Operating notes for people running short-term rentals as a business. Regulation changes, pricing tactics, owner-reporting playbooks, and turnover systems for STR co-hosts and small property managers — no "passive income" hype, just the stuff that keeps clients past year one.
Your repair approval limit should be a number, not a phone call
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Every owner has a spending limit in their head, and most co-hosts find out what it is by crossing it. The dishwasher dies on a Friday with a check-in Saturday. You call the appliance tech, pay $340, and the owner sees it three weeks later in the monthly report. To you, that was keeping the property bookable. To the owner, it was $340 they never agreed to. Neither of you was wrong. You just never wrote the number down. Set a standing approval limit per property, in dollars, at onboarding. Below the limit, you fix it and report it. Above it, you ask first. I'd start most units somewhere between $200 and $500 per incident — low enough that the owner feels in control, high enough that a sticky lock or a slow drain doesn't turn into a text thread. Scale it to the property: a unit earning $600 a night can carry a higher limit than a studio earning $110. Put the number in the agreement or a one-page addendum, not in a text message you'll never find again. Carve out an emergency lane that overrides the limit. Some problems can't wait for an owner who's on a flight. Define the category narrowly — an active water leak, no heat in winter, a lock that won't secure the door, anything that makes the unit unsafe or unusable for an arriving guest — and agree that you act first and call within the hour. Name a ceiling even for emergencies, so "act first" never means an open checkbook. Without this lane you will either blow through the limit in a crisis or cancel a guest while you wait for a callback, and both cost more than the repair. When you do need approval, ask like a contractor, not a tenant. "The dishwasher's broken, what do you want to do?" hands the owner a problem. "Dishwasher pump failed. Repair quote is $380, replacement is $620, and the unit is eleven years old — I recommend replacing. Next check-in is Saturday, so I need a yes by Thursday noon to book the tech" hands them a decision. Include the deadline every time, and agree in advance what silence means when it passes: proceed, or hold. Review the limit once a year, at the same time you review your fee. Pull every expense that went over the limit and every one that came close. If the owner approved every single request, the limit is too low and you're both wasting time on a formality. If they pushed back on things under it, have that conversation now, before the next water heater goes. The limit is a trust setting, and it should move as the relationship does. The owner agreement in the Co-Host Starter Kit has a blank for exactly this number — fill it in before the first repair, not after. |
The Co-Host Brief
Operating notes for people running short-term rentals as a business. Regulation changes, pricing tactics, owner-reporting playbooks, and turnover systems for STR co-hosts and small property managers — no "passive income" hype, just the stuff that keeps clients past year one.
Most co-hosts set a rate floor by checking what the unit next door charges, and that tells you nothing about whether you make money. Your neighbor may have a paid-off mortgage, a cleaner who charges half what yours does, or no management fee to split. The only floor that protects you is built from what it costs you to host one stay. Add up what one turnover costs before the guest sleeps a single night. Take the cleaning fee you pay, the laundry, the restocked supplies, and any per-stay charge...
Most supply runs are triggered by a guest message, not by a count. The first "we're out of toilet paper" text is the moment you learn the closet was empty. By then you're buying at retail on a Saturday, and the guest has already decided what kind of host you are. Running out is a systems failure, and a cheap one to fix. Set a par level for every consumable at every unit. Par is the minimum you must have on the shelf after a turnover, written as a number. For a unit that sleeps four, something...
A permit that lapses by a day can cost an owner more than a bad week of pricing. Whatever your market requires, whether a license, a registration or a tax account, it has a date attached, and when it lapses the listing may have to come down until it is sorted out. Nobody notices a renewal date until it has passed. Across ten units that is ten permit dates plus the tax filings behind them, and you are usually the only person watching. Build one sheet with one row per unit. Columns: city or...