging whenever possible. Guests seem to really like it because it’s simple and direct.
Between messaging, automations, integrations, smart locks, and everything else, OwnerRez is set up to make my life easier. For a single property, it’s a no-brainer, because it would take so much more time to do all of this manually.
What is the most useful feature OwnerRez offers?
It’s hard to narrow it down to just one, because OwnerRez does so much. The channel integrations are probably the most technical part, and they do a lot of heavy lifting behind the scenes, even though people don’t always think of them as a “feature.” But for me personally, the most useful feature is messaging. It saves me the most time, and now with Rezzy, it’s even better.
Guests ask questions all the time that are already answered in my guest book or guide, like whether they should bring coffee grounds or K-cups. Most guests don’t read all the details ahead of time, so before Rezzy, I still had to respond manually. Now Rezzy can answer those questions instantly by pulling from my FAQs, for example, letting them know I have a dual coffee maker that works with both K-cups and grounds. That kind of automation makes a huge difference, and it’s why messaging, especially with Rezzy, is the most useful feature for me.
Steve’s journey from vacation rental owner to Director of Customer Success reflects his strong understanding of both the industry and the people in it. We’re proud to have Steve on the OwnerRez team and look forward to seeing him continue to leverage his real-world vacation rental experience to drive customer success.