How to Use Data to Manage Homeowner Conversations | AirDNA

Property managers aren’t just responsible for overseeing home rentals and upkeep, you also navigate difficult conversations with homeowners on a daily basis. “Why did I only make $X last month?” and “Why are you charging $Y nightly rates for my place?” are common questions from property owners, and they can often feel like your decisions are being called into question.

But rather than spend large amounts of time on long-winded explanations that aren’t always convincing, data should be your defense. The data solutions from AirDNA track how every vacation rental is performing a market, and empower property managers to rationalize their strategies. For example, you could say to homeowners: “Yes, you made $X last month, but properties nearby made $Z less.”

Having data objectively and confidently justifies your actions and helps homeowners understand the overall market conditions. Below, we specify exactly how to use data to talk to homeowners, and in turn build and maintain greater trust with the people who power your business.

Show The Broader Market Trends

Context always matters. Your homeowners will naturally zoom in on how their specific properties are performing, but data around wider market trends informs them about the landscape they are in, as well as external factors.

Start by anchoring homeowners with data about short-term rentals in general. Perhaps it’s low season or maybe new legislation has impacted demand. Try to gather data from a large geographic reach so that you can really show the macro goings-on, and in particular, pay attention to metrics like property supply and demand. You can find this type of data under the ‘Market Summary’ tab in the Property Performance Dashboard.

Refer to Homeowners’ Specific Competitive Set

Using a competitive set to benchmark your homeowners’ performance is an absolute must. These are the properties that have similar characteristics to your homeowner’s place, or the rentals that your homeowner has determined as their rivals. Any data that proves your homeowner’s property is out-performing the competitive set will quickly establish you as an authority. 

Double down on earned revenue, the number of bookings, and also the length of stays. Also try to align the data with your homeowner’s priorities – for instance, if you know that they prefer long stays, you could say “Properties that also have a pool and 3 bedrooms, earned less than you last month, and had fewer 5+ night bookings.”

Look at How Other Property Managers Are Doing

Remember to include your own competitors in the data mix. You ultimately want to showcase why you’re the person to oversee homeowners’ properties.

In the Property Managers tab, look at the reviews, occupancy, daily rates, and other metrics for neighboring property managers. Compare this data to your own, and highlight the areas where you’re performing better – again, if you can stress the data that shows you’re really listening to, and realizing, homeowners’ priorities, you’ll make a stronger case. For example, you could say, “Neighboring property managers have the same occupancy levels as my property portfolio, but the daily rates are significantly lower.”

Offer Seasonality Insights to Shed Light on the Future 

The pandemic taught many homeowners about the volatility of the vacation rental market space. Data that can provide a glimpse of the road ahead and inform homeowners about the next steps to take, will be particularly valuable amid difficult conversations.

Seasonality insights from the Property Performance Dashboard can let homeowners know how much their revenue is likely to drop during off-season months and when demand will start to spike due to annual events in the area. By sharing this information, you can advocate preemptive pricing strategies and prove that you make smart property decisions.

Present Homeowners With Investment Opportunities

A proactive property manager is attractive to homeowners. If you can go beyond the duties of running a vacation rental and suggest new ways for homeowners to grow their income, they’ll see you as more of a business partner than an associate.

Under the ‘Market Explorer’ tab on the Property Performance Dashboard, you can browse neighborhoods and zip codes, and identify locations and property types that are performing best. You can then recommend investment opportunities to homeowners, helping them get a foot in lucrative projects early on.

Provide Property-Level Insights

“Why are other properties performing ahead of my place?” is one of the most frequently asked homeowner questions. With the Property Performance Dashboard, you can answer quickly and efficiently by creating a list of competitors and linking to their live Airbnb or VRBO profiles. From there, you can guide homeowners through the amenities of each property, look at the quality of the photos, the description, analyze the location, and other distinguishing features.

Being able to walk homeowners through the differences between properties will help them comprehend why there’s a discrepancy in performance, and will position you as the expert in price influencers.

Use Interactive Maps to Emphasize Insights By Location

Engaging content will wow homeowners, especially if it allows them to digest the complexities of the vacation rental market. Use a custom map tool that enable property managers to mark perimeters on a map and conduct an analysis of that space. That means you can hone in on locations according to their geography to make a point about how they perform. For example, beach-side properties may have higher average nightly rates or mountain town properties may have more stable year-round occupancy.

This data tells homeowners why other properties have inherently different rates, but also pinpoints areas that they may want to expand into down the line.

The Wrap-Up

Homeowner conversations can be an opportunity to reaffirm your expertise as a property manager and to establish a deeper, more successful relationship with property owners. Data is the glue between the two parties, and resources like the Property Performance Dashboard can make your conversations smoother and savvier.

Ready to make data your dominant topic? Book a free demo now.