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Just chiming in on this as feedback. I absolutely loathe dealing with LOS discounts. We are managing over 70 properties with around 18 “seasons”. LOS discounts are a disaster for us to calculate nightly rates from in order to actually charge the correct amount. Instead of being able to group, for example, all oceanfront studios, and say “these are $850 per month from November to March”, we have to take the nightly rate, multiply by 30, calculate the discount percentage, then set it all up. And then it turns out to be $852.36 or some other crazy number. Then we get a 60 line accounting of our rate and discount from Airbnb, which isn’t pretty. Plus, if we want to discount our nightly rate for a promotion, it stacks the LOS discount, making our monthly rate too cheap.
We have used it for about a year now. Our cleaners were resistant at first, so we hopped on a training call with Jill at VRS and the owner of the cleaning company. When he discovered he could use it to pull reports, allowing him bill us (his largest/primary client) monthly rather than having to do daily accounting to keep track of stuff, he was sold. Their training is fantastic & Jill Mason is hands on, practically 24/7. We ended up sharing it with our cleaners, who created their own “region” to handle their other few vacation rental and commercial accounts. I’m not sure how close you are with your cleaners, but it works well for us here & the pricing is very fair. We love it!
Yes, Me, Yes....PLEASE include us reservations@coastalwavesvacations.com for SMS early group!!!
After a stressful election week, it’s finally Friday! Start your weekend off right by reading some industry news.
Airbnb has been slapped with a class action lawsuit for missing host payments. A lot of hosts were livid when the company gave full refunds back in March, and it looks like that’s finally catching up to them. The lawsuit alleges three violation claims which include breach of contract, breach of fiduciary duty and violation of California consumer protection laws. This isn’t a good look for a company gearing up for an IPO.😯
Rancho Mirage CA, has moved forward with placing a ban on short-term vacation rentals starting January 1st. Once in effect, this will apply to 121 properties in public neighborhoods. The ban comes as now surprise with City Council member Dana Hobart stating, “We have tried in vain, for roughly a decade, to find a harmonious resolution satisfactory to both sides. Our failure over such a lengthy period to find a mutually acceptable solution abundantly exposes the futility of continuing the effort. It is time to end this dispute.”
If you’ve been thinking about buying vacation rental properties, now is the time! Trusted Business Insights released an updated study on the Vacation Rental Market for 2020-2029. For 2020, the global value of the vacation rental marketplace was valued at $76.08 billion. From 2021 to 2027, there is an expected 2.3% of compound annual growth rate. The study concluded that millennials are responsible for the majority of growth in the industry. According to an Airbnb report, Millennials will account for 75% of all consumers and travelers by 2025. So what are you waiting for? Buy up the vacation rental market and rent them out to yuppies!🤑
On that same note, condo prices drop 9% in San Francisco. There is a historic amount of inventory on the market as 2,532 homes were listed for sale at the end of October. That’s 77% more than the same week a year ago. If you’ve been looking to move to the Bay Area, now is the time!🏠
This week we put out a User Profile where we talked to Jeanne from Groome & Morales and MyPCBCondo.com. From time to time, we showcase OwnerRez users that show exemplary work, so be sure to keep up with our blog for all the weekly updates.😊
Have a great weekend!🌴
Staying independent is a big deal, and I appreciate this effort. When looking to a software provider it was important to me that you would not sell to VRBO, AirBNB, or a larger competitor!
Not a problem for me guys!
You deliver an awesome product, at a great price, backed by wonderful support. Thank you for all you do to help us small businesses succeed.
Makes total sense and worth every penny. Thanks for being such an awesome partner!
I didn't even get the email nor notification of the blog. I found out on FB. As a single property owner, this is very disappointing. The single property owners don't have the deep pockets that multi properties **might have**. I have migrated my entire booking process to direct so I don't use, nor want, API. The API doesn't really even work well for single properties admittedly by your own company. When I did test it, it messed up my entire booking records that took weeks to unsnarl by hand.
