15+
Geo : Australia
PMS: Beds24
Managing a vacation rental can test your multitasking skills. Yet, with the right tech stack in your corner, you might just be able to master it. Seamless integration between your property management software, channel manager, and revenue management software can go a long way.
David Lee, Co-Founder of Felix Technology and Managing Director at Uptown Apartments, sat down for a candid conversation with Annette Morgenroth and us at Beds24. They illustrated the road map to the 40% increase in revenue powered by automating their pricing journey.
About Uptown
Uptown Apartments offers executive accommodations in Sydney and Brisbane. All of their apartments are located in high-demand urban locations. Their apartments offer everything from short-term to long-term stays. All of them are fully furnished and fully equipped with all utilities.
David had been on a six-month journey of finding the perfect combination of tools to help him automate his business and give him some time to focus on expanding his business.
He had certain expectations from his tech stack. His expectations from his tech stack were:
- Flexible & transparent processes
- Seamless integrations
- Feedback-oriented team
- Affordable
Why Uptown was Losing Money and Flexibility due to Manual Processes?
Uptown leases apartments, furnishes them, then rents them out. Without enough guidelines in their pricing strategy, they are either making less money or leaving money on the table.
David was under constant pressure because he had less time to make more money. With more things to look over to devise a proper strategy, they had less and less time. It seemed like they were stuck in a vicious loop of spending more time in manual processes without enough information in hand to perfect them. Time and money were their two major stressors.
They were losing 20-30 hours a week in operational tasks
There are way too many operational tasks involved in managing a vacation rental property like managing your amenities, keeping tabs on competitors, managing your expenses, etc. All the operational tasks make up a whole laundry list of activities.
David felt it had become a little too time-consuming & stressful to do it all manually. He was spending more than 20 hours a week just optimizing operational tasks.
Spending so much time on operational tasks might make it difficult to focus your time and energy on the aspects of your business like sales and marketing, optimizing pricing strategy, and providing the best customer experience for your guests.
Pricing your property appropriately is like giving a boost to the runner in the front line. While manually doing everything, they were missing out on major things like changing their pricing according to the market, booking trends, and many more. An improper pricing strategy can affect your bottom line directly.
They were leaving money on the table with static pricing
The market supply and demand are too volatile to complement a static pricing strategy. Their properties in Brisbon are near an arena. They did not have the time to check on the concerts and other events in the arena. This led to them not optimizing their pricing according to the market.
David mentioned that they were losing money every year in the months of May and June because they could not understand the market to optimize their pricing.
Around 30% of Uptown apartments’ bookings come from a combination of home renovators and corporate relocators. These people want to stay in the apartment for 6-12 weeks. They could not optimize their pricing strategies to create the required balance in their bookings.
This is where instituting minimum night restrictions can be of extreme help. By understanding your booking patterns, you could price your property on par with the market standards.
After using other software, a six-month investigative search led them directly to our software. Our Co-Founder, Anurag, took them through a demo of the software. David remembers telling their wife they had found the perfect revenue management software.
How Uptown has managed to increase its revenue by 40% and reduce its operational time by 96%
While most tasks can be done manually, they usually take up at least double the time as software would. It would also remove any room for errors.
PriceLabs’ automation has reduced the time they spent on operation costs by 96%
Before using PriceLabs, David could only onboard 20 properties in 4 months. However, with PriceLabs on their side, they could easily onboard 35 properties in 5 days. Automating their pricing helped them save time. They could now focus on other important business aspects that require human intervention.
….
This software [PriceLabs] saves you time and gives you money.
– David Lee, Co-Founder at Felix Technology & Managing Director at Uptown Apartments
Understanding the market boosted their revenue by 40%
You can confidently go ahead with your strategies when you have real-time data to back your pricing decisions. When they opened in Brisbane, they were struggling. They were hardly making any money in that market because they did not; one, they knew the market, and two were unable to adapt their pricing strategies accordingly.
With PriceLabs’s dynamic pricing solutions, they could get pricing recommendations based on historical and current booking data, market supply and demand, seasonal and day-of-week trends, special events and holiday predictions, and days left to book their property. It can help them with all their requirements efficiently by providing them with a space combining automation, strategy, and market intelligence.
While optimizing your pricing strategy to adapt to the market and seasonal trends, it always helps to know which events are happening in your area. This can help you optimize your pricing strategy and go a tad ahead in providing the best guest experience.
The right Airbnb hosting tips can help you in the long run. The tiny details can go a long way in creating a happy memory in your guests’ minds. We have collated a complete list of events, conferences, and expos for Short Term and Vacation Rental industry professionals.
Easier market analysis to better understand their investment and pricing strategies
The PriceLabs’ market dashboard helps David understand the market and the pricing of various properties in their market. This can help them understand where to put their money and also understand how the money they have already spent is working.
David mentioned that property managers could, or rather should, use the market dashboard to gather insights into the properties they are managing. They would be able to take this collated information back to the property owners to back up their strategies and/or show proof of performance.
Within half an hour, we can whip up a report for a property for investment decisions and strategies.
David Lee, Co-Founder at Felix Technology & Managing Director at Uptown Apartments
Pricelabs Portfolio Analytics can also help with a real-time reporting system that tracks high-level metrics for your property. You can get a quick snapshot of your property’s financial health. We dive further in and provide insights on listing level performance and metrics. You can use our data to make informed decisions while setting up your pricing strategy.
Customizations in PriceLabs helped optimize their pricing strategy
With properties in the urban market, David has to also optimize their pricing strategy for longer stays. PriceLabs’ minimum night restrictions helped them take charge of their booking trends. David mentioned that the very control over their bookings was just what they needed.
Another fun little trivia is that David was rejoiced by our orphan night bookings that he asked our Co-Founder, Anurag, to explain it at least 4 times. It seemed too good to be true to David.
For example, if you were getting a lot of bookings over the weekend, you would be able to increase your prices just for the weekend. With an understanding of the various KPIs of your vacation rental property, you should be able to apply the various customizations of PriceLabs to leverage your pricing strategy.
Support of PriceLabs was what he expected and more
Right from the beginning of their demo with Anurag, our support team guided them in each step. Once their system fell apart, Sana, our Co-Founder, worked with our entire team to make sure that their problem was solved. The support team helped David understand the product and enabled him to manage their listings.
Your [PriceLabs] support is phenomenal
David Lee, Co-Founder at Felix Technology & Managing Director at Uptown Apartments
The easy usage of PriceLabs’ Multi Calendar to Set Customizations
David mentioned that their wife was handling the pricing. They would open up their multi-calendar once a week and be able to find out the position of their pricing strategies within five minutes.
The PriceLabs’ multi-calendar allowed David to view & set pricing customizations and overrides, toggle sync on or off, perform a manual sync or save & refresh their listings. You can view & manage the listings page for multiple listings at once through the multi-calendar.
Result of Using PriceLabs for Revenue Management
As David had mentioned, it is a seamless integration that makes it easier to use PriceLabs. Transparency and a clearly laid out path for users have helped smoothen David’s journey with PriceLabs.
Up until we started using PriceLabs, every year in May and June we were losing money.
– David Lee, Co-Founder at Felix Technology & Managing Director at Uptown Apartments
While the above mentioned are the ways in which dynamic pricing and automated tools have helped Uptown, there are far more ways in which you can leverage technology to maximize your property’s revenue-generating potential.
Revenue management is the building block of your property. Setting the right prices can mean everything and nothing for your vacation rental property. PriceLabs constantly studies the market to find the point at which supply and demand intersect to increase your property’s revenue-generating potential.
