How Short-Term Rental Management Helps Real Estate Agents Monetise Vacant Properties Before Sale

In New Zealand, properties have a tendency to sit on the market for a few months before finding the right buyer. It’s the nature of how our market moves; buyers are more conservative, especially now, and as you take the time to network the right buyer into the right home, that property sits empty.

That means settlement may be further away than you might like, or your client’s move into a new property might put higher demands on their finances. This can impact your reputation, or even commission. In short, you don’t want that home sitting empty as you work for a sale.

Luckily, it doesn’t have to.

The short-term rental market is thriving in New Zealand, especially in areas closer to the major cities. As a realtor, you can take advantage of that market with a short term rental maintenance company that handles the care, listing of, and day-to-day complexities of a short-term rental property. We even tackle short-term rental maintenance to keep the property in sale-ready condition. Let’s look at how Stayhub can help you monetise a property for your client even before you see a sale.

Before a single guest walks through the door, we implement a strategy to kick off the short-term rental management period. This overlaps with the work you would have already done to position the property in the housing market, but our strategic assessment is aimed at a short-term stay, not a sale.

We define an ideal guest profile and align with local market conditions to establish what your client’s property can realistically achieve as a short-term rental. We also gather data from you on your practice, including scheduled open days, ideal staging (if applicable), and target time periods for short-term stays.

This is where Airbnb property management differs heavily from simply putting up a listing. We use this information to optimise every aspect of the property’s performance on the short-term market, defining ideal nightly pricing bands, minimum stay requirements, and blackout periods.

A vacant property is not as inviting as a furnished, styled home to incoming guests. As a real estate agent, you likely have your own practice for staging homes for sale, though if you don’t, you can enjoy the secondary benefit of a staged, styled, and photographed property, ready for listing.

In either case, we walk alongside you to build the right staging for our defined guest profile and photograph for optimal showcasing on short-term rental management platforms. Airbnb is a top performer, which is why Airbnb maintenance services are our most popular package, but we also list and optimise for other platforms. 

Aside from a high-end styling package incorporated into our service, the technical side is where we really shine. Drawing on our experience with each platform’s algorithmic behaviour, we build and maintain a profile to help the property appear more frequently. This is a key aspect of Airbnb management services, as more stays should build the property into a more attractive place to stay.

Airbnb management services live and die by the day-to-day operation of the property. As a real estate agent, you are focused on selling the property; you don’t need to deal with the ins and outs of short-term rental management, such as handling guests, cleaning, Airbnb property maintenance or driving traffic to the listing.

This is why Stayhub handles it all. Guest communications are managed from 8am to 1am daily. Check-ins are coordinated and executed. In-house cleaning teams turn the property over between guests to a standard that keeps it genuinely open-home ready, not just guest-ready. Airbnb property management at this level means the property is always in a condition that reflects well on the listing, not just on the hosting.

In short, it’s easy. If the idea of a property generating income for your clients while it waits for a sale appeals, consider short-term rental management. We onboard, style, and manage the property, always prioritising open homes and other aspects of the sale process when managing guests.

Curious about how this might work for your current properties? We can help.

Put cash in your client’s pocket well before a sale takes place. List a high-quality property with the assurance that it will be well-managed, proactively monitored, and ready to move off-market at the touch of a button. We even tackle any necessary Airbnb property maintenance to keep the home in tip-top condition.

With Stayhub tackling the short-term rental management, you can enjoy the ultimate peace of mind as you secure the right buyer. Get in touch today for a free appraisal on what your property could earn while on the short-term rental market.