Who will support the small biz guys out here since you were the only coverage? I get it and you need to grow but it's just sad that the little guys get fleeced once again (the people who need it the most). Now I have to go back and start researching how to do this on my own since the doubling of cost is not feasible. Your cost is the single highest for my business. It's more than my hosting and website. I wish you nothing but the best of luck but cannot go quietly without letting you know about my personal situation. Does it matter in the big scheme? No, not to your company, but it's a huge deal to my little business.
Absolutely worth every penny!
We aren't going anywhere. From an invite to the VRBO API pilot program to the correct answers and quick answers I get every time in support, there's no way I would go to another platform after trying several before I found Owner Rez. Feeling like you can quickly get a hold of someone who actually knows what they're talking about has massive value. Please stay independent and do not sell out like VRBO did.
I love these guys and this company!
Sure, no one likes paying out more dollars, but the support and product they offer is terrific and they are a fantastic value.
They are always quick to answer any questions I have and are extremely patient which I appreciate so much! Looking forward to working with all of you for many years to come.
Steve Burrows @ Reaches2Beaches
We totally understand and are with you on these changes and updates. Your product has already paid for itself many times over, and we have no intention of going anywhere else. Mahalo for your candor and integrity!
OwnerRez was the best decision we made to manage our properties and integrating API giving us control over billing and collection was awesome could not have done it without you, thanks! We understand occasional price increases especially to stay independent and improving your product. My only frustration is reliance on emails for customer support but you have done a good job with it. If you ever do have phone service support please let me know because some issues are hard to cure by email. Rick
Your company has been incredible and the level of support is unparalleled. I understand the need for an increase and appreciate the communication.
I understand and thank you for the detailed price increase explanation above. Please stay independent and true to all of us who enjoy and depend on your software. Your customer service has been great...I always get a timely response and it is very much appreciated.
We are please to announce a partnership with Stays Group. This allows OwnerRez users to integrate some of their property data with the network of vacation rental listing sites that Stays Group provides.
Stays Group was created by Fetch My Guest Inc, a provider of marketing automation services for independent vacation rental professionals. They offer multiple regional vacation rental marketplaces to helps traveler in North America find their next vacation. Stays Group is a non-profit network of Independent Vacation Rental Professionals, with the goal of pushing the #directbooking movement and reducing OTA dependencies.
Stays Group network members have been serving the vacation rental community for an average of 20 years. They put the traveler first, providing clean and well maintained properties and on-the-ground experts with local knowledge. Stays Group members understand the importance of having flexible cancellation policies and real time local information.
Vince Perez, CEO of Fetch My Guest and a Stays Group member, told us "Our members have taken a big step towards creating their own cooperative platform and distinguishing their vacation rental businesses as they lead the future of #bookdirect for the coming generations. For the past few years, many corporate-backed interests have interfered with the valued relationships we have nurtured with our guests and our local communities. I am proud to work alongside our membership as we continue to grow and find innovative ways to give the guest unfettered access to our respected brands."
Many OwnerRez homeowners and PMs share the same feelings and have the same goals!
Stays Group Regional Sites include:
Check out how to connect Stays Group with OwnerRez by following our support doc.
Thanks and anyone wanting to scuba dive visit www.utila.rentals and mention "Owner Rez" for your discount.
Happy Thursday! If you're one of our American customers, hopefully the post-election news cycle over the last 24 hours hasn't completely wrecked your mental state. 📺😟 If it has, sorry to hear it, but hey - cheer yourself up by reading some OwnerRez updates!
We've got some great updates to talk about (18 to be exact) so let's get started!
The rate table widget has plagued us (and you!) for a long time with the columns it shows and the amounts inside them. Over the last year, we've changed it numerous times to reflect different scenarios for different people. Part of the problem is that the vacation rental industry has moved away from static period pricing to dynamic nightly pricing with discounts. But many vacation rental owners still want to show a weekly or monthly rate, for information purposes, that reflect about what it would cost if someone chooses the right length of stay. For a long time, we went back and forth showing weekly or monthly columns based on inferring what you wanted to show from your settings. This never worked because too many users wanted too many different things regardless of their settings. To fix it once and for all, we added specific show/hide settings on the rate table widget that allow you to specifically set whether Nightly, Weekend, Weekly and Monthly columns will show and, if they do show, how the rates will be calculated.
