Professional property managers only represent 1% of all vacation rental hosts, but they manage 23% of available listings which generate 35% of total revenue. Our latest interactive dashboard (and in-app features) make it easier than ever before to understand who these managers are, where they operate, and how they’re rated by guests.

Best Airbnb Property Management Companies in the US for 2022

The Best Airbnb Property Management Companies in the US

Here’s something you might not know about the American short-term rental (STR) industry: Professional property managers only represent 1% of all Airbnb and Vrbo hosts, but they manage 23% of available listings which generate 28% of total revenue.

This means of the 500,000-plus active U.S. hosts, just 5,000 oversee 21 or more listings. This group primarily consists of managers and management groups that supervise listings for independent owners. This entails cleaning units, setting pricing, communicating with guests, and many other nitty-gritty tasks. If you want to know how your Airbnb property performs compared to neighboring listings, tell us which amenities matter to you most and we'll give you your free booking performance score.

The aforementioned statistics help us understand why property managers have an outsize influence on how guests perceive the STR industry as a whole. And our data tells us that their influence will likely continue to grow in coming years.

This is why we want to make it easier than ever before to understand who these managers are, where they operate, and how they’re rated by guests. Our interactive dashboard and charts below should pique your curiosities.

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Additionally, our self-serve MarketMinder intelligence platform now features a new and easy-to-use widget that provides a real-time snapshot of the top property managers in your area. (Managers who onboard their properties to MarketMinder and actively use Smart Rates have reported a 24% increase in annual business revenue.)

Property managers’ footprint in the STR industry has grown from 19% to 23% over the last four years, with more recent increases in high-demand destination markets such as Destin, Florida, Breckenridge, Colorado, and Big Bear, California. These are more rural second-home markets where property managers generally oversee a higher share of listings—as opposed to major cities, where demand has lagged and supply has dropped since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic.

By ranking the top property managers around the country, we want to highlight those that have found a way to maintain guest satisfaction while still scaling their business. In 2021, hosts with one unit received an average review score of 4.82 out of 5, while hosts with 21 or more listings received an average score of 4.56.

This difference—professional managers receiving an average rating that is -5.3% lower than individual hosts—is certainly a trend but not a rule, as hundreds of high-volume managers earn strong ratings from guests.

Professional managers have been growing their market share since 2018, but pandemic-related lockdowns and restrictions prompted dips in mid-2020 and mid- to late-2021. Their market share began to trend upward again into 2022 and is now nearly 1% higher (23.2%) than it was prior to the pandemic (22.3%).

Professional managers appeared more eager to reactivate listings in mid- to late-2020 than individual hosts. Conversely, smaller-scale hosts re-entered the market in force in mid-2021 while larger-scale managers experienced another decline.

Some U.S. markets are notable for being more professionally managed than others. In the above chart, we have listed the top-10 markets with the greatest levels of professional market share. Steamboat Springs, Colorado, stands out with 64.2% of its available vacation rentals being professionally managed. You'll notice some overlap, too, between these markets and those included in our recent analysis of the STR destinations that guests travel the farthest and shortest distances to reach.

What exactly do the best Airbnb property management companies do?

If you're trying to decide which property manager to contact about overseeing your vacation rental, it's helpful to first understand exactly what an Airbnb manager actually does. These are the most common services provided:

Marketing your property: Ideally, your property manager will help boost your listing’s exposure. Services here can include listing your property on multiple sites, taking professional photography, and managing all descriptions and copy.

Optimized pricing: Many property managers manage your listing’s dynamic pricing strategy. They’ll be well-equipped with data-driven resources (often from AirDNA) to determine how to price your property competitively.

Guest communication: Communicating with guests is a big reason hosts decide to outsource to a property manager. Many Airbnb management companies will take responsibility for communicating with guests from the moment they make a reservation to their post-stay review.

Maintenance, repairs, and cleaning: Keeping your property clean and functioning is a must-do for managers. When something breaks or needs immediate assistance, they’ll be responsible for finding a solution.

Payments and financial reporting: When you receive reservations from multiple platforms, managing payments can be a hassle. Plus, it can be tough to get a clear snapshot of your rental’s performance. For this reason, many property managers will own your payment processing and offer reports on the performance of your rental.

Local expertise: If you opt for a boots-on-the-ground property manager, they’ll offer tons of knowledge for guests about the local area. They’ll also be more attuned to things like seasonality and peak booking times.

Keep in mind that there's also two main categories of managers: full-service managers and distribution managers.

If you want to truly “set it and forget it” when it comes to your vacation rental while maximizing your reach, you’ll need a full-service property manager. These property managers will take care of everything involved with your rental—from cleaning to marketing and maintenance—to ensure that your place gets booked without you having to lift a finger.

The second category of vacation rental management companies—tech and distribution managers—includes those that offer flexible contracts and help primarily in the distribution, marketing, and communication components of your rental. They’ll help get your property booked by listing it on multiple sites and provide 24/7 customer service for your guests. As virtual managers, their fees are lower than the local managers listed below, but you’ll be in charge of handling cleaning, maintenance, and anything on-site.

Discover the best Airbnb property management companies in the US. Use our interactive map to find a go-to property manager for your short-term vacation rentals.

Best Airbnb Property Management Companies in the US for 2022

ARTICLE SUMMARY

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