20 Expert Tips for Successfully Managing an Airbnb Remotely (2024)

Once you buy an Airbnb investment property, you have to find the best way to manage your rental. This is challenging for remote hosts who don’t have everyday direct access to their property. However, even if you’re investing remotely, you can still manage your property on your own and don’t have to hire a full-service Airbnb management company.

In this article, we’ve put together 20 tips from successful Airbnb hosts who live far from their investments. You’ll learn everything you need to know about how to manage an Airbnb remotely.

1. Communicate with Your Airbnb Guests

On-time, inclusive communication with all interested guests is one of the most important factors for cracking the Airbnb SEO algorithm, whether you manage your property on-site or remotely. However, the importance of online communication grows when you don’t meet your guests in person because of investing far from home. This is your only chance to convince them to choose your listing over competitors, welcome them to your Airbnb, and make sure they had a pleasant experience.

So, one of the first tips that seasoned Airbnb remote hosts provide is to focus on communication with guests before, during, and after their stay. Beforehand, ensure guests have everything they need for a comfortable stay in your place including check-in times, how to get in, how to use the property and all appliances, what to do in the area, and whom to contact in case of emergency. During their stay, be available 24/7 via chat or phone to address questions or issues. Afterwards, check up on your guests to see if they enjoyed their stay and if they’d be willing to write you a positive review.

2. Switch on Airbnb Instant Book

To optimize the booking process, remote Airbnb hosts should turn on the Instant Book feature provided by the Airbnb platform. This means that bookings will be automatically approved as long as guests meet certain criteria decided by you. You should not worry about the credibility and trustworthiness of who stays at your rental as Airbnb has its own procedures and requirements to vet guests to ensure the security of both spaces and hosts.

Using Instant Book will help you get your listing to rank higher as well as minimize the amount of manual work and communication you have to do. It’s a win-win according to remote hosts who use it.

3. Set Up Automated Messaging

Automation is another top tip that remote hosts emphasize, especially when it comes to communication. Unless you’re a full-time Airbnb investor, you probably have another job, family, and personal life to take care of. All this means that you cannot be possibly available 24/7 to respond to any guest inquiry right away. You don’t want to compromise the performance of your Airbnb listing by delaying responses or replying incompletely.

The solution to this dilemma in managing an Airbnb remotely is to automate the messaging process. There are plenty of Airbnb automation tools like Evolve that help investors put most communication with guests on auto-pilot. You can easily automate the communication flow so that the tool sends a message campaign to your guests as soon as they make a booking to welcome them to your property and provide them with all the info they need. You can set up canned responses to the most popular guest questions for automatic replies.

4. Set Plenty of Reminders

When you manage an Airbnb remotely, it’s easy to forget your day-to-day tasks as you don’t see your property regularly. That’s why experienced remote hosts advise new ones to set up reminders for every single responsibility that they have. That’s easily done by having an online calendar like Google Calendar or anything else that you prefer using.

Add all tasks on your online calendar and set up notifications based on the time you need to get each task done. You don’t have to stress about forgetting your responsibilities as an Airbnb host when there’s such an easy and efficient way to set reminders.

5. Hire a Virtual Assistant

Despite all automation, some remote Airbnb hosts still find managing a short-term rental property to be overwhelming. If that’s the case with you, you can opt for hiring a virtual assistant. More and more remote businesses are working with virtual assistants, so you can also hire one for your Airbnb business.

A virtual assistant can take care of all communication with guests and vendors and all coordination of cleaning, restocking, and maintaining your property. Most of them charge per hour, and you should not need more than a few hours per month, so this can be a cost-efficient way of making passive income from your Airbnb remotely.

6. Solicit Guest Reviews

Even though you don’t manage your Airbnb property in person, you need to make sure that everything is up to standard and up to guest expectations so that they will write a positive review of your space after their stay. Having a lot of positive reviews and a high overall ranking is crucial both for showing up in search results and for having guests book your property, hoping to have the same positive experiences as past guests.

Thus, asking for reviews a couple of days after check-out should be integrated in your automated communication process. Set up messages to check up with guests after they’ve made it back home, ask how their stay was, and if the response is positive, ask them politely to review your listing. You can in exchange review them as a guest as this also makes them more credible.

The second group of tips on how to manage an Airbnb remotely revolves around setting up your home efficiently so that your intervention is only minimal.