If you liked how it worked before, you can continue using the "Show if rules allow" option, and the widget will check out your LOS discounts and minimum night rules to deduce if a period should be shown. If that doesn't work for you, use the "Show always" or "Hide" options instead.
Those of you that use SMS messaging - have your invoices been confusing? They were to us, so we updated them to add more information. Invoices now show SMS message counts for both inbound and outbound separately and changed the language around it to make extra usage fees be clearer. This should help you understand what's going on. If you're curious how SMS message is priced, check out our Costs & Fees article.
Our PM owner dashboard shows a great set of graphs that show the owner a real-time view on revenue and occupancy for their properties. However, we were basing the calculations on time that includes yesterday (ie. the day before whatever the current day is when you look at the dashboard) but not including the current day. We updated the owner dashboard to make sure numbers are including today up through midnight so that they are accurate as new bookings come in.
We also added more permission options to portal access so that you can allow your owners (or other third party users) to see:
These additions will give your portal users the ability to know more about the booking. Want other portal options? Let us know!
Earlier this year, we released custom Cancellation Policies that gives you flexible control over your policies and maps those policies to channels. But what about your own website? Your own OwnerRez-hosted website should show the same, so we added that. Websites now show the cancellation policy for that property on the property details page.
While we were working on cancellation policies, we also updated the automatic description to include "and then no refunds" at the end so that it's clear that the last period is non-refundable even though that is typically implied.
Speaking of clarifying language, we also updated our new door lock grace periods to make sure you understand that "exact" time means no grace period. Again, this was implied, but it's better to be clear.
A few weeks back, we added a great video about our Listing Quality Analyzer tool. If you haven't seen it yet, give it a look. As mentioned in the video, we are constantly adding new LQA checks or updating old ones to be better. This past week we added checks for for missing location types and possible related-location types. This is important in making sure your listings are pushed to Vrbo and Airbnb with the right location data, which is something guests look for. For instance, if your property has Oceanfront selected as the location type, we make sure you have Oceanview and Ocean selected as location amenities as well. Being thorough in your advertising matters, but again - make sure to run Listing Quality Analyzer so that you see what we recommend!
Sometimes, our filtering is too accurate because our engineering team is made up of nerds that try to be exact. 🤓 The spirit of the law matters more than the letter of the law. For instance, when you search for bookings that have "no security deposits", do you really want bookings that have no security deposit records of any kind (even ones that failed) or ones that don't have an active security deposit scheduled or pending? You probably want the latter. "None" in that context really means a booking with no money to get your hands on when the guest's dog eats the curtains. We noticed this and changed it. The security deposit filter will now return bookings with failed security deposits if "none" is selected and there's no other pending or scheduled one on file. If you notice other filters like this, let us know!
We try to include a lot of screenshots in our blog posts and support articles, and if you click on those screenshots, they always open a bigger version. Only, they opened the raw image in a new tab which stinks when you're trying to read along. We recently changed that and upgraded all of our pages to add a helpful image carousel that keeps the page in view but shows screenshots in a larger window when clicked on. Pro tip: you can use arrow keys to quickly scroll sideways between screenshots when the carousel is open, and the article underneath will automatically scroll the text up or down to wherever that screenshot is in the article.
Have you noticed anything new about the icon that shows in your web browser? We recently changed our favicon from a palm tree to a modern green "OR" that more accurately reflects our current design. Sorry, palm tree - it was time to go. The new green one may not last long either, but it's another step in a long list of steps we're taking to normalize our design. Hate it, like it? Tell us what you think.
Trigger template drop-down showing old templates. Just like it sounds! After disabling or deleting templates, some triggers would still show the inactive templates. We found and fixed this.
