Once you start managing multiple properties (or even before that point), it will become critically important to have a dependable schedule set up that you and all of your teammates can refer to and work off of.
A few weeks ago, I was made acutely aware of just how important such a schedule was.
Everything was humming along swimmingly, no problems whatsoever…until every single property I manage had a problem within the span of just a couple of days. Multiple smart locks stopped working because they needed new batteries. All the Ring doorbells had to be charged, which takes several hours. Dumpsters were overflowing, AC filters needed to be changed, supplies needed to be restocked…it was definitely not how I would have chose to spend my week, let’s put it that way!
The regular things, the things that need to happen every time a guest checks out – cleaning, laundry, etc – are easy to keep track of. It’s the things that happen on a less common cadence that you need to watch out for.
But if you’re proactive in building those things into your monthly schedule, they don’t have to be a big stressor.
After my week from hell, that’s exactly what I started doing.
The cleaner knows to charge the doorbells once a month while she’s cleaning. Every week, I check the batteries of the smart locks through the app on my phone, and if they need to be replaced she does that, too. I’ve got other similarly regularly scheduled tasks to check the filter, supplies, etc.
A lot of people only think of the exciting parts of hosting on Airbnb – meeting cool people, making expendable income, having your mortgage paid for by someone else, etc. But there are plenty of less sexy, less exciting things that are just as important to be taken care of. Don’t ignore them just because they’re boring. Do the legwork in advance to build these sort of maintenance things into your schedule, so you never have a week like I did!