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How will this affect those of us with API connection to VRBO?

https://www.vrbo.com/one-key

Hello all,

Has anyone integrated TIDY and used TIDY for their STRs?  Has anyone used TIDY's concierge service?  What has been your experience?

Thank you!

-Austin

Hi Kismet,

I am happy to help and can send you a guide on best practices - I don't know if there is a PM mechanism on this forum but I can also share here if you want. However, the QB integration is not yet ready for best practices so I am trying to create urgency with addressing Quickbooks Integration / Accounting issues in OR by having all key stakeholders join together to create a louder voice. To do so I have tried to summarize all the open issues in this theme and have created one master feature request that I am asking everyone that would like to see this addressed cast a vote for so we concentrate our voting and allow OR to see the magnitude of the need. I do have some ideas for a rapid resolution but at this time want to focus on identifying and prioritizing the issues/problems and have OR engage in prioritizing this fix.

The comprehensive thread is that this Feature request (full link below). If you feel this is a need PLEASE VOTE. If you have any additions, corrections, or comments please reply and I will try to keep the top post updated.

https://www.ownerrez.com/forums/go/70573

Thank you for your support and lets get a roadmap for this once and for all!!

Manel

Thank you Ken, I have watched every video on connecting and it still isn't working so I need a little extra help I'm guessing. I have done everything the video's show.

Patti

We are moving away from the BRIVO platform.   I have a number of new in box Brivo controllers that I will sell for a good price and as I pull the ones from my properties I will have used ones at an even better price.   Let me know if you have a need for them.

new myself. If you feel like you have good cleaners, i wouldnt go through setting up and doing inspections. What you might have is them take a few pictures of certain areas after cleans. then if someone was to ever complain about something, you could present the picture as evidence.

I sort of fell into property management by accident (I bought a couple of condos, and then a friend asked me to manage her condos, and I've picked up a half dozen other clients organically over the last few years).

I have 11 2-bedroom condos spread across the region (it's about a 35-minute drive from one end to the other). It's just me--no employees, no business partners, nothing, just me (I contract with a friend who owns a cleaning company and who hires and trains professional cleaners who do a darn good job).

When I started looking into services like Breezeway, BeHome247, EZCare, and others, I found they all defaulted to a workflow where an inspector followed behind the cleaner. This was my first exposure to that process. And now I'm left wondering: is it standard in the STR industry? I'd never heard of it, outside of maybe some large PMs who have untrusted employees on staff and who have lots of properties all very close together. I don't really have any guest complaints about cleanliness, and my cleaner has her ducks in a row and doesn't have issues with missed cleans or anything, so I wonder whether I should implement the same.

On the other hand, I also wonder how I would handle the logistics. I don't have any employees I could task with that, and I do not want to do it myself (not to mention it would take a HUGE chunk of my time). And sometimes there are 5-6 same-day flips that my cleaner's employees aren't wrapping up until 30 minutes before the guests show up, so how can I (or any one else) bounce around to half a dozen different properties that are all a 20-minute drive from each other, all in a 30-minute window?

Any suggestions for what I should do? Am I the outlier here? Asking here because I get the feeling that PMs on OR are probably more in my size bracket than the huge PMs that are often found on other social media sites with dozens/hundreds of properties. :)

The process of authorizing OwnerRez to use your Stripe account is managed on the Stripe side.

During that process, Stripe gives you the option to create a new Stripe account or grant access to the existing Stripe account (and log in to that account if you're not logged in already). This is an important feature since some users need multiple Stripe accounts, but can be confusing if you're intending to grant access to your existing Stripe account and accidentally create a new one. Unfortunately, OwnerRez has no control over the Stripe interface, so we can't improve their layout.

When granting access, make sure you choose the option to use your existing Stripe account and log in to Stripe with the email address you have used on your existing Stripe account.

That says you must update your stripe account to continue. When you do, it creates another stripe account, which then you are unable to collect payments from previous customers because they were on you old account.  What a mess! 

Hello,

I am starting the process of researching hiring a VA for my short term rental business. I want to hire someone good enough to take over most of the business from communicating with guests, my cleaners, using the OR tools etc. Does anyone have good advice on what VA company to use or any other advice for me?

Thanks,

Ian

In the meantime, this workaround may also be helpful:

https://www.ownerrez.com/support/articles/discount-codes#position

This is an artifact of the way rate data from listing channels is stored.  It's a known issue and there are plans to refactor this area and add this capability among several other related hot topics, but that's a good bit of work.

Just curious why when using a discount code you aren't allowed to make the discount as a percentage of the rent?  You can only make it a percentage of the subtotal or a flat rate.

Thank you so much for your feedback.  Very much appreciated.

Suzy

Thank you sooooo much for your time to answer my questions and for such great feedback.   I can't tell you how much I appreciate your input and I feel a lot more comfortable about working with this platform now! 

Have a wonderful day

Suzy

1. yes, just like any other channel

2. Just like any other channel - you specify on API settings

3. Not sure I understand. Vrbo does the same

4. Yes. My cancellation policy is the same on all channels

5. No. I have IB on vrbo as well as on my own website

1.  Inside OR, were you able to add their commission onto the base rates (just as we do with Airbnb and other channels)?

Yes you add your markup in the channel API section.

2.  How do you work with the 18 month calendar availability?  Is that an issue for you? 

We only allow our calendar to be open 365 days in advance, so this isn't an issue for us.

3.  I am a little surprised by the Credit card information being given to the Host to input in their own system.  Isn't there a danger in this? What do you charge - the whole amount at once or a deposit to be followed up later with the balance (if the booking is ahead of time)?

This is similar to all other API-connected channels outside of Airbnb. OR automatically charges the card on file once the guest supplies it. We charge 50% at booking at the remaining 50% 30 days before arrival. 