Testing disabled CC payment methods. When deleting or disabling a credit card payment method, the system was trying to test the payment method (by talking to the gateway) like it does when you make other changes. However, if you're disabling or deleting, you don't need it to test the connection, so we removed that.
Obsolete system messages. Earlier this year, we changed our system messages to have a single "booking changed" message instead of individual ones for property, date, time and so on. However, the old system message records were still in there and occasionally being referenced. We cleaned this up.
RTB email for Vrbo showing amount. The Request To Book mode for Vrbo bookings sometimes sends out emails when guest credit cards fail. But when it does, it was referencing the booking amount as originally sent by the channel. The booking amount might change in between the time booking was made and when the card was processed - based on conversations between the owner and guest - so we changed the email to not reference the original booking amount.
Font selection on hosted website. When selecting custom Google Fonts for your website (yeah, you can do that!) there was a validation bug that made it so that older websites would get stuck. We fixed this to add a default font placeholder instead.
Billing info on payment receipts. We recently released an update that lets you change credit cards stored on the booking. However, when doing this, it affected the card data being shown on payment receipts and emails. We fixed this to properly look at the historical data that was used at the time regardless of the current card data.
Bad PayPal link on payments setup page. When filling in, or modifying, the settings for your connected PayPal payment method, we were referencing some old support links. This is now fixed.
Thank you. Don't get me wrong, I love you guys, always speak of you highly, chatted with some of you personally and appreciate quick responses & support. I am indeed frustrated with some of the recent changes but understand that some are necessary for the API to work when connecting to big websites (which is not necessarily what I am looking for, as I've been debating it for a while in addition to just not having the time to implement some of it... which now I will be paying for regardless whether I do or not). I will take time to read in more details your post & reasons.
Warm regards,
Ella
I fixed the link in Ken's reply. You can also find it under the menus above at both:
Resources > Video
Help > Video
Or on the Support Center Home under Show All Videos.
Tarki said:
One thing though, I find it unfair and misleading when the only way of having multiple users in your system is to have premium Property Management module with a fee.That's actually being discussed internally and has before in the past. The idea is to split out portal access to a different feature (from PM) and call it Multi-User that allows portal access and some other things. I don't have any ETAs or promises on that, but it's highly requested on a regular basis and we understand how it stinks for non-PM users to need to pay for PM just to get multi-user access.
We're working on adding videos pretty aggressively. You can see the whole list of them here:
https://www.ownerrez.com/support/videos
What videos would you like to see?
The service is great, I wish you had more educational videos for beginners to learn how to use your platform
Bravo. Great explanation. I fully understand and support the need for the price increase. Just the level of support that I've received in the past warrants such a change. I've never used any product, at any price, with such a high level of support. And that's saying something, as I've worked in IT for 25 years.
Thank you for justifying your price increase with a detailed explanation. Hope you do great product enhancements with the extra money you'll charge.
One thing though, I find it unfair and misleading when the only way of having multiple users in your system is to have premium Property Management module with a fee.
We don't have any property managers but only our staff and the only way of opening OwnerRez to them is to pay for the Property Management module.
In addition, the access levels for users are extremely limited.
Good luck with everything.
Your tech support alone is worth the increase. Best PMS out there. I respect and admire your culture. Kudos to you.
Great company, people, software and customer service 2nd to none. I've been here since nearly the beginning and watched this grow and expand capabilities. I had a wish list of features when I came on board. This product has become so much more than I ever wished for. I tried other PMS that claimed to be superior than OR and 4 months later I was back on OR. You folks are awesome and I tell anyone that will listen that you're the best at an amazing price to boot.
I’m thrilled to hear you aren’t taking on investors. I love all your updates and am willing to pay more for the time it saves my entire team. Thanks for the detailed explanation. Here’s to many more years!
Thanks for all you do. I could not do this without you all, with over 40 properties, it would be awful without ownerrez, so I understand the price increase.
Beth
