Why Choose Birch?
Listing ownership
You own the listing and we become an external partner on your airbnb listing which allows us to message with guests, send check-in/out instructions, set pricing, change descriptions and modify the calendar as needed. As the listing owner you will be able to see as much or as little of the communication between us and the guests that you prefer.
Why is this important?
As the airbnb listing owner, if you decide to end your services with us, you will not lose your listing, all future bookings, past reviews and contact information from all previous and future guests.
Listing exposure
Currently, Birch is able to get the highest amount of exposure for your listing in the Mt. Washington Valley. Your home will be listed on our high traffic website, Airbnb, VRBO, Expedia, Booking and Marriott Homes and Villas. We are the only local short term rental management company in this area with a partnership with Marriott therefore you will have the absolute most exposure when listing with us. You cannot partner directly with Marriott, it must be through a professional management company that manages 50+ Luxury homes.
Guest Vetting
We vet our guests. Now more than ever it’s important to make sure we know who is requesting to stay at your home. With multiple processes in place and 25+ age restrictions, we do not have issues with our renters. If something feels off or just not right, we have absolutely no problem declining that request. We truly treat your home as if it was our own.
No pricing technology. Ever.
Algorithm dynamic pricing tools sound really cool right? Nope, not cool at all. Would you like to base your nightly rate off of the guy down the street who has completely different financial goals than you? For example: Joe, the neighbor, has a similar square footage home in a similar location but hasn’t done any work to his house like you have over the years. Also, you have a hot tub and some really nice furniture. All Joe wants is $250 a night becuase that will pay his basic utilites and doesnt really know what his house is worth per night. When technology is used for pricing, you are predicating your nightly rates on Joe, when his numbers have literally nothing to do with your home. We manually set pricing on an every-other-day basis specifically for each individual home using history, future projections, current events and current STR market data.
Occupancy Rate
Our current average occupancy rate: 52.1%
Current industry-standard in North Conway: 44.9
What does this mean?
The average occupancy rate is the number of nights booked divided by total nights available to be booked across all relevant listings. Our occupancy rate is averaged across all the properties we manage.
For example: If you had 200 nights booked in the last 365 days and 300 nights available to be booked. 200 divided by 300 total nights means your occupancy rate is 66.67% for the past year.
Cleaning Inspections
Everyone makes mistakes. Yes, our cleaners are all amazing and do the best job they can do but we are all human. For this reason we have hired 4 full time cleaning inspectors. These four workers have cleaned for us for a while and know all the properties inside and out. The job of the inspector is to check the house after the clean and before the check-in. With 2 sets of eyes on the house, there is very minimal margin for error.
Communication
We are local. You will have the direct cell phone number of a person on our team. This person will know your property inside and out. You will be able to get in touch via call or text anytime during normal business hours and obviously after hours if there is an emergency. When you put someone in charge of taking care of your precious investment, you will quickly realize how important grade-A communication and quick responses are.
Agreement
We work month-to-month and do not require a 12-month contract. We also do not require a specific amount of days for your house to be listed online. Many of our owners visit their home at least twice a month and that is fine with us, it’s your home and you should enjoy it. Just let us know via our online portal and we will block off the days and make sure it’s clean for you!
We are local
We only manage properties in the Mount Washington Valley. This is important as our office and team is based right here in North Conway. We do not venture anywhere else in order to maintain a solid pulse on this specific market, trends. Concentrating on only one region allows us to keep a close relationship with all of our workers and local businesses.
Summary
Whether you choose Birch Hospitality to manage your home or not, these are questions that you should ask in order to keep your earnings transparent and your investment safe.
9 Questions you should be asking:
1. Who will the Airbnb listing owner be?
2. Where will your home be listed?
3. Do you vet your guests? If so, what’s that process look like?
4. How do you set your nightly rates?
5. What is your current average occupancy rate?
6. Do you have someone inspect the every single clean?
7. Who is my main point of contact?
8. What does the agreement look like?
9. Where are the all houses you manage?
If you have any further questions or would like to speak with one of our current homeowners to hear about their experience working with us, please feel free to reach out here.
New Hampshire areas of service: Conway, North Conway, Glen, Bartlett, Jackson and Intervale.
Maine areas of service: Fryeburg, Bridgton, Sweden and Demark