TurnoverBnB: Coordinate Airbnb Cleaning With Ease

Finding a dependable cleaning crew for your Airbnb can be a difficult task.

When you find a good cleaner, you then need to coordinate turnovers – making sure both the host and cleaning crew are on the same schedule. Thank goodness we stumbled upon the free app, TurnoverBnB.

Hosts must show appreciation to their cleaners, whenever possible. After all, being stