Holiday Rental Property Management Systems and Propierge

So far, we have looked at how technology and software can help Holiday Property Managers run their accounts in the articles Software, Technology and Holiday Property Management (Part 1) and in (Part 2), how it can help advertise any holiday rental properties you look after. Today we are going to explore a little around the Holiday Rental Channel Management Software, or what is normally referred to as Property Management Software in the Holiday Property Management arena. We are also going to look at how Propierge fits in with all of this.

Firstly it is worth noting that Property Management is a term that means different things to different people. This will depend on whether you are in the industry and what you do yourself, or if you are outside of the industry but have a level of personal experience in this in some way or another (e.g. you own investment property yourself or have rented an apartment for a holiday etc.). Either way, you will have formed a view/opinion on what Property Management means to you.

Property Management can cover anything from Commercial Properties, Hotels, Residential Lettings, Communities and Estate Management, Holiday Rentals, Second Home/Holiday Property Management, Investment and Residential Property Management, Key Holding and more. There is no right or wrong with this, but in this piece, we are just referring to Second Home/Holiday Property Management and Property Management Systems that focus on Holiday Properties and Holiday Rentals.

Secondly, Holiday Property Management and the services that are offered, particularly in European destinations is led by the Property Owner, their usage and their requirements. The property may be kept just for their own personal usage and possibly for use by their friends and family, or the property may be used to drive some income by allowing the property to be made available for rent for all, or some of the time. Holiday Property Managers look after all of these types of properties, their owners and usage requirements.

If a Holiday Property Manager has a large amount of properties available for holiday rentals and is using a variety of channels to advertise these properties including their own website, a Holiday Rental Property or Channel Management System is going to be very helpful. They offer a wide range of tools specifically related to the Holiday Rental advertising management and some preparation tools to help get the property ready before, between and after holiday rentals, along with some guest experience assistance too.

However, the license fees for the software along with their conditions and restrictions in terms of payment vehicles and the associated/additional fees, can vary significantly depending on the software. This is an important factor to bear in mind when the percentage booking fee from rental channel advertisers can typically range from 3% to 18% of the booking price, before the Rental Channel and Property Management Software fees are added.

In addition, when looking at the software, consideration should be made specifically at its ability to book and manage non rental (i.e. owner related) bookings. A system that can only handle rental bookings and/or only provide all of the integration and automation for the rental bookings, but not the owner/non rental bookings, may not solve a high proportion of your booking coordination and organisation requirements.

You should also consider what level of automation and coordination can be achieved on a booking. If only one or two notifications are sent when booking an arrival, but you have 5, 10 or more different contacts and suppliers to liaise with (once you really think about it), how much are you going to have to arrange outside of the Rental Property Management System and where is all of this going to be stored? In your head? On a whiteboard? On another spreadsheet somewhere else? What happens when there is a change or cancellation or last minute booking to take care of? How do you know that everyone involved has the most up to date information?

How much work do you have to do to set up all of these workflows? How much comes as standard and is appropriate for your actual business model and can be tweaked rather than set up from scratch? Do you have the technology skills to be able to set all of this up easily, or will you need to pay an onboarding fee to get this working for you?

We then come to what happens outside of the holiday/occupation periods. What happens to your properties then? Do you lock them up and leave them until the next booking or do you actively manage and inspect them between visits too? What does the software do to help you with this? If there are any maintenance issues that need resolving during and between visits, does this software manage this with the appropriate supplier for that property and fault and keep the owner up to date on what is happening?

Fees for any software are normal and expected as if the system helps you run your business more efficiently, gain more rental bookings, grow and offer more services without the increased overheads that would otherwise come without using it, the value from these fees is an investment that will pay for itself many times over. The difficult part for a Holiday Property Manager is choosing what is right for their business and what they do day to day, where the issues and headaches come from and what system is going to help the most.

There is a huge amount going on here as Holiday Property Managers and Holiday Rental Property Managers have to manage all of this seamlessly without dropping anything. A slip up here can make or break a holiday no matter who is using the property, be it the owner, holiday rental or any other guest. We have therefore included a very high level overview of the types of features that can be expected with a Holiday Rental Property Management System within a standard fee structure and where Propierge fits in with all of this.

Feature	Rental Property and Channel Management Systems	Propierge
Rental Advertising Channel Management (Rental bookings coordination across a number of channels and sources) including automation of pricing, photos, descriptions, bookings etc. across multiple channels
Website builder and integration
Rental Payments, Card processing and invoicing
Integration with Accounting Software
Bookings Management
Workflow Management for Holiday Rental Bookings including Automation and Trigger Notifications to prepare and turnaround a property between Rental Bookings
Workflow Management for All Non Rental Bookings including Automation and Trigger Notifications to prepare and turnaround a property between other types of Non-Rental Bookings
Full Bookings specific to each contact, property type, set up, preferred supplier, including Automation and Trigger Notifications for a variety of internal staff and contacts, external suppliers and contractors to prepare, turnaround  and close a property
Reporting
Integrated Calendars
Integrated Calendars showing Bookings, Issues, Cleaning, Inspections and Status of all of these areas
Property Management Tools for when the Property is Not Occupied
Automation of Property Inspections and Schedule according to property type, agreements, and occupation status of property
Inspector App
Inspector App Integrated and Manual Maintenance Issue generation and automated resolution with preferred supplier integration and client communication
Automation of both subcontracted and In-house cleaning jobs creation, with In-house cleaning schedules automatically updated and jobs created according to property type, agreements, and occupation status of property
Apps for Cleaners/Housekeeping with instructions to prepare/turn around/close properties
Cleaning App with job completion details and integration with cleaning products, cleaning type, exact hours for payments and invoicing
Cleaners hours for salaries and payments automatically calculated
Cleaning invoices automatically created including cleaning services broken down into date and type and cleaning products used

Please note that there is a wide variety of Rental Property Management Systems available so this is just a high level view of what can be expected. Some software options may provide all of the ticked features and more as standard, whilst others may only provide some of the features.

So, who said Holiday Property Management was easy? And who said choosing the right software was easy?!

If you rely on Holiday Rentals as a valuable source of income and use multiple channels to advertise them on, you will benefit from Holiday Rental Property Management Software.  The right choice will depend on your business, what channels you advertise on and what additional features are available that will help you increase your rental occupancy rates, ultimately driving more income for your Property Owners and your business.

If you manage Holiday Properties that are used by the owners and their friends and family (with or without holiday rentals)…. Take a look at Propierge.

If you manage Properties that need complex coordination of notifications and instructions on arrival, departure and turnaround to more than a couple of contacts and suppliers…. Take a look at Propierge.

If you manage properties and carry out regular inspections when they are empty/between visits… Take a look at Propierge.

If you have to manage and resolve maintenance issues across a variety of in-house and subcontracted contacts and suppliers, whilst keeping your Property Owners up to date on their status… Take a look at Propierge.

If you have to manage a team of cleaners and all of the payments and invoicing… Take a look at Propierge.

If you want us to integrate with your chosen Rental Property Management System – talk to us as we understand how important this is in addition to the Operational aspects of Holiday Property Management.

And finally, if you want to use a system that has been built by European Holiday Home Property Managers who understand what you do and where the pain points are…. Take a look at Propierge.