Meet Lorraine Bonner, founder of YorGuest and an OwnerRez user for over five years. What began in early 2017 with renting out her own family home has grown into a full-time career in vacation rental management. Today, she manages 25 beautiful properties across York and Wakefield, UK.

Can you tell us a little bit about your history?

I started my family when I was quite young, and during that time, I set up a couple of online businesses, including selling full-time on eBay back when it first launched, which let me earn a full-time income while looking after my children, so you could say I've always been entrepreneurial. I also trained as a hairdresser but decided it wasn’t for me, and then went to work in the NHS and charity sector for several years.

Then, in early 2017, I started renting out our family home as a holiday let, and I loved it so much I decided to do it full-time. I left my steady career in the charity sector to go full-time in property management. I ended up running 10 holiday lets across York and Warwickshire. In 2020, during lockdown, I started YorGuest to manage other people's properties too. It felt like a natural progression, although it was a little bit different because you feel a lot more responsible looking after someone else’s investment.

Are you from the geographical area where your properties are located, or did you move there later?

YorGuest is based in York, UK, which heavily relies on tourism, and luckily for me, I was born and raised here. 90% of the properties we manage are in the York area; the remainder are in Wakefield, West Yorkshire, which is around a 45-minute drive from York. Being local means we know the area inside out. We have good relationships with cleaners and contractors, and we care about York's reputation as a destination. I love being a Yorkshire lass. There’s nowhere else I would want to live!

What do you love most about the vacation rental business?

Helping property owners get their time back. They come to us stressed and exhausted. Once we take over, they can actually enjoy their lives again. I also love creating good experiences for guests. When someone leaves a five-star review because they felt looked after, that's what it's all about.

What do you dislike the most about it?

You never switch off and never close, so we're busiest when everyone else is on holiday. Some guests can also be demanding and hard to please. And because stays are short, everything that needs fixing must be fixed immediately, and getting tradespeople at short notice is stressful. The admin burden is heavy too, coordinating cleaners, contractors, and compliance across 25 properties. That being said, it’s challenging and interesting, and we have so many interesting stories we could tell.

How do you use OwnerRez to manage your business?

OwnerRez is the backbone of YorGuest. We use it for property management, bookings, calendars, guest records, payments, and the PM section for owner statements. When we joined in 2021, we had been with Supercontrol for a year, and my owner statements used to take me over a day to create, and that was when we only had about 12 properties. I was often reduced to tears. I instantly found OR to be more user-friendly, and despite it being more focused on US businesses, I felt that it was a far better option for us, and we were able to customize it enough to fit with UK systems.

We were growing fast, and things were chaotic. By setting up automations in Turno and properly configuring the property management section, we now have much more structure. We also use the tasks section to communicate between team members about bookings. We're much less stressed and more organised and we can now run the business with fewer members of staff meaning that it is far more profitable.

What is the most useful feature OwnerRez offers?

So many features. I love the automation section, including the templates and triggers. We have all our templates written in HTML and branded so they look really professional and on brand. I also love the tags and tag automation. The PM section keeps improving. Although I could suggest more improvements (and I do often!) its come on leaps and bounds in the last few years. Lastly, I will be interested to see how OR develops Rezzy AI. I used it when it was free and it really did improve a lot in that space of time.

Lorraine has done an impressive job building a business focused on strong systems, automation, and great experiences for both owners and guests. We look forward to seeing YorGuest continue to grow.