7. Offer Self Check In

Many Airbnb hosts choose to greet and welcome guests in person when they first check in, but this is not an option when you invest remotely. In order to guarantee a smooth check-in process in your absence, Airbnb remote hosts recommend installing a lockbox for enabling self-serviced guest check-in. In this way, you can boost the safety and security of both your property and your guests without having to hire a half-service Airbnb management company.

When choosing the best lockboxes for Airbnb, look for something that’s reliable, durable, and secure. In most cases, the price varies between $15 and $180, so it’s totally worth it.

8. Invest in Home Automation

Another addition to an Airbnb investment property that’s proven of indispensable help to remote hosts over the years is home automation. Each year you find more and more smart devices that can help you automate the management of your vacation rental. Some must-have smart home automation tools include smart locks (mentioned above), security cameras, smart thermostats, smart lighting, and smart TVs.

However, when you set up the Airbnb home automation, make sure that you full comply with Airbnb rules. For instance, Airbnb prohibits the use of security cameras and other recording tools inside properties and in private areas. Meanwhile, security cameras in public and common spaces should be disclosed to guests.

9. Get Home Security

Among all other tips on setting up your Airbnb the right way for remote management, experienced hosts emphasize the importance of home security. As you will not be on-site much, you should know that your property is safe and secure.

Besides smart locks and security cameras, invest in other tools like keyless entry, smart video doorbells, alarm systems, and security systems. You know that both your rental and your guests are protected from unexpected intruders.

Inside, you also need to install and regularly check fire extinguishers, CO2 detectors, and other safety devices. Many local authorities inspect these before issuing short-term rental licenses and permits. But even if your county or city doesn’t require such devices, it is your responsibility as a remote Airbnb host to guarantee the safety of your guests.

10. Make House Rules Clear

As a host, it is your right to set up specific house rules for your Airbnb property. These need to cover everything required by the Airbnb platform and local short-term rental laws but might also go beyond so that you feel comfortable with what guests are allowed and not allowed to do on your property.

Make sure that you include all relevant house rules when you first set up your listing on Airbnb, whether in the dedicated guest book or in the property description. You don’t want your guests to be unpleasantly surprised when they make it to the home by figuring out that they are not allowed to have a party, for example. In addition, make the house rules also available in the welcome pack on site as a quick reminder or for easy reference.

11. Compose a Comprehensive Guestbook

Another invaluable piece of advice by seasoned remote hosts is to prepare a detailed guest book that includes all the information that guests need for their stay: house rules,property instruction, local attractions, etc. Enable this feature when listing your property on Airbnb as this will help with ranking in search results and will also help guests know what to expect from their experience in your space.

Have a printed or electronic copy of the guestbook included in the welcome back that you leave in the property. In this way, guests can use it as a reference guide since they won’t be meeting you in person to receive the tips and instructions from you. If everything’s included in the guestbook, this will minimize the need for ongoing communication between you and your guests.

12. Pay for a Remote Walkthrough

When managing an Airbnb remotely, use the latest technology including virtual reality tools that allow you to create a 3D tour of your property. You can include this virtual home tour as part of your listing to attract guests to the wonderful space and amenities that you offer. And you can also have it as part of your welcome pack to tell guests how to turn on the oven, how to set up the thermostat, how to switch on the TV, how to connect to the Wi-Fi, and everything else that they would need during their stay.

According to remote Airbnb hosts, paying for a remote walkthrough is totally worth it as it replaces a lot of what you would normally tell your guests during in-person check-in.

13. Organize a Welcome Gift

Yet another thing you need to take care of when setting up your rental property for remote management is organizing a welcome pack. As already mentioned, there’s plenty of information to go there including house rules, property instructions and guidelines, a local area attractions guide, a virtual property tour, etc.

It’s a smart move to put the welcome pack in a digital/electronic form so that guests can keep benefiting from it without the need to change it between every guest. However, if you opt for a physical copy, make sure to either use durable materials to survive a few months or stock up on individual copies that each guest can easily access upon check-in.

In the instructions that you communicate to guests prior to their arrival, tell them where they can find the welcome back unless it’s right at the entrance.

