How to Build a 5-Star Property Management Business

Welcome to the STR Data Lab.

Hello and welcome to the STR Data Lab. I'm Jamie Lane, chief economist at AirDNA, and I'm joined today by two very special guests. We have Steve and Kim Reznik, the co-founders of Heavily Rez and our 2026 AirDNA Best Property Managers winners. So, Steve and Kim, welcome to the show.

Thanks for having us.

Thank you so much. It's a great honor, for sure.

Yeah, so and I've got so many questions I want to I'm ask about the company, ask about you guys and sort of your journey, and the standard sort of what led to this. But maybe we could start with just the origin story about how you guys got started and sort of what your goal was when you launched and sort of where you're at today.

Yeah, I'll get started and you can chime in. So, I mean, we started with our own rental back in 2015. We entered the Ocean City market. It's a market that Ocean City, New Jersey. I know there's Ocean City, Maryland as well. It's a market that we've always vacationed with our daughter and our family and we just love this area and love the market. So, we bought a home and we didn't really like the way it was being managed. So, we decided to take things into our own hands and we started doing it ourselves and became very passionate about doing that. We found that we were able to we we knew our property obviously better than anyone else and then we were able to just kind of market and take advantage of that. And then we were so successful with that one, we eventually just doubled down and bought another one. And then same thing happened, same results. And we bought another one and then COVID hit and we panicked a little bit.

At the same time I was, you know, working at JP Morgan and I decided, hey, let's we're I'm being relocated to a different area so I was let's just sell this property. Um Kim is the one who actually had the idea and the property that we we sold was purchased by a gentleman who didn't believe the rental income that we were getting because it was way above the market rate and he I think he thought we were fudging the numbers but obviously we weren't and um he said, well, if this this is the case, if you can really get this kind of rental income, will you stay managing it for me when I buy it? And we said, sure, why not? So we did that and um we actually did better than what we um said we were going to do. So he was quite thrilled and he said, hey, by the way, I have another uh beachfront property. Do you want to manage that one for me? And we said, sure, why not? So we did that, same results and then um long story short, he came back to us and said, I want to buy another property in this market but I only will do it if you and Kim decide that you will manage it for me.

So we we looked at each other and we're like, I think we have a business here. This is this is more than more than that. So we, you know, I was still working full-time. This was kind of a hobby for us and, you know, it was it was complimentary to to my skill sets and what Kim does with um you know, she Kim does interior design so it just really worked out with um the way we're kind of organically growing at the same time. Um so it was going pretty smoothly and um you know, we built the name Heavenly Res. Do you want to talk about the Heavenly Res name?

So we built we chose a name Heavenly Res. Um our daughter Ashley passed away in 2004. So we chose a name Heavenly for her. Res is Steve's nickname from youth and also kind kind a twist on reservations, kind of a turn on that. So, we put that together because we made so many memories with her in Ocean City and we loved being here and even coming back after we lost her, making more memories with our daughter now, Alexa. It just always felt so peaceful to us being here. So, it felt right to name it that because we just, you know, we love the area and we have a strong faith and just thought Heavenly was the perfect name for Heavenly Res.

Yeah, and and Kim, maybe you could talk a little bit too about your sort of side of the business of and doing interior design and sort of sounds like bringing that into the business as well.

Absolutely. So, I had done after Ashley, I did many years in philanthropy work and and I ran a local chapter called Special Spaces which did bedroom makeovers for children who were fighting life-threatening illnesses. So, I've always had a passion for interior design and I would do one-day bedroom makeovers, plan it for months, but one-day bedroom makeovers with a whole team of volunteers and I loved it. I've always loved giving back to the community. And I did many makeovers. Um, as we got closer to COVID, that started to um uh die off and so we I started kind of focusing on the coastal decor and the and and really designing our beach homes. And when we would take on the new properties, they said, "Well, it could kind of use a facelift or what do you suggest?" And I just [clears throat] love doing that. So, I said, "Well, I'll design for free if you take my advice.

You know, we'll we'll we'll make it look, you know, amazing." And so, they did.

[clears throat]

So, that was kind of my my my piece of it. I loved making it feel very welcoming and just coming in as if it's your home, um not just a rental. And so, doing that and also having them trust me to purchase items and pick paint colors and design and all of that was was really special because they're putting their faith in that I'll make it look beautiful and inviting and homey. So, that's kind of how I got involved in that where Steve was running the business side, I was running working with guests and working with owners, the hospitality side with anything from guests having a great stay to special concierge requests, stuff like that. So, I was dealing on that side of it. And it just as we grew, the more properties we took on, the more people wanted my help with well, if you're if you could make my property look like those properties and I said, I sure can.

[laughter]

You know, it really it's exciting for me. I like to transform a space and and make it look really beautiful.

That's awesome. So, maybe take me through the decision to take this full-time from and a few properties you guys are managing, your own and for that one guy like and what sort of led you guys to decide like hey, we're going to make a and real business out of this and and quit your job and and build a business out of it.

What you talking about?

Yeah, so we we actually, I don't know if you could see it behind us, but we actually co-authored a chapter in the Hospitable Host Couples Edition book and it's entitled Never Let a Good Crisis Go to Waste and that's exactly what happened. I was in crisis mode. I actually woke up one morning and my arm was like all tingly and numb. I didn't know what was going on after several doctors visits and surgeon visits, I found out that I had to have surgery in my neck. So, I knew I was going to be out of commission for my corporate job for a period of time. Um they ended up going through the front of my neck to get to the back of my neck and I had three discs that had titanium spacers put in. So, I was um one, I couldn't talk for three months, which I think Kim was a little happy at first.

[laughter]

I took a little advantage of that time.

But I knew I was going to have downtime and it was going to be months before I got back into the office. So you know, I started thinking of my what are my passion? What is my vision? We were at 12 properties with you know, with Heavenly Rez and I I said I just want to 10x everything. So I set a goal like hey, we're just going to 10x our business and we're going to 10x the number of properties we have. We're going to 10x our life and we're going to use this crisis as a jumping point. When I was down and out, I was like all right, I'm going to get my realtor license and just you know, get credibility of Heavenly Rez, create all the planning and the vision around that and then I just created a poster board of 120 boxes. 12 of them were already filled in with stickers of little homes.

Every time we get a property, I'm going to put a little sticker on this poster board, hang it up on my in my bedroom on my door and every time I look at it, I'm going to think hey, what am I doing today to get me to this vision of 120 properties?

And we celebrated everyone that we stuck on there. We celebrated. It was

So we're at 113 or 114 now and our goal was to hit that it was a 3-year goal that was set before the end of 2026. So we're way ahead of our schedule but being out that that's what really got me to think like how do I just like improve things for us and be able to make really make an impact and that was really what the whole genesis of Heavenly Rez is to be able to impact families you know, owners to be able to say, you know, we can make you more money than you can make anywhere else and successfully pull that off through all of our operational processes, you know, have memorable moments created by all of our guests be able to impact our all of our employees and everybody servicing Heavenly Rez and the list goes on and on. So, that is really what motivates us.

Um so, the AirDNA ranking was based on review score. So, we took review scores across Airbnb, Vrbo, Booking.com, like all the reviews for all your active listings, and then compared them across all the other large property managers in the country. And that's where you guys came out on top. And so, we found over time that I mean guest satisfaction is highly correlated with revenue. It's highly correlated with strong operations. It's It's correlated with so many aspects of a well-run business. But ultimately, like it's a lot of like getting way more five stars than you do four stars. And every little four star is I mean sort of our three star, two star sort of counts counts against you and bringing back down. So, I mean how do you guys think about I mean making sure that you provide a five-star stay for guests? And what are the things that you guys do that you think I mean contribute towards that?

Um I would say I my team jokes that I'm the guest whisperer. So, they they got me a t-shirt that says guest whisperer. So, basically, I'm really mainly in charge of guest satisfaction, making sure everyone's having a great time. If there's any problems, whether it's something small to there are some ants on the floor, we needed pest control to there's a leak coming through the ceiling in the bathroom, and anything in between, I try to get involved. At least show face, talk to the guest, reach out, call that. That personal touch is so important. Sometimes, the guest is really amazed that, you know, they're like, "Who am I speaking with?" I'm like, "I'm the owner of Heavenly Rize." And they're they're very appreciative of having that just that phone call. Or even I'll go and and show up in person to look at something or help a guest out.

Because we're local, and I love interacting with guests, it's it's fun for me and I want to have them have a great experience. So anything I can do to elevate that experience, whether it's an issue of needing extra towels or needing explanation of how to use a remote control, whatever that is, whatever issues come through, we really want them to have that five-star experience, whether it's a one-bedroom or a six-bedroom beachfront and everything in between. We want every guest to feel heard and feel like if there's an issue that we are on top of it and that's really what we base it on. So I am very much involved in guest satisfaction and very much involved in the the day-to-day operations of of guests.

Yeah, this is this is very much a team sport and we have a phenomenal team. We would not have been able to pull this off without our team. I think, you know, it all starts with what Kim is able to do in terms of making with her interior design, making the you know, the properties very inviting and appealing when they walk in. But then the first thing they notice is like the cleaning, right? So how clean is this property? Is it Do you have the right amenities? All of that stuff. So, you know, we we learned a lot from last year. We you know, one of our one of our core values is like always always continue learn to learn. So what we do is we just instituted a lot of process improvement. We took everything, all of our learnings from last year and kind of stacked it on to this year. Um one of the things that we did, you know, be before the year even started it was we said, "This is the year of hospitality.

