Our Meeting with Voyajoy
April 11, 2020
Anywhere you look or listen, COVID-19 updates dominate the the news and media. This virus is clearly top of mind for everyone, and we all want to stay as informed as possible while this situation develops. Even at our weekly Realtor Networking Meetings – which we now host via Zoom – our discussions have become almost entirely about sharing local news and updates about COVID-19, it’s effects on our industry, and how we should be advising our clients. Still, spending your entire day talking and reading about this virus takes its toll, and often serves to only worsen fears and anxiety. For this reason, we’ve decided to continue bringing in guest speakers to present on non COVID-19 related topics. This pandemic WILL pass, and we want to keep ourselves equipped with information that may be useful to clients who are making plans for the future.
Voyajoy is a company we heard about and reached out to well before the shelter-in-place was ordered. We were very interested to learn more about them, so we kept them on the schedule despite all of the craziness going on around us, and met with Account Executive, Cynthia Kahute, this past Wednesday.
Voyajoy is a property management company for short term rental properties. They handle all of the property manager duties – booking, cleanup, maintenance calls, etc. – which can be particularly burdensome for short term rentals since the turnover is so frequent. They use a proprietary software to place your listing on the platforms that they feel will yield you the greatest annual income. According to Cynthia, this system allows them to get an average of about 25% more rental income per year than the average short-term landlord. The caveat being that there is a revenue share with the company, which comes out 20% of the revenue.
Perhaps the most intriguing facet to their business model however, is that they offer a guaranteed minimum annual income. This is an alluring promise, given the uncertain and often seasonal nature of the short term rental business. This allows property owners to more easily plan for the future, and better assess the value of their property on the short term rental market.
In general, the short term rental market has the potential to be very lucrative. If you can keep your place booked, your annual yield will tend to be greater than were you to rent it out to a long term tenant. The big deterrent for a lot of people thinking about getting into the short term rental business is that the management is such a hassle. Coordinating bookings, cleaning up after each use, making more frequent repairs, stocking the place with supplies, etc. Voyajoy takes care of all of that, which – guaranteed income and proprietary software aside – is a huge boon in itself. They even have an owner dashboard that allows you to keep tabs on your bookings and rates.
We understand that this isn’t exactly a busy time for short term/vacation rentals, but eventually things WILL return to normal. People will start to go on vacation again, corporate housing will be needed again, and we will all get back to the hustle and bustle of our regular lives. So if you have a short term rental property, or had been thinking about renting an in-law unit out prior to this shelter-in-place order, keep this information in your back pocket for when things pick back up.
If you have any questions about the services Voyajoy provides, you can contact Cynthia Kahute directly at (415)728-1024 or cynthia@voyajoy.com
You can also visit their website: www.Voyajoy.com
Thank you for taking the time to join our group, Cynthia!