The Best Short Term Rental Apps for Finding, Purchasing and Managing a STR
by Christopher Levarek
“Give me a LEVER long enough and a FULCRUM on which to place it, and I shall MOVE the world.”
- Archimedes
I worked in the IT field for almost 12 years and I can tell you for a certainty, we aren’t the magicians everyone thinks we are. See for many who call on that IT desktop technician or Web developer to “fix” a problem, it often appears as if these people are geniuses! In fact, in most cases, those working in the IT field simply know how to use levers.
(SNL) - Nick Burns, Your Company’s Computer Guy
The true magic used by these technicians is using the right tool or lever to “appear” as if they are geniuses and solve the issue. Most often that tool is asking Google :) which advises the best tool for the job.
This is how one should work when investing in short term rentals. Find the right tool to help you the owner. Short term rental apps used to find, purchase and manage the str will allow an owner to work less, scale easier and sleep soundly at night.
Let’s look at the best short term rental apps for all the ambitious short term rental owners according to the stage of ownership :
FIND : The Best APP to FIND your first/next STR
AIRDNA
Finding your next or first str requires knowing where to buy and what to buy. AIRDNA is a online platform that with an account login can greatly accelerate this process and give you the confidence you found the right deal.
The platform allows you browse a market almost anywhere in the United States and over 30 international markets. AIRDNA focuses on providing data from other short term rentals in the market of choice regarding occupancy levels, average nightly rates, seasonal forecasts and much more.
A new investor can even enter an address of a potential property and AIRDNA will output an estimation of what the property will earn based on existing other comparable properties in the area. Talk about useful!
Simply create an account, enter a market or zip code and explore the data provided. Even with a free account, this is a valuable tool. For a paid account, you will typically be charged per zip code at around $40/mo, or for a market(city) around $100/mo.
PURCHASE : The Best APP to PURCHASE your first/next STR
So you found your property of choice using the data above in the market of choice, now you want to purchase the property right? Now’s the time for a good underwriting tool. This is entirely up to you, however I still find Biggerpockets to provide the easiest and most up to date analyzers or underwriting calculators for STR.
Two calculators on the site are most useful for short term rentals on Biggerpockets and they are the “Rental Property” and “BRRRR” calculators found under the “Tools” Tab at the top.
Here’s a quick tip to getting started
Enter the required purchase price, loan info, etc on the first page of calculator.
Use the “Rentalizer” feature in AIRDNA as mentioned above to give you a estimate Gross Income and occupancy on your property.
Now plug that information into the “Rental Property” calculator and be sure and factor in the occupancy!
Enter the expenses you estimate and voila, look at the return to see if it’s worth it.
You can always make your own Google Sheets or Excel Spreadsheet but Biggerpockets calculators are typically a good fallback or getting started method to simplify things. Note, this will require a membership to Biggerpockets, around $40/mo, but that too is more then worth it in more ways then one, in my opinion.
MANAGE : The Best APP to MANAGE your first/next STR
With your newfound property purchased, how do you manage it? Alright, so this list could be quite extensive however we will explore two main apps but provide an honorable mention list as well.
GUESTY for HOSTS
This app is an online platform and represents what’s called a “channel manager” in the str realm. It is simply a single interface with which to manage listings. Typically an owner will have a listing on Airbnb and Vrbo. With two listings, how does one keep them updated?
Enter Guesty, which connects to both Airbnb and Vrbo and syncs updates in real time to both! For example, If someone books in Airbnb, Guesty will then block the calendar in VRBO so there isn’t a double booking. This app also allows an owner to message inquiries and bookings from one single platform instead of logging into VRBO or AIRBNB directly.
So settings can be applied in one location, messages answered in one location and calendars updated in one location. Super useful! The app charges a percentage fee per booking for their services but for an owner a channel manager such as this is essential to scaling and working less.
PRICELABS
Another essential app is Pricelabs which is a dynamic pricing tool. This online platform syncs to your “channel manager”, see Guesty above, OR to your Listing directly in Airbnb/VRBO(I recommend connecting to something like Guesty for simplicity).
Pricelabs will greatly enhance your revenue potential of a property as it will allow you to apply pricing strategies based on seasons, events, weekends, weekdays, etc. Not only with the dynamic pricing tool move and adjust prices according internal algorithms, an owner can actually adjust minimum stay or seasonal pricing with profiles that apply during certain conditions.
Let’s just say this, if you want to 10x your pricing strategy and gross income per listing, a dynamic pricing tool like this one will be a good option to look at. Pricelabs costs around $10/mo per listing but also has a market analysis tool similar to AIRDNA which is typically $15/mo a market or zip code.
Honorable Mentions for other Management Apps
TurnoverBNB - Platform for Managing Cleaning on Multiple Listings
Thumbtack - App for finding contractors or handymen
Touchstay - App for creating a digital guidebook per listing
Noiseaware - App for monitoring noise levels in STR
Remotelock - App for wifi/app Door Lock Management
Resideo - App for temperature/management
In Final
The top four apps listed in the article above will 100% allow an owner to find, purchase and manage an STR. If you are interested in learning more on the topic, we will be publishing a virtual course in the next few months focusing on the step by step method to follow to purchase your first STR.
This course goes into deeper detail on selecting a market, forming a team, underwriting the deal and managing the short term rental. If this sounds like something you might be interested, sign up for our waiting list to be the first to know when the course is available!(No Spam Promised!)
Happy Investing!