From Daily Admin to Scalable Operations

In this episode of the Hospitable Hosts podcast, Patrick from Hospitable joins Valery Saavedra from Chekin, an online check-in and guest screening platform for vacation rentals, to interview Manuel Vicente, Founder of DenverStays. Manuel manages 12 STR properties in 4 different locations in the US and Europe and uses both Hospitable and Chekin to streamline operations and run his business more efficiently.

In the episode, Manuel shares how he got into the short-term rental industry, how Hospitable and Chekin help him manage multiple properties remotely, and how a direct booking strategy helps him reduce reliance on OTAs. Manuel also discusses how he sees the future of short-term rental management and gives some advice to hosts looking to scale their portfolio.

Press Play now to discover how Manuel uses technology to simplify management of short-term rental properties across time zones, ensure compliance, and enhance guest satisfaction.

Do you prefer to read the highlights? We’ve got a summary of the key takeaways below.

How Manuel Got into STR Property Management

Manuel says he started his short-term rental journey with just one property located in Denver, Colorado, “as a bit of a house hack” because he was deployed to Italy with the military. He listed his house on Airbnb, and then that quickly expanded to 3 additional properties in Denver, which he self-managed with the help of Hospitable.

“Then other hosts in the area saw the reviews I got and the quality I was able to offer, and they asked me to help them out. I didn't expect to become a short-term rental manager, but that's how it ended up,” Manuel explains.

Manuel points out that he was able to expand his STR property management business to Europe with the help of Chekin. He explains that strict legal requirements for guest registration make it difficult to ensure compliance on his own. Now Manuel lives in Italy and has 2 properties in Europe that he owns and about 5 or 6 that he manages for other property owners.

Using Technology to Manage Properties in 4 Locations

Manuel says he built a local team to manage properties in Denver, and he and his spouse would go there to maintain them.

“Once we had that baseline, we found it was relatively easy to expand. There's a bit of time zone overlap, but we have our roles pretty well defined, and it allows us to toggle between multiple locations and even help out some friends with their properties.”

Manuel emphasizes that Hospitable’s Tasks App makes team collaboration easy and lets him track task progress in real time.

Manuel explains that he started using Chekin to automate the entire check-in process because, in Europe, the legal compliance for short-term rentals is much more complex than in the US when it comes to guest registration, collecting guest data, and collecting and remitting the tourist tax. Doing everything manually was time-consuming and stressful. “So having that automated is very relieving, and it allows me to scale confidently,” he says.

“Chekin and Hospitable are what allowed me to expand to the point I'm at now,” Manuel points out.

“I would say that for the three properties I had in Denver and the one in Italy before I switched over to Chekin, Hospitable was helping a lot with guest messaging and other automations like locks. I was spending 10 to 15 hours a week, on top of my full-time job, on manual work. And then with the advent of the Tasks App on Hospitable and the automations from Chekin, I probably spend about ten hours a week now, with the twelve properties I have. So the same amount of time I spent when I had three or four.”

Implementing automations allowed Manuel to grow his portfolio without growing his team. Manuel notes that he only has one manager in every time zone. He has a manager in Denver, and they split shifts. In Europe, Manuel manages everything himself, and his spouse sometimes helps.

Manuel further explains how Hospitable and Chekin help him at different stages of the customer journey by automating routine tasks such as responding to guest inquiries, implementing security deposits, guest registration, collecting a tourist tax, and answering common guest questions.

About Direct Bookings

“I guess the goal for all of us in this industry is to get as many direct bookings as we can, as these platforms keep increasing their fees,” he says. “I have my direct booking website with Hospitable, and I get a few bookings through there. But I'm looking at ways to expand on this a bit more. I've looked at some third-party integrations Hospitable offers to design new websites that might have some embedded marketing features.”

Manuel shares his experience getting direct bookings through the website he created with Hospitable and notes that this combination of exposure has helped him grow direct bookings over the last two years to 10 to 15 percent of all bookings.