Transitioning from short-term rentals, which offer increased revenue but higher management demands, to mid to long-term can provide stable income and reduced turnover.
Certain properties, such as beach or ski mountain properties, experience distinct seasonal trends, making some seasons more profitable as short-term rentals, while other seasons are better suited for mid to long-term rentals to ensure a steady income. Or maybe you have a mix of short-term and mid/long-term properties and want to utilize OwnerRez for both rental types.
Adapting rental strategies accordingly with OwnerRez can maximize your potential revenue throughout the year.
- Implications
- Mid to Long-Term Rental Quotes
- Damage Protection
- Listing Channels
- Dynamic Pricing Tools
Implications
There are different legal requirements for short-term and mid-to-long-term rentals. It is the responsibility of each user to research the following topics with their local government authorities and insurance professionals.
- Compliance with local zoning laws and rental regulations
- Tax implications and potential licensing requirements
- Securing appropriate insurance coverage for either or both rental types
Mid to Long-Term Rental Quotes
The easiest way to prepare for a mid-to-long-term rental with OwnerRez is to create a Quote for the full amount of the booking.
But before finalizing any mid-to-long-term rental quotes, users should carefully review their Rates and have mid-term and/or long-term Renter Agreements created so they are prepared to create any mid-to-long-term rental quotes.
For mid-to-long-term rentals, OwnerRez recommends creating a Quote for the full amount of the booking and then making changes to the Payment Schedule and Security Deposit in the Rules section of that specific quote.
Property Availability Rules
OwnerRez does not have a specific option to set up mid to long-term rentals, but can easily create a quote and override the night minimum and/or maximum to accomplish this.
Other options include the following.
- Adjust the property availability rules to 28 to 30 night minimums in the case of a long-term rental.
- Create a Season for that specific time frame of the year and then adjust the night minimums to 28 to 30 nights for that Season only.
OR recommends that users test their property night minimums by navigating in-app to Tools > Rate Tester to ensure that it's requiring 30 nights.
If you are connected to listing channels via API, your listings will automatically update on those channels to require 30 nights, but again make sure to test it by navigating in-app to Tools > Rate Tester to ensure that it's requiring 30 nights.
Rates
Season and spot rates (ie nightly rates) can override the base configurations set in the Property Rules.
Short-term nightly rental rates are generally higher so users may want to adjust their rates for mid to long-term rentals and can accomplish this a couple of different ways.
Renter Agreement
There is no preexisting template for longer term rental agreements. However users can edit the default Renter Agreement to create a new Renter Agreement specifically for mid-to-long-term rentals.
Then during the Quote process, users can select the specific Renter Agreement specifically for mid or long-term rentals.
Payment Schedules
OwnerRez defaults to a 50% upfront payment option and is not currently designed for automating more than the initial payment and final payment but that can be changed by navigating to the specific Property > Rules for long-term rentals to reduce the upfront payment.
For mid-term rentals, OwnerRez recommends creating a Quote for the full amount of the booking. Then make changes to that quote by navigating to the quote Rules > Change > First Payment and Second Payment.
If the user has a Payment Processor setup to collect payment by Credit cards you can set up a Payment Schedule to automatically collect the monthly rent.
Quote Rule changes should include both the Payment Schedule and Refundable Damage Deposit before it is emailed to the potential mid-term or long-term renter.
Security Deposit
Regardless of whether your booking is for a mid-term or long-term duration, OwnerRez highly recommends that all users include a Security Deposit.
Due to the limits of the length of time that a Security Deposit Hold can be held, applying a Security Deposit Hold may not be the best option for mid-to-long-term rentals. However, applying a Refundable Damage Deposit (RDD) to your mid-to-long-term rentals is ideal.
To apply an RDD, again OwnerRez recommends creating a Quote for the full amount of the booking. Then make changes to that quote by navigating to the quote Rules > Change > Security Deposits > Type and select Refundable, set the Deposit Amount and other necessary settings and Save before emailing the quote to the potential guest.
Quote Rule changes should include both the Payment Schedule and Refundable Damage Deposit before it is emailed to the potential mid-term or long-term renter.
Damage Protection
OwnerRez's Damage Protection program has a 30-day duration so a separate program fee will be applied to each 30-day period. So, a 31-60 day booking would require 2 x the damage protection fee, a 61-90 day booking would require 3 x the damage protection fee, and so on. This fee will be applied every 30 days.
Damage Protection coverage is only available for mid-term rentals that are no longer than 1 year (365 nights). Long-term rentals that exceed 365 nights cannot be covered by this program.
Here are more details about Damage Protection for mid to long-term bookings.
Listing Channels
⚡ WARNING:
Make sure you don't have both weekly/monthly rates and LOS discounts applying to direct bookings! If you do, both discounts will be applied - they will stack, and your direct-booking guests will get a super double discount. They'll be happy but you, not so much.
Generally, Airbnb and Vrbo do not support weekly/monthly type rates. Instead, they support length-of-stay discounts.
If you do not have weekly or monthly rates, just use LOS discounts and leave it at that, they'll work in both Airbnb and Vrbo as well as in your direct bookings.
If you already have weekly and/or monthly rates and are configuring the Airbnb and Vrbo APIs, you have two recommended approaches:
- Make the length-of-stay discounts only apply to Airbnb and Vrbo, by setting the Listing Site criteria on the discount to "only Airbnb and Vrbo". That way direct bookings will remain using the weekly/monthly rates you have set in your Seasonal Rates, allowing Airbnb and Vrbo to use the LOS discount.
- Use length-of-stay discounts everywhere, and remove all weekly and monthly rates from your Seasonal Rates.
Dynamic Pricing Tools
If you are using a Dynamic Pricing tool, be aware of the implications of that on both your Rates and Minimum Nights settings because most Dynamic Pricing tools override your OwnerRez Rates and Minimum Nights rules.
Any necessary changes to your Rates and Minimum Nights rules will need to be made directly in your Dynamic Pricing tool dashboard.