Every 2 weeks you say...

It's been a busy one. I won't lie. I've just been updating the website with progress pics and details of new projects, so I thought I'd pull my finger out and have a crack at some typing too.

Begin rant...

This Serviced Accommodation (SA) strategy is not as simple as many would have you believe like. We are trying to make the process as "hands off" as possible, whilst we still try to kid ourselves that we're property investors, and not just landlords or suckers creating another part-time job for us, but it's taken way longer than we'd hoped to get to where we are right now. We haven't even started marketing the property properly yet, so there's something else we both need to try our hand at.

Linen!!!

We've decided to hire ours so we didn't need to purchase a shed load before we opened and went live, but now we have (literally) a shed load of linen, where the dirties are collected weekly and delivered back to us clean the week after. Don't get me wrong, the stuff comes back lovely, clean & pressed, but until we actually convert the shed in the yard, it's difficult to get our heads around how to make it easy for the cleaners to process it for us. Plus it's £200+ per month too hire! That's going to be more than our mortgage on the place (more on that later!). We have a zip-link bed, so 2 singles which zip together to turn into a super-king, 2 further single beds, and a double sofa bed in the property, marketed for a maximum of 5 people staying in the home. That means we need approx. 4 sets of super-king linen, 4 sets of double, 12-14 single sets, pillowcases galore & all manner of assorted towels. Mental!

If you ever do hire linen, please also note the colour coding system they use to determine what sheets go on which bed. The night before we opened I got into a right state before finally finding the instructions of how to put on a duvet cover!

Cleaners.

We've found a good set now, finally, but due to the irregular nature of when our cleans may be needed, and sometimes needing them at such short notice, it's been difficult to find firms willing to take on the property. Treat them well though when you do find one! They are the most important part of the process I reckon! They can spot any potential maintenance issues with the property between stays, and you rely on them the most for the guests initial impressions. Your reviews depend on them! Get in touch for details of the ones we use in Darlington, if you are in need.

Online Travel Agents (OTAs) & Channel Managers.

Each OTA (booking/airbnb/expedia, etc) have their own ways of doing things, which makes setting up your property on each portal, fathoming out what the hell you'll be charging the guest, and how you'll be receiving whatever is leftover, whenever they feel like paying you very frustrating. We have now set up with probably just about every OTA we could find, and most are managed through Tokeet (channel manager), which will now hopefully sync all the various calendars so we never get double booked, and can push rates & emails through from just the one app. To be honest, this is Simon's bag, so I'm sure he can tell you more if needed.

If you're not using one of these apps though, I would recommend at least giving it the free trial. Of course there is a cost to the automation too, once the trial runs out, but we prefer at least a little bit of our lives back. The basic package doesn't quite offer enough for us though, so we've had to shell out for the package that should run 3 or more properties, but I couldn't imagine what a chew on updating all those calendars manually would be!

I think that will do for tonight. I'll get back on for more ranting tomorrow.

Cheers, Anthony.