14. Set Up Dynamic Pricing

As a remote Airbnb remote host, you probably have little knowledge of the local short-term rental market, including seasonality, daily rates, and occupancies. Offering competitive nightly rates, especially when first getting started, is key to ranking high and attracting reservations.

According to experienced Airbnb hosts, your best bet is using dynamic pricing to adjust for seasonal changes in demand and supply. You can use either the Smart Pricing option on the Airbnb platform or a third-party automation tool like AirDNA Smart Rates, Beyond Pricing, or PriceLabs. You should not miss out on the opportunity to maximize income just because you don’t live in the local market.

The third group of Airbnb tips for managing a property remotely concentrates on restocking between stays.

15. Stock Your Airbnb Supply Closet

When furnishing your vacation rental, make sure that you get a supply closet that you can use for stocking up. Then, whenever you visit your Airbnb investment property in person, stuff the closet with enough supplies to last until your next visit, if possible. Since you are not in the vicinity to bring extra paper towels or soap when guests run out of them, make sure to have extra supplies on site. Supplies should include coffee, tea, salt, pepper, soap, shampoo, dishwashing detergent, laundry detergent, toilet paper, paper towels, and office supplies if you offer these.

As a remote Airbnb host, you don’t want to receive a call in the middle of the night that the soap has finished and have no way to deliver it quickly.

16. Ship Supplies and Replacement

Unless you visit your property frequently, it might be unrealistic to stock up on supplies in person. Then you can find an option to ship supplies and replacements to your rental as needed or regularly.

This should be one task that you put on your online calendar and set up reminders for, or your virtual assistant can take care of it. Alternatively, some Airbnb furnishing companies offer automated restocking of short-term rentals for passive income.

The fourth group of tips provided by seasoned Airbnb remote hosts focuses on the team members that you’ll need to hire even if you automate many of the processes related to short-term rental property management.

17. Hire Cleaning Services (and a Backup or Two)

Even if you have nearly everything on auto-pilot, as a remote Airbnb host, you cannot clean between guests without hiring an actual contractor to do that. You can go for an individual or for a company that specializes in cleaning vacation rentals.

When you hire a vendor to take care of the cleaning of your property, make sure that they are reliable (ask other Airbnb hosts in the area for referrals) and that they meet all requirements. Providing hotel-standard cleanliness is becoming the norm in the vacation rental industry after the outbreak of Covid-19.

It’s a good idea to have a backup or two in case anything ever goes wrong with your cleaning services and they cannot show up. You cannot afford to welcome your guests to a dirty property when you are not physically there to do the cleaning, changing of linen, and restocking yourself.

18. Find 24/7 Maintenance Professionals

An Airbnb rental is a real estate property, so something might go wrong with the electricity, the pipes, the furniture, or anything else at any point in time. When you manage an Airbnb remotely, you cannot get there to fix the problem yourself, so you need to have a maintenance team available 24/7 to get to the property, identify the problem, and provide (at least) a temporary solution.

Similar to when hiring a cleaning team, it’s best to ask around for recommendations since you are not a local to the market and might not have access to the best vendors. You can talk to other Airbnb hosts in the area or ask on real estate investing forums for referrals. Investors are always happy to help others who are just getting started.

19. Keep in Touch with Your Team

Experienced remote hosts emphasize the importance of being in constant communication not only with your guests but also with your on-site team including the cleaning staff and the maintenance staff. Include regular check-ups with them in the automated messaging process you set up. Between stays, always confirm with your team that the cleaning has been done. Also, agree on how often the maintenance team should inspect the property for preventive fixes and repairs and make this part of the automated communication too.

As a remote Airbnb host, your on-the-ground team is the extended arm of your Airbnb business.

20. Work with a Professional Management Company

Last but not least, when you manage an Airbnb remotely, you can opt for hiring a full-service Airbnb management company. A good Airbnb manager will take care of all the requirements of running a vacation rental business while maximizing occupancy, boosting revenue, and allowing you to earn passive income from your real estate investment. The best short-term rental property companies will do everything from communication and getting properties ready, through check-ins and 24/7 support, to check-outs and follow-ups. This is by far the easiest way to manage an Airbnb property when investing out of town.

Takeaway

Managing an Airbnb remotely is not only doable but should also bring the same positive results that managing a rental in the local market. With these 20 tips by seasoned remote Airbnb hosts, you are guaranteed to be on the track to success with your short-term rental property investment.