What Exactly Does an Airbnb Property Manager Do?

There’s more to running an Airbnb business than meets the eye. It takes a unique approach to hospitality, different types of organizational skills, and high attention to detail. In essence, it can be considered a managerial role.

Many Airbnb hosts decide to take their skillsets even further by becoming full-time property managers – taking charge of other people’s properties for a lucrative fee.

It’s a lot of hard work, but it can certainly pay off if you do it right.

Here we’ll tell you everything you need to know about the responsibilities of an Airbnb property manager to kickstart your own career.

Managing inventory

One of the most important roles a property manager plays in running an Airbnb business is taking care of the inventory. Cleaning supplies, soap, towels, and detergent all need to be restocked regularly – otherwise, you’re risking getting negative reviews from your guests.

Ensuring you’re always stocked up on supplies is crucial to your daily operations. However, it won’t be your only responsibility – you’ll also have to take care of the financial aspect of it all. Buying these supplies in bulk is probably the best course of action, especially if you’re working with a limited budget.

Additionally, all good property managers have a restocking schedule in place – there should be no room for any „unpleasant surprises“ when your guests arrive at your premises.

Tracking various maintenance tasks

Your guests aren’t the only people you’ll be dealing with when you’re running an Airbnb business. Unless you’re maintaining your property yourself, you’ll also have to schedule and organize a plethora of maintenance services to keep your property clean and functional.

This shouldn’t be a problem if you’re handling a single property, but as soon as you start working on a couple of them, keeping track of everything gets increasingly difficult.

Either way, hiring professional cleaners and tracking their work is one of the responsibilities of a property manager. The same applies to various maintenance tasks, although this is usually not something done after every check-out. You’ll need to ensure the appliances offered to the guests are functioning at all times. If they’re not, a property manager’s job is to schedule the necessary repairs.

Communicating with guests

Keeping the guests happy is the number one priority of every property manager out there. Proper communication are of the essence in this line of work. It takes more than just being pleasant and well-mannered – you’ll also need to be honest, concise, and quick to respond to your guests’ requests.

If you’re not good at working with people, this industry might not be the best option for you after all. As we’ve already said before, your guests’ wants and needs should always come first. Clear communication is the only way to ensure that.

Now, on the other hand, if you’re an Airbnb host that has no aspirations to become a property manager (and you hate dealing with your guests), perhaps you should consider hiring one. It’s a great way to improve your business without having to handle everything yourself. You can find more details about the entire process online if you’re interested.

Building relationships with homeowners

Homeowners need to be able to have a trusting relationship with their property managers for obvious reasons. If someone’s leaving their Airbnb business entirely into your hands, they need to know you’re capable of delivering results. So, one of the responsibilities of a property manager is also to build relationships with different homeowners – it’s the only way you can maintain your reputation in this industry. The goal is always to expand your property portfolio, and you can’t do that if you’re doing your job poorly.

Finding a good Airbnb host to partner up with can be a daunting task, especially if you’re a novice property manager. In fact, most of them start out by hosting their own properties to gain the necessary experience.

Either way, knowing how to build long-lasting relationships with the homeowners is key to becoming a successful property manager. If they’re happy with your services, they’ll be more likely to recommend you to other hosts who’re looking for a property manager in your area.

Managing property listings and bookings

To be able to manage the property bookings and listings properly, you’ll need to be knowledgeable about Airbnb – if you’ve never used the website before, things can get a bit confusing. So, among other things, property managers should have experience with Airbnb itself to be able to complete what’s required of them.

Of course, learning how to manage listings and bookings isn’t something incredibly difficult. As long as you have some experience with Airbnb and you possess good organizational skills, you won’t have any issues with this part of the job.

Marketing tasks

As you already know, Airbnb hosting is a business. It’s all about attracting new visitors and building a good reputation online. Reviews and ratings you get for the job well done are important, but they’re not enough to put your property on the map. A good manager will be able to come up with an effective marketing strategy as well (using social media and other promotional channels).

Now, of course, not every host will require this particular skill set from their property manager. However, providing marketing services can certainly be a big plus, especially for smaller Airbnb businesses that’re looking for ways to grow in the near future.

So, in some cases, property managers will be tasked with fulfilling the marketing needs of the property they’re managing. No matter if you’re a host looking for these services or if you’re someone who wants to provide them, this is certainly something to consider.

The bottom line

Overall, property management services can be extremely beneficial to every Airbnb business, no matter how big or small. If you’re someone who aspires to become a property manager, you need to understand your role extremely seriously. As we’ve discussed throughout this article, there are many different tasks handled by these professionals – all of which are essential to the success of the Airbnb business.