Questions owners ask
The ones that come up before anyone signs anything. If yours is not here, ask it and we will answer it the same way.
What is co-hosting, and how is it different from property management?
A property manager moves your home onto their account. Their name, their reviews, their Superhost status. Co-hosting means the listing stays in your name and we operate it for you. If you ever leave, you keep everything you built.
What does Holdfast Stays charge?
Our fee is 15 to 20 percent of nightly revenue, depending on the property, plus a one time $500 licensing fee, only if we obtain the licenses for you. No onboarding fee, no photography fee, no marketing fee. If the home earns nothing, neither do we.
Why 15 to 20 percent when some managers charge 10?
Because the percentage is one line of the bill, not the whole of it. A lower headline rate can be everything you pay, or it can be where the bill starts. The only way to know is to ask. These are the questions worth putting to any manager, us included:
- Is the cleaning fee marked up, and by how much?
- Is there an onboarding or setup fee?
- Is a charge added to repairs and maintenance, or to arranging them?
- Whose account is the listing on?
- If you leave, what happens to your reviews?
With Holdfast the listing stays on your own account, with us added as co-host. The reviews stay on it, the ones you earned before us and the ones we earn with you, and so does your Superhost status. There is no onboarding fee. Our fee is 15 to 20 percent of nightly revenue, depending on the property, plus a one time $500 licensing fee, only if we obtain the licenses for you.
Some houses suit a 10 percent manager and some do not. Compare the whole bill, and what you keep if you leave, and the answer is usually clear.
The full breakdown, with a side by side comparison, is on the pricing page.
Which areas do you manage in?
Fort Lauderdale, Pompano Beach and Wilton Manors in Florida, plus Evergreen in Colorado, Newburgh in New York and Ostuni in Puglia. If your property is somewhere else, ask anyway. We already manage across Florida, Colorado, New York and Puglia, so a new location is a question about the house rather than about the map.
Do you handle the vacation rental license and inspections?
Yes. Certificates, fire and building inspections, and the town specific rules that differ between municipalities. Pompano Beach treats anything under six months as a short term rental where Fort Lauderdale uses 30 days, and the paperwork is different in each.
Who handles cleaning and maintenance between guests?
Established cleaning teams in each market, scheduled against the booking calendar. Maintenance is coordinated by us and carried out by trades we already work with.
How is pricing set?
Rates and minimum stays are managed daily against real demand by a dedicated revenue manager, rather than set once and left alone.
Can I still use the house myself?
Yes, whenever you want. You get an owner portal, so you can block the dates yourself and see the booking calendar, the payouts and how the house is performing whenever you feel like looking, without asking anyone for a report. It is your house, and an arrangement that quietly discourages you from using it has the relationship the wrong way round.
What happens if I want to leave?
You leave. There is no long contract and nothing to unwind: the listing is already in your name, the reviews are already yours, and your Superhost status was never interrupted. That is the point of co-hosting rather than handing the property over.
Already have a manager? Here is how switching works.
Do I need to arrange photography, or fit a smart lock?
No. Both are included and both are ours to organize. We install the smart lock and we coordinate the photography, because a house photographed badly earns less no matter how good it is, and self check in has to work every time without you being involved.
A guest messages at 2am. What happens?
They get an answer. Guest messages are answered around the clock, not held until morning.
Which sites will my house be listed on?
Airbnb, VRBO, Booking.com and Google, plus direct bookings through this website, and we can add more channels than those where a house suits them. In practice the majority of bookings come through Airbnb by some distance. Direct bookings avoid the service fee the platforms add to the guest, which is why we push them where we can.
Do you take bookings directly, or only through the platforms?
Both. Every house on this site is bookable here without the platform service fee, and those bookings sit alongside the platform calendars rather than competing with them.
Or call (954) 520-7544.