We want to build everything off of the foundation of hospitality." I I usually have um a theme for every year. So in it was like we want to um in 2024, let's get more in 2024. Let's thrive in 2025. And then it was perfect the mix in 2026. And everything kind of stacks on each other. The perfect the mix was, you know, having hospitality at the foundation, and then perfecting the mix mix of operations, like process, people, and technology, right? So, we instituted some we we rolled out Breezeway from an operations technology perspective to make sure that all of our cleaners, all of our inspectors, all of everyone was on the same page with work orders that were created. Um we purchased this hospitality hub to bring all of our linens in-house and have everything under control for linens and consumables. And

a huge game changer.

Huge game changer, which enabled us to scale and continue with the high quality uh of what we provide. And then, you know, lastly, it's like the the the people, right? Which is the most important out of anything. Can't that can't be, you know, overstated. Is that we we hired a bunch of people in in great roles. We hired and everything was based off hospitality, right? So, we hired in addition to our director of operations, we hired a hospitality manager, right? We could have called her a cleaning manager or it's No, it's hospitality because that's going to be at the forefront of everything that we do. And then we hired a an army of hospitality specialists, right? That are focusing on making sure we have accurate count and the quality levels of all of our consumables that we provide as well as our linens. And then the same thing for inspection process, we rolled out um leveraging people, but also technology to help with our inspection process.

And we rolled out what we call this three-point inspection process where we actually have a card and we certify that, okay, the linens are certified as, you know, nothing is stained, everything is high quality, the counts are accurate that need to go to each property. So, the hospitality specialist who who bundles and packs the bag for the cleaners, she signs off or or he signs off. And then the next step is the cleaning. So, all of our cleaning teams are trained by all of our standards. So, they have checklists out of Breezeway that they have to follow. They take photos. And the lead cleaner then has to certify on the card that it has been cleaned up to our standards. And then lastly, we have a a third inspection. So, an independent inspector, not part of the cleaning team, actually inspects and then verifies that it's guest ready.

Um so, that three-point certification process I think was also instrumental in being able to ensure high-quality experiences and therefore, you know, high guest ratings.

So, how much do that differentiate you guys in your market cuz and I've been and talked to the lot of people in some of the and maybe call them legacy markets or and New Jersey Shore has been around as a vacation market for I mean hundreds of years, right? Of people going and and like we've got a property in the Northeast and and that we rent out and like it's and we're just making the transition of like, all right, like the beds are going to be made and and you're going to they're going to get linens with their stay. So, and how is what you're doing how different is it from the rest of the market?

It's completely different. There's no one else doing what what we're doing at the level we're doing. No one has a dedicated facility. Nobody like it's just nothing that we provide is being provided at the level that we're providing it. Most of the rentals in our market were legacy. You're right. They're they're real estate transactional companies that are got into the rental market. We consider ourselves we're we're not a real estate company. We're a hospitality company and we set that out from the beginning. That's what we are. So, we like a lot of our competitors, if you will, I don't really even consider them to be competitors, but they don't even they don't provide any linen service at all. So, when you go on vacation, the first thing you have to do is like figure out, even before vacation, figure out your bed configuration sizes, bring your own linens or rent linens for some astronomical price from a local company, and then you have to make your own beds.

Nobody wants to do that, right? This is 2026, right? And the hospitality world, that's unacceptable. So, we made sure that we changed all that. All of our linens, like all of our beds are fully made. They get luxury amenities. They get standardized amenities across the board. So, we always provide, you know, a Keurig and a drip coffee maker at every property. We always provide beach chairs, beach tags, you know, beach caddy, etc., etc., etc. Everything down to a very thorough checklist of what every property has. So, regardless if you rent one property of ours or 100 like any of the 114 properties that we have, you're going to have the same amenities. So, we make sure like we've learned what people want, and we've scaled out to make sure everybody gets that level of care and level of services.

And then we also have a concierge service, too, to take the vacation to the next level. They do like things like um golf cart rentals, pre-stocked pantry service. So, before you even arrive at your rental, you could have all your groceries delivered and in your refrigerator and in your pantry. Um so, conveniences like that, bellhop services where we can take the luggage from the trunk of the car up to the bedrooms, etc., etc. So, no one is operating at that level in our market, at least. So, that that's definitely a thing that differentiates us.

And also, I would say too, um just to piggyback on that, we also have 24/7 guest support, which the local agencies do not have. So, if it's Friday at, say, 4:00, and you can't get into your property or something's wrong, you get in and the air is not working, you're most likely waiting until Monday to get someone on the phone. For us, 24/7. So, if it's 9:00 at night and the air is not working properly and we can't get our HVAC company out there that late, we're bringing portable air conditioners to set up so that you're comfortable and getting it through to the next day. So, we really care about that guest experience and are available 24/7 regardless of the emergency, whether it's small or big. We want to make sure they're heard and know that we're available to help you at any time of the day and night.

Yeah. Kim, I'm sure now after 110 plus properties of designing and now seeing how guests are using them, and you're learning a lot in terms of what are the decisions you're making in terms of what goes into the property, what do guests like, what lead to and good outcomes? Can you talk through some of the design decisions and sort of how you've sort of progressed and and what do you think leads to the sort of best guest outcomes?

Absolutely. I think um I I From what I found that really a very serene, calm environment, uh it's fun to have patterns and and flamingos and all the fun stuff. Maybe you'll like throw pillows or maybe some, you know, artwork to bring in, but the overall general feel, um you want it to feel very peaceful and relaxing. So, I use usually cool colors, neutral tones. All of our bedding is white, not only for my uh sanitation perspective and and making sure we can bleach it and have everything sanitized correctly, but it also makes it feel like a hotel. So, all of our bedding as as much as some of the owners had, you know, cute starfish and cute octopus blankets, have them put that away and use that for their own personal use, and then we have everything is standard white. And then from um a design perspective, I always try to explain to the owners that you want to get quality that's going to last.

So, although you can buy a bunk bed that might cost $500 and you can build it and put it in there, it probably won't last more than a season. So, it's worth spending $2,000 on the nicer delivered bunk bed that they build, you know, from a furniture store and that will last 10 years. So, talking owners into um, high-quality outdoor furniture, again, I have a trade account at Polywood, so I can help them with um, outdoor furniture that will last. You know, the conditions, the season around here, the elements really take a a beating on the furniture. So, unfortunately, when they get furniture that's inexpensive, it doesn't last and they're continually replacing it. Whereas in at the if you make the initial investment up front, which I try to explain to them and I'm comfortable with whatever they want to do, I just try to guide them in that way to say, "Hey, you don't want to have to replace that wicker next year because wicker will not last in the the summer in in in the heat and the humidity and it just won't." So, with the salt air.

So, I try to guide them in things that are really durable that look beautiful, um, but that are also functional and durable, so they're not spending every year replacing certain pieces of furniture.

There's there's also things that go into the beginning when we start the onboarding process. We we also look at Kim looks at things like the configuration, the bed configuration, right? Sometimes we get some crazy things going on where it's like a five-bedroom and four of the bedrooms have bunk beds. It just doesn't make sense from a rental. Like, people don't usually want that kind of configuration. So, it's like, what is the optimal configuration? How many, you know, what's the max occupancy you can get into the property? How can you configure that? Some of those things that will bring in a higher ROI, too, for the owner, as well. And then make it, you know, more um, marketable and, you know, more appealing for renters.

So, perhaps

pulling out a bunk bedroom and having a queen bed that could be for an adult or a couple, but then changing out your sofa to a sleeper sofa so that kids can, you know, they're and now we're we're still sleeping two more rather than the bunk bed, um but it's better for from a configuration standpoint for multiple families that are sharing that unit for vacation.

Mhm.

[clears throat]

So, Steve, and it it sounds like you're very much a a system thinker in terms of how you're thinking about the business and and some of the and solutions that you're installing and whether it's Hospitality Hub, Breezeway, other tech solutions. So, can you maybe talk some about like what you brought from your previous life at JP Morgan and like how that sort of instilled into and Heavenly Resin and how you guys are are running the business.

Yeah, I think everything that I did in my prior corporate life was like leading me to this path, right? I feel like my I was I started off with an MBA in marketing and strategic management, right? And then I got involved most most of my career was in program management of technology solutions as well as process improvement and everything that we're doing kind of, you know, is around leveraging technology, leveraging process, and the leadership of people, right? To to make this successful. So, you know, I've in my corporate life I've, you know, I've gone through many different programs of different sizes and and how to kind of motivate teams and people and, you know, create that vision and kind of take it forward. So, that's what we really been focusing on with Heavenly Resin is very much process. Everything starts from a hospitality perspective, but also we build process on top of that. So, we have hundreds of standard operating procedures around everything that we do.

We have specific um training methodology of how we learn and how we train other people. Um and then we take all that, we we take the latest and greatest technology. Um we're very heavy into AI right now for a number of different things across our business. Um but the guest experience is really about people and connections and communication. And that's something that we strongly believe in just over-communicating. So, we stay in touch with our guests before their stay, make sure that they understand. We create custom welcome books of everything they're going to be getting. So, we try to iron out all the questions that they may have in advance. Um [clears throat] and then we are reaching out to them proactively during their stay to make sure that there if there's anything that requires our attention or our our involvement, we're actively working with the guest to to make sure that they get what they need.

And then after their stay, we you know, we we stay in contact with them. We want them to have our name and our brand thought of when they're planning their next vacation. And we want our experience their experience that they've had to be at the top of their memory when they're going to rebook another property in our market.

Yeah, you mentioned AI and AI is one of those terms that I feel like half the property managers I talk to are leaning heavily into and half don't want it anywhere close to their business. And a and a big piece of that is they they see it hospitality is sort of people forward and and they want to provide a great experience and they don't think maybe AI has a a piece in that. So, how do you weigh the sort of tradeoffs of creating more automation through AI and still providing a an excellent hospitality experience?

Yeah, so we only use AI to enhance our communications with our guests. We're not trying to replace it. We're looking to enhance it. And I'll give you some examples. Like one is we we always say to new owners, like we know your home better than you do. And that is truthful because the reason we know that is we document everything in the property. Like we'll take a video and photos and document where what's the make and model of their appliances? Where is their water shutoff? Where is their gas shutoff? Where is their electrical panel? Managing 114 properties, there's no way one person's going to have all that in their brain. But if you have all of that data, and that's what AI is great at, right? Is just going through heavy amounts of data and being able to provide that data back to our guest support team in an instant, right? So we can now query the AI to say, "Okay, does this property Where is this property's you know, electrical panel?" Those kinds of things.

So we're building all of the fundamental data into the system so that we can query that, right? And be able to to use that. And then there's a lot of there's a ton of back-end things too that we're using AI for to stay on top of our KPIs and our metrics of how we're performing. To to funnel through guest reviews would be another one. Like, "What are common themes that people are saying at this property or at our entire portfolio?" And that's the way we get better is we're able to like we're able to go through all this data quickly through AI and then the themes get generated and then we know where we need to take action from humans, right? Um if you just take AI at its surface and you don't have that human element to it, I agree. Like AI is is not going to help you in your business. But if you have the intent of using the data to help the guest experience and still have that personal connection with guests, then that's where you can use both in conjunction to make the experience way better for our guest.

Now, and you mentioned some of the KPIs. Can you can you share any of those in terms of what you're monitoring on a daily basis, weekly basis, monthly basis? And and I I subscribe to the view of and you and measuring what matters and what the things you measure are the things you can improve and the things that you aren't measuring are the things that a lot of times get uh left behind. So, what are you guys looking at on a regular basis?

So, yeah, I mean we have we have a weekly core team meeting with um it's mandatory for our entire team to attend. And during that meeting, we go through all of our KPIs for our business. Um so, some of those, you know, like I talked about the guest review score is one of them. And actually, uh it was um very exciting that the meeting right after our the announcement that we were the number one property management in the country, we had we cuz we look at how many reviews that we get this week. We had 53 reviews that week. And then how many are five star and how many are lower than five star. Every single one of them, 53, were five star this week when we looked at it. And we're like, "Wow, we're we're going to get this next year, too. This is great.

[laughter]

Great start." Um but we look at that. We look at how many reviews that we got each week, broken up by platform, and how many were not five star. And anyone that's not five star, we actually do a deep dive and we we see if there's any information in there that we can improve on. And we make sure the team creates work orders so that we track everything through closure. If there's anything that we need to take action on that will help the next guest. So, um we have that all done through Breezeway, right? Um so, that's one example. Uh we look at marketing metrics. We look at, you know, all of our social media because we're on Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, TikTok. We look at the metrics around that, followers, conversion, things like that.

We look at um you know, our financials. We look at um how many bookings that we've received during the week by what platforms, how many are direct bookings versus non. Um we look at um number of claims that were submitted and how many were like past up and got approved. We look at We have so many different metrics. I could probably sit here and talk forever, but we we look at every area of our business, whether it be guest experience, operation, technology, and we go through and we make sure that whoever is accountable for that is kind of um on point for making sure and speaking to what those um items are and then we just continually monitor that and get better. You know, we look at pacing, um you know, pacing like how are we doing from a a revenue perspective per property, like how deep dive into that too, like how many um bookings we have, how much revenue we're getting, how we doing this year compared to last year's pacing.

So, all of those metrics. And then I have I'm I'm actually using AI for a dashboard, a CEO dashboard that I have that also deep dives and looks at all of that data even more thoroughly. Um so, I get a morning report basically on a dashboard view that has all of our KPIs, RevPAR, and all of those um things as well.

Uh that's awesome. Um I've got a some more questions on that, but I do want to go to Kim while we're talking about technology cuz that's I mean another aspect where it feels like I mean technology is changing the way sort of maybe how design is done, how you think about designing properties. So, how is sort of the technology side impacted I mean your side of the business?

Um I would say it's it's I'm very comfortable doing virtual design. Um we're usually traditional and let's come in, let's take measurements, and show samples, and but I love to create mood boards and say, "Okay, well, here's your existing family room." And I have the blueprint if if they don't, I will go in and take measurements, but um the the technology now that I can create the room and show what this will look like with my design with fresh paint or new flooring or new sofas, accessories, whether it's small to large makeovers. Uh, using that technology has just been really, really instrumental in having people see that vision. Some people just are very They need to see it. Um, I can picture it in my head. I'm great at that. Steve, not so much. He's like, "I don't know what you're thinking, but just show me when you're

[laughter]

He can't see that vision when it comes to design. I can. Um, but a lot of people can't. So, that's where they say, "Well, what do you mean you want, you know, change the wall colors or change the sofa layout or And I say, "This is what I mean." And then I have it on in a design. I have it in a layout and it's very easy. And again, if we have owners that are out of state, that aren't here locally, I can just send them the presentation and say, "This is what I mean and here is the cost and this is what it will look like. Do I have the, you know, thumbs up, green light to go and do that?" And they appreciate that because it's just another level of um of of comfort that they have that I'm showing them on I almost identical of what it will look like, if not identical, to what it will look like in the end result for redesign and and changing over their their property.

Yeah. I'm Steve, if I'm sort of funneling sort of some of your thoughts, I I have you guys been able to sort of make that connection between the design and the ROI on the property cuz I imagine there's the properties I've done like there is a strong return on both amenities, on design, on all aspects of what you're putting onto the property. Have you guys been able to quantify that for for owners?

I mean, it it's It is difficult to quantify, but we do have data when we look at like properties that invest in design and properties don't and we show comparisons of what that looks like. But there's other like there's other factors to it as well. Like Kim was saying with these mood boards and things like that, we can create with that technology and and using that and using Kim's designs, we can actually pre-launch a listing, for example, and start generating interest and even bookings in advance before the property's even ready when it's like being gutted or renovated or something like that. And then yeah, and then we get a lot of like oh, well, this is a Heavenly Rest property. We know like the design is going to be phenomenal. We know like the final product is going to be great. And we see like we see what it's going to look like. And now I feel comfortable booking a property without even seeing like we've had people book an entire season, basically.

to 806 Plymouth. We had that one booked

Yeah. We had an entirely booked just just from mood boards and things like that just to say this is exactly what it's going to look like, right? And so that definitely helps, but there's definitely an improvement. Like the people we don't just take on any other any property, too. I'll say that as well. Like if the property doesn't meet what I call it the mother test, if I'm not comfortable having my mom stay at your property, I'm not going to manage it for you. I'm sorry. So, like we'll we'll tell owners, hey, um we'd love to manage this property for you, but you have to make some upgrades. And here's what that looks like and here's why you want to do that because there's an ROI associated with that. So, most owners that kind of can see that vision and see like hey, you sometimes you have to spend money to be able to make money.

And it also it's going to have an impact a large impact on these guest reviews. We wouldn't be the number one rated property management company if we had crappy properties. You know what I mean? Like the design was bad. Like people also take that into account when they're reviewing. Sometimes there's things that are in our control and sometimes there's things that are not in our control, but we try to when there's things that are not in our control, that's when Kim comes in and kind of uses her empathetic heart. She's much more empathetic than most people are. I'll say that. But she'll she'll come in and she'll be like, I totally understand how you're feeling. And she does. I mean, she's not just like making this stuff up. She really like feels for the guest and really honestly wants to make it better for them. So even if it's beyond our control, like we had somebody, for example, like they gave us a bad review because of the water pressure of the house.

Like, okay, well, the I'm fortunately we've tried everything. We we sent somebody in within like we responded within like 3 minutes basically that yep, no problem. We'll have somebody out there to take a look at it. We replaced the shower head. We did the It doesn't matter. Like still you know, there's some things that we can't control even though we'd love to be able to control everything. But I think guests understand like we are empathetic to that. We want to make things right. We want to take care of you. If we can't take care of you and do something specific there's something you know, else that we can do for you. We're always there to try to help.

Yeah. So and talking through and thinking through the conversation we had today with your Hospitality Hub, the systems, and it does feel like you guys are building the sort of base for a much larger company. Can you you talk about the vision for Heavenly Rez? What you're building for? You guys happy at 120 listings sort of those squares that you made that you're filling in or is it and 240 listings, 360 listings, 500 listings? Like what what's the what's the goal that you guys are building towards?

I think the sky's the limit. We really we're building this foundation now. We have the process and we have the infrastructure now to really take it to as high as we want to go. Once we start to see as long as you know, you see these larger companies that more companies they have the lower their rating goes, you know, it's just it happens often. We won't let that happen. If we start to see that happen, then we'll stop and pause and say, "What's going on that's changing our process that we need to now rework or reconsider to do better." As long as we're continuing on an upward trajectory and taking on more properties, having owners that see our vision, have hospitality first, that's very important that they see our vision.

We don't work with owners who are, you know, if the air breaks, "Oh, let them go outside and enjoy the fresh air." It's no, you need air conditioning. You know, people people want that that experience. So, as long as we're, you know, having owners that see our vision and taking on properties, really the sky's the limit because we have this base, we have an amazing core team. We'll continue to grow our team as we grow. If we need another 20 hospitality specialist, we'll hire them. Um, people who understand our our roles and our vision for the company, um, and just continue to take it so that it's grander and grander.

Yeah. And looking at the portfolio, it looks like most of your properties are, if not all of them, are in Ocean City. So, how does location sort of play into that of like, I mean, it's maybe I'm having 100 150 listings in one market is doable, having 500 in one market is maybe tougher. So, how do you guys think about expanding outside of Ocean City?

So, right now, we want to have like clarity and focus, right? And so, we feel that Ocean City is where our heart is and where our team is and where we've built that foundation. So, we feel like there are still a lot of, I'll call it, low-hanging fruit, but there's a lot of impact that we can still make with, um, with properties and owners. So, there's enough inventory in this market right now that we feel that we can help people with and we've, like I said, our, like Kim said actually, our quality is actually increasing as we're scaling, which is contrary to what most companies do. So, as long as we can keep that trajectory of increasing our quality or staying the same, um we will continue to scale um and really do stay in this this market. So, we don't have any plans to move. We We do get requests all the time of some other local shore towns, and we just we deny it. We just focus right now on Ocean City.

I'm not saying that's you know, going to be our solution forever, but at least for the immediate future, we have no plans of moving outside of Ocean City. We feel like there's still a lot more opportunity for us and our company to make an impact.

And especially because no one is doing what we're doing. So, it's it's such a unique service that so many owners want, and if they haven't heard of us, when they do hear of us, they jump in. So, there's there's just so much opportunity still in this market.

Uh can you walk me through some of that owner pitch? Like, what are the things you guys are highlighting that I can cause owners to choose you guys?

Sure.

It's Yeah, it's it's very simple. It's really three things, right? We're going to make you more money than you've ever made before, and oh by the way, we have a a track record record history that proves that, right? We're going to know your property and take care of your property better than anyone else can take care of it, and you're going to do less. So,

Right.

why are we even still talking, right?

[laughter]

It's like a win-win. It's like and and not only that, but your guests are going to have a much better experience when they rent through us, as proven by our guest review score. We have the most five-star reviews out of any company in Ocean City, and these companies have been around for over 100 years, and we've only been in business for less than five as really as Heavenly Rez. So, um we, like I said, we are always continually improving, and we've made more changes in our business over the last 12 months than companies that have been here for over 100 years. And that says a lot right there, that statement, because we know we don't know everything, but we have a good handle on what guests want, and we have taken action to actually deliver that. Right?

Can you I mean, more changes over the last 12 months is a big statement. Could you, given that you guys are already doing so many things well, can you talk through some of the what I mean, maybe one or two of the high-impact changes you guys made to the business and sort of what led to that change and what you've seen as a result?

One of the highest um game changers was having our hub and bringing all of them and linen house. Because we had I mean, if you figure we had 100 properties and we were managing 100 mini warehouses of their linens and their owners' closets. We had no control over guests going into those closets and taking extra linens, or we were relying on cleaners to make sure they're making the bed, but did they really inspect those sheets and those comforters and make sure that there's no stains, there's nothing wrong with that. So, really taking that control and bringing it into our hub, bringing all of those mini warehouses into one large warehouse that we have control over, was a huge game changer. The amount The The difference between last summer to this summer as far as linen issues with having missing sheets or stained comforters or just missing towels, any of those issues that dealt with cleaning was so much lower this summer because we took control of that and have such great processes in place to really make sure that check and balance, that it just it it made such a huge impact on our business.

I think one of the big things related to that, too, is we we took away the the accountability and responsibility for cleaners to actually have to deal with linens, right? We now take care of all the linens. They They can focus on their core job, which is to make sure the property is 100% clean and not have to worry about is there a stain on the linen, do we have enough linens? Our team handles all of that internally. We have uh various different cleaning crews. Every single cleaning crew has their own color-coded bag. Our hospitality specialists pack the bags for them. And when they come in the morning, they come to our hub, they pick up their bags that are already certified that everything is there that needs to be there. So, they don't have to think about linens anymore. They just need to bring them to the property, make them make all the beds, make everything guest ready and staged in accordance to our processes.

And then that's the cleaners are actually very happy about that cuz they they didn't like those

We hoped they washed them and got all the stains out. We hoped they brought them to the property and they have enough. And then at the end when the guest is calling saying, "I'm missing this, missing that." We don't know until after the fact. Now we know ahead of time they're good. We're good. It's quality checked. And so it's a confidence that we have that we know

And they're all doing things the same way. Like before it's like, "Okay, some of the some of the cleaners were taking the laundry to their own home to do the when we were essentially paying them to take it to a professional laundromat. They were doing it at their own home. So, it was like it was hard to enforce. We didn't have control over it. So, it's all about control, right? With our own centralized hub, we have control over everything. We can see all the linens. We can feel them, touch them, make sure they're all accounted for and they're all to our quality standards. If we see this has some wear and tear, it's on us. We take them out of the rotation. We donate all of our stained linens, all of our um older linens to a local humane society. So, they also get benefit here, you know, as well. So, we don't just waste and throw it away. Um so, it just I that's just a a few examples of some of the things, but we entirely reimagined our operational process from last year, 12 months ago.

That's awesome. Um I do want to touch on one more subject before we close out. Uh and since you guys are in such a great destination and destination that and brings guests back over and over again, you guys have such and strong guest satisfaction, too. So, I would imagine one of the downstream benefits of that is direct bookings, repeat bookings, and guests that come back and stay with you guys over and over. So, can you talk to some about and what you've seen in terms of the business, how that's changed from when you first got started, and what that looks like today?

So, I'll I'll start with this. As you onboard new properties, generally the newer properties are going to get more traction through the platforms, right? Because they still need to build repeat clients, you know, repeat guests, and things like that. So, there is with our heavy growth, that is really offsetting what I think our real direct booking. I think our direct booking numbers are get definitely getting better. Um but there it's not as clear-cut because we have so many new properties that we've been onboarding because it's such a heavy growth. Um but right now we're at over 35% direct bookings, which is pretty impressive for a company of our size and with our growth rate. Um but we're seeing bookings from AirDNA up from I'm sorry, Airbnb um a little bit higher than what we see on Vrbo. So, maybe about 40% coming from Airbnb and then the rest coming from uh Vrbo.

But um yeah, we we think our attitude is we want exposure everywhere we can get. Airbnb, Vrbo, they're spending billions of dollars on advertising, and they're doing a great job. People trust them, so we love those platforms. So, we encourage, you know, any bookings that come through, you know, any sources are great. But at the end of the day, you know, there is, you know, hefty fees associated with these platforms, and I know they're trying to change things on their end. We just We leverage everything to our advantage to just provide um better avenues for guests to be able to book on multiple different platforms, wherever they're comfortable with. Um and then also for owners to have maximum exposure to increase their their returns, right?

Yeah. And I bet the OTAs love you guys, too, given the high guest satisfactions and number of listings you guys have sort of brought into their ecosystems. So, um maybe in closing, looking for uh some advice from you guys. Uh so, we have a lot of and small to mid-size hosts and and in the process of building their businesses. A lot are owner operators, some sort of getting into co-hosting, sort of small property management. So, if you were talking to someone and came up to you at a conference and they had maybe 10 properties and they were struggling to maintain a 4.8 with those 10 properties, what what what advice would you give them in terms of growing, expanding, and and their own business?

I mean, personally, I think the the greatest advice is love what you do. If you're waking up and feeling like it's a struggle, that it's work you don't want to do hospitality, you don't want to get You don't care if the guests had a good time or not, that then you're in the wrong business. So, you know, we love what we do. We love working with owners and having see them six more successful than they were prior years. I love working with guests. You know, when you said about repeat guests over the years, you know, I've had guests who started with us 6 years ago and then I've seen them their children have grandchildren and they come back and they send pictures and you almost it's it's you know, even though you get larger, you can still have that personal touch, that family feel. So, when you really love what you do, it it feel like a job. So, as long as you're loving that, then you're continuing to grow and really shoot for that goal.

And I 100% agree with that. Now, I'll just add one other piece on top of that. If you If you are an operator and you don't love what you do, and you still want to continue with the business, hire somebody that does a doesn't know how to be hospitable because you you know, it's also about the team that you bring in, right? You're not going to be great at everything, right? You're going to have strengths and weaknesses or opportunities like everybody else has. But knowing what those opportunities are, make sure you have the right people in the right roles, right? And if you're if you're struggling with that, you know, you you just need to make sure that you're focusing on on what you want, right? Yeah.

Um so, and last question, and you guys you built this company as a as a tribute, and you look at what it's become, and what would you want people to take from that?

I guess I'll I'll say that, you know, anything is possible if you put your your mind to it and you focus on it, right? So, I want people to know that the world is the universe is working for you, not against you, and the people that all of the people that I follow and that have been successful all have that same attitude. Like think of it in terms of why what lesson am I intended to learn from things that go wrong, right? Cuz things will always go wrong. This is a journey. Success doesn't just happen. It just It takes time and it takes a lot of resilience. So, for for everybody, just like think about every everything that happens to you, think of it like that. It's not, you know, it's happening for a reason. It's happening for you, not not, you know, for you to learn a lesson. What is the lesson that you need to learn to move to the next level? And if you continue to have that attitude, I think things will come easier.

I agree 1,000%.

Well, Steven Kim, uh this was so great and we'll we'll link to heavenlyres.com and accompany the show notes. Is anywhere else and if people want to reach out, if they want to and find you, and where is the best to do that?

Yeah, heavenlyres.com is a great start and then @heavenlyres for Instagram, Facebook, and all that stuff. We're in the Ocean City, New Jersey market. And yeah, we are super excited to be the number one property management company in the country. So thanks, Jamie. We appreciate you and everything that AirDNA does as well. We're always using your data.

Awesome. Well, thank you guys. Congratulations again and hope to talk to you again next year if you guys repeat.

Absolutely. We will.

[laughter]

Thanks, Jamie.