SID WAS HERE
Premier Property Management
Looking for full-service management? See our Savannah short-term rental management services →
Short-Term Rental FAQ: Common questions about Sid Was Here Property Management and our approach to managing Short-Term Rental properties. Have inquiries about our services or how we oversee our properties? You can find all the information you need below.
No, there are no up-front costs to get your property onboarded or listed. At Sid Was Here, we invest in your success from the start. We cover professional photography, listing creation, and marketing setup as part of our service, with the understanding that our success depends on your property’s performance.
We list all properties on the major short-term rental platforms — including Airbnb, VRBO, and Booking.com — plus our direct booking site at sidwashere.com.
Sid Was Here gets 30-40% of our bookings from our web site. We are well known in the community and many local travel and real estate groups send guests straight to us.
Yes, we handle the entire process of creating professional listings. This includes:
– Professional Photography: High-quality photos that showcase your property’s best features.
– Listing Optimization: Crafting compelling descriptions, headlines, and verbiage to attract guests.
Your input is always welcome! Whether it’s unique property details, a specific tone, or amenities you want to highlight, we work collaboratively to ensure the listing aligns with your vision while being optimized for bookings.
We have a comprehensive onboarding process where we ask you, the owner, to highlight your property’s best features. This allows us to work as a team to help your home to stand out.
Absolutely. We provide expert guidance on property setup, including recommendations for:
– Style and Decor: Design suggestions to appeal to your target guest demographic. We have several decorators that we work with. We also have a shopping list for you: (LINK TO SHOPPING LIST)
– Essential Amenities: Ensuring your property includes the must-have amenities that enhance guest experiences and encourage five-star reviews.
– Upgrades: Advice on cost-effective improvements to maximize your return on investment.
We share 20% of rent for managing short term rentals and medium term rental.
We clean, restock and manage both the guest and home for this fee. We also pay all taxes associated with your guest’s stay including City of Savannah, Chatham County, Bryan County and State of Georgia taxes.
We do not profit from the cleaning fees. The cleaning fees go directly to the cleaning company, who sets the fee. We want the cleaning fee to be as low as possible in order to attract budget conscious guests.
We do not charge a lower management fee for medium term rentals. Here’s why:
Be wary of low management percentages. Always ask for a list of extra charges. Often a company will get your business with a lower management fee, but make a lot from other fees that you won’t see until later. Examples are padding the cleaning fee, exorbitant fees for small tasks like $80 to change a lightbulb. Ask directly how much they charge to replace towels and do small maintenance items. Keep in mind that at Sid Was Here these fees are typically $0.
The only fee to use your home is the cleaning fee. When you leave, we want to know that your home is clean and stocked to our tight standards. The owner pays the same cleaning fee as a guest, which goes directly to our local cleaning company.
Enjoy your time in your home and don’t worry about cleaning it when you leave.
Each owner has their own portal inside our property management system.
If you have more than one unit, all units will be managed inside your portal. You’ll be able to see all future and past bookings and rental amounts.
You can also block off your own calendar for maintenance, stays and owner guest bookings.
We can even invoice your guests directly if you would like for them to cover the cleaning fee for their stay, simply request this at any time.
At Sid Was Here, we are experts at damage claims.
Every stay is covered by damage protection provided by the booking platform. Coverage terms and limits vary by platform and by stay. We handle any damage claims that arise — documenting the issue, filing with the appropriate platform program, and repairing or replacing items on your behalf.
If we find damage to your home, we document and begin the claim process. Any damaged item is either cleaned or replaced. You, the owner, will not lift a finger. Items will be replaced before the next check in if at all possible. This is the power of a local team living near your home.
This policy only covers the contents of your home, which are the items most likely to suffer damage.
Note: You will need to carry home owners insurance for your home. If your home is renting for less than 30 nights, it is important that your insurance company knows that the home is a short term rental. We have excellent resources for insurance options. Please click this link for more.
It is important to have a professional in charge if your guest refuses to pay. Once the guest has been in the home over 30 days, they do have rights.
Sid Was Here has dealt with payment issues with Medium Term Rentals many time. Online travel agencies like AirBNB, VRBO and Booking and others do not get involved if the guests remains in the home without paying.
In every case so far, Sid Was Here has handled the eviction process for the owner and removed the guest with very little incident. It’s all about knowing the law and who to call when you need them.
It is important to have the right systems to efficiently handle medium term rentals. Very few guests can pay for a 3 month stay up front.
Sid Was Here uses one of the top property management systems for short term rentals. We will break longer stays into payments for your guests, encouraging them to stay with us over a property manager who might demand full payment up front or continue bothering the guest to run their credit card.
Our payment system is automated and handles your income seamlessly and the guest pays according to their booking agreement.
We require each home to have a service plan with a local HVAC company. If you already have a service plan, no problem. We have a partner who offers an annual service plan for a significant discount due to our volume of clients, please inquire about this when you sign up.
At Sid Was Here, we know that your property will make you the most money if all systems remain in working order. Outages cost money in the form of bringing someone to the property. They also cost money because if the guest is without service for more than an hour or two, we will need to offer a refund for their trouble.
A simple biannual maintenance plan for your unit(s) will remove 99% of emergencies and will ultimately put more money in your pocket.
Once you have the service plan in place, simply give us the contact information and we will take it from there.
We are happy to manage your lawn care company as part of our service. If you have a company you like, no problem. If you need a lawn care company, we have several that we work with that are excellent.
Changing property managers is simple. We do all of the heavy lifting.
The first step is to notify your current PM that you will be leaving. It is important to establish the date when their services will be complete.
Contact us to get the management contract completed and give us the date when we will begin servicing. If we can do a photo shoot in your home before taking over, that will speed up the listing process. We can list your property for bookings in our system starting on that date once we have photos.
We have a shopping list that gives all required items. Please click this link.
Decor is a huge part of maximizing revenue for your short term rental. We decorate with a purpose of maximizing revenue. This means knowing what the guest is looking for and delivering it. We would love the opportunity to work on your home as well.
We specialize exclusively in luxury short-term rentals. This focus allows us to provide the level of service, design, and marketing that luxury-seeking guests expect.
If your property is not currently bringing in this amount of revenue, we can show you how to bring this number up significantly.
We love helping owners increase revenue. This would most likely include elevated decor, amenities and photos tailored to a sophisticated crowd.
Luxury properties attract higher-quality guests, generate stronger returns, and allow us to maintain a consistent level of service across our portfolio. By focusing on the top tier of the market, we protect your investment, elevate your property’s brand, and maximize your return on investment.
Absolutely. We’re happy to provide a free property evaluation. If your home meets our luxury standards and/or revenue threshold, we’ll prepare a tailored management proposal. If it doesn’t, we’ll gladly point you toward resources or partners that may be a better fit.
If we think we can get your home to our revenue standards, we will let you know. Please reach out for more information.
Unlike most managers, we’re also investors ourselves. We know firsthand what it takes to make a property cash flow, how to leverage tax strategies, and how to protect your investment long-term. Our portfolio approach and focus on luxury assets sets us apart in the Savannah market.
Our goal is to make your property stand out while delivering a memorable guest experience.
Want a copy of our property management package? Click the link below to download the PDF version:
Sid Was Here Property Management Package PDF
Experience professional management, local market expertise, and a team that lives and breathes short-term rentals. Let the results speak for themselves.
