Managing It Yourself, or Paying an Agency
We charge 20% to run apartments, so treat what follows with appropriate suspicion. We have still tried to write the honest version — including the cases where you should not hire us.
Last reviewed October 2026
What the job actually is
Most owners picture short-term letting as a listing and a set of keys. The listing is perhaps a week's work once. The running of it is a different thing entirely, and it does not stop.
- 01Guest messagesEnquiries, questions before arrival, problems during the stay. Response speed affects both your ranking and your conversion, and enquiries do not respect your working hours or your time zone.
- 02Check-in and check-outArranging access, handling late flights and early arrivals, confirming departure. A lockbox removes most of this — until something goes wrong, and then it is a phone call at an awkward hour.
- 03Cleaning coordinationBooking the clean between every stay, handling same-day turnarounds, verifying it was done to standard, replacing linens and consumables.
- 04PricingReviewing rates against demand, events and competitors. Done properly this is weekly, not annual.
- 05eTurista registrationEvery guest, every day, by law. This is the obligation self-managing owners most often miss, and it carries its own penalty separate from everything else.
- 06MaintenanceSpotting problems between stays, arranging tradespeople, being present for them — generally during working hours.
- 07Reviews and adminReviewing guests, responding to reviews, invoices, tax filings, keeping the books straight.
The hours, honestly
It varies with occupancy and with how much you automate, but the pattern is consistent: the work is not heavy, it is frequent. A few minutes many times a day is far harder to live with than a block of hours once a week, because it never fully leaves your attention.
The real cost is rarely the total hours. It is that the work arrives on the guest's schedule rather than yours — a message during a meeting, a lock problem on a Sunday evening, a cleaner cancelling the morning of a same-day turnaround.
Where self-managing owners lose money
Rarely in one dramatic failure. Almost always in a handful of small, persistent gaps that compound across a year.
- Flat pricing. The single biggest one. A rate set once and left is wrong most of the year, and it is wrong in both directions — leaving money on event weekends and sitting empty midweek in winter.
- Slow replies. Measured in hours rather than minutes, and the booking goes to whoever answered first.
- Amateur photographs. They do not reduce your rate so much as reduce how many people ever see the listing.
- An unmanaged shoulder season. March, November and early December do not fill themselves. They need deliberately different pricing and minimum stays.
- Missed eTurista registrations. Not a revenue loss until it is — and then it is a fine rather than a shortfall.
- One channel only. Listing solely on Airbnb forfeits the Booking.com audience, which skews older, books earlier and stays longer.
What a management fee actually buys
Worth being precise, because 'full service' means different things to different companies. Ours covers photography and video, listing creation and copy, pricing, multi-channel distribution with synced calendars, all guest communication, cleaning coordination, and a monthly report. Our fee is 20% of income actually collected — no setup cost, no fixed monthly charge, and nothing in a month with no bookings.
The arithmetic that decides it is simple. If management raises your gross by more than its own fee, it pays for itself and the work disappears as a bonus. If it does not, you are buying your time back and should price that decision honestly rather than pretend it is free.
| Self-managed | Managed | |
|---|---|---|
| Your time | Ongoing, on the guest's schedule | Effectively none |
| Pricing | As often as you get to it | Actively maintained |
| Channels | Usually one | Several, calendars synced |
| Photography | Your cost | Included |
| Cost to you | Nothing — plus your hours | A share of collected income |
| Empty month | Costs you nothing | Costs you nothing |
When you should manage it yourself
There are real cases, and an agency that pretends otherwise is selling rather than advising.
- You live nearby and enjoy it. Some owners genuinely like hosting. If you are local, have the time and get something out of the guest contact, you will do it well and keep the whole margin.
- You let occasionally. A flat you use yourself much of the year and rent for a handful of weeks does not justify a management relationship.
- Your margin is already thin. A modest apartment in an outer municipality may not have the headroom to carry a management fee. Better to run it yourself, or reconsider whether short-term is the right model at all.
- You already have the system. If you have a cleaner you trust, a pricing routine you actually follow and a channel manager, you have built most of it. The remaining gain may not be worth the fee.
Questions owners ask
Am I locked into a long contract?
Not with us. The agreement is month-to-month with 30 days' notice. We ask only that if you leave within the first six months you cover the actual setup cost — photography and staging — that we invested upfront. Everything is in writing before we take anything over. When comparing agencies, the notice period and any exit cost are the two terms worth reading closely.
Can I still use my own apartment?
Yes. It is your property. You block the dates you want in the owner calendar and we work around them. Blocking peak dates obviously costs you the income those dates would have produced, which is worth knowing before you plan a long summer stay.
Who pays for cleaning and repairs?
Cleaning between guests is covered by the cleaning fee guests pay, so it is not a cost to you. Maintenance and normal wear are the owner's, as with any tenancy — the apartment is your asset. What changes under management is that problems get spotted between stays rather than months later, and anything significant is approved by you before work starts.
What happens in a month with no bookings?
With us, nothing — our fee applies only to income we actually collect, so an empty apartment costs you no fee at all. That is not universal: some agencies charge on gross or carry a fixed monthly minimum. It is worth asking directly.
Not sure which side you fall on?
Send us your apartment's details and we will tell you honestly — including if we think you are better off running it yourself. A free assessment, a projection, and what we would change first. Answer within 24 hours.
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