4. Cancellation Policy:  I am assuming that this is something we can set ourselves.  Given that there is such a long calendar lead-time, did you then set a longer cancellation period with stricter rules for HTG bookings?

Yes OR gives you some options to choose from. We prefer 100% back (minus $100 cancellation fee) outside of 60 days, 50% back between 30-60 days, and 0% back inside of 30 days. We've found this helps us manage out calendar more effectively if someone does cancel. 

5. Instant Booking only:  do you find this an issue?  I understand that the booking must be confirmed with the host before the host will actually take the deposit or entire fees for the property  (I just set my Airbnb/VRBO bookings to "request to book"). 

Instant Book hasn't been a problem for us. It could be we've just been lucky, but our HTG guests have been fine so far. Mostly families/groups in the 40-60 age range.

Our experience has been positive. We've received 5 bookings through HomeToGo in the last 12 months so it hasn't been a huge revenue driver, but the guests have been courteous and you have full control over the booking which is nice. 

Thank you so much for your feedback, Hostfolio.  I have a few follow-up questions, if you have time to answer them: 

1.  Inside OR, were you able to add their commission onto the base rates (just as we do with Airbnb and other channels)?

2.  How do you work with the 18 month calendar availability?  Is that an issue for you? 

3.  I am a little surprised by the Credit card information being given to the Host to input in their own system.  Isn't there a danger in this? What do you charge - the whole amount at once or a deposit to be followed up later with the balance (if the booking is ahead of time)?

4. Cancellation Policy:  I am assuming that this is something we can set ourselves.  Given that there is such a long calendar lead-time, did you then set a longer cancellation period with stricter rules for HTG bookings?

5. Instant Booking only:  do you find this an issue?  I understand that the booking must be confirmed with the host before the host will actually take the deposit or entire fees for the property  (I just set my Airbnb/VRBO bookings to "request to book"). 

Many thanks indeed.

Suzy

couple of bookings a year

Our experience has been positive. We've received 5 bookings through HomeToGo in the last 12 months so it hasn't been a huge revenue driver, but the guests have been courteous and you have full control over the booking which is nice. 

I'm seriously contemplating going onto the Home to Go platform with my direct website as I work towards migrating some of my business away from the traditional OTA's.

I would love to know what experiences other Owner Rez users as individual property owners with their own website are having using this platform?

Lots of anger from many hosts about similar refunds.. AIRBnb are you hearing us??.  Its not acceptable and guests should buy their own insurance.

They do not care. They have a constant inflow of starry-eyed newbies who cannot operate outside of the nanny-state confines of Airbnb. So they really don't care if some experiences owners quit their platform. 

Airbnb has a history of essentially ignoring their agreements with all of us hosts during the pandemic and refunding money we thought was ours when the guests clearly had no contractual or legal right to those refunds.  There was and presumably still is at least one class action lawsuit against Airbnb about this but I'd suspect that all the plaintiffs have had their listings removed as retaliation.  During the time this was going on, nobody at airbnb would answer the phone and you had to try to navigate one of those brutal phone systems designed not to let you even speak to the "customer service rep" that doesn't speak good english or know what they're doing anyway.  

VRBO used strong-arm tactics against owners pressuring us to make refunds guests had no contractual or legal right to, moving us down in search rankings etc.  Meanwhile, of course neither Airbnb or VRBO ever paid a mortgage or HOA or property tax bill that total about $9K a month for one of my Maui properties that sat empty for 7 months.

It's maddening how helpless owners can be.  Unfortunately, whenever a company or small group of companies has a virtual monopoly in an industry, consumers can basically expect to pay an awful lot of money for inferior products and services.

Hi all!

Don't worry, this is not a sales pitch! SUPERHOG Know Your Guest are proud partners of OwnerRez and so OwnerRez user needs are important to us too. I am personally trying to understand better the key concerns you guys have when it comes to knowing your guest, trusting your guest in/with your most valuable assets and what tools are of most interest to you when building and applying your risk management strategy.

eg: Guest screening/ damage deposit and/or an alternative/ larger damage protection

Any info you're happy to share is much appreciated.

Thanks in advance,

Kathryn

Thank you, Ken, setup checklist documentation is gold.

I wish there would be a sentence after "If your properties are listed on Airbnb or Vrbo already..." section stating something along the lines  "If your property is not listed on Airbnb or Vrbo, continue with these steps. the listing is going to be synched the first time in step 15" (just made that up quick, not saying is the best way of expressing the idea).  

Yes, there's a warning in step 15 that more or less states the above, but that assumes people will fully read this document BEFORE starting with step 1. I know I wouldn't, so I'm pretty sure i would end up in step 15 with a "...shoot, now you tell me that I shouldn't have done it"

I hope this makes sense.

Alin

Take a look at our general Setup Checklist:

https://www.ownerrez.com/support/articles/setup-checklist

That does address the preferred order of steps.

I'm struggling with the same question. Too bad nobody seem to have an answer here

Alin

Yeah I don't see OR implementing this since it's pretty nuanced. Would you pay for a separate service that allows you to log out of all your apps remotely so your cleaners don't have to do it?

I've wondered the same. Seems like there should be SOME kind of hospitality-focused option that syncs with PMSes/iCal and automatically resets after guest departure (and could be used for all kinds of other things, like a digital guidebook, checkout instructions, etc.). Kinda shocked nothing exists.

Closest I've found is Roku, which lets guests sign into it in "Guest Mode," but they still have to sign out to clear all the app logins.

Especially since my market focuses on older guests, I've kept cable in all my properties despite the cost (for the same reason as BlueMtnCabins). I offer smart TVs in most of my properties for guest convenience but don't count on them.

That's why we still have dish. everyone knows how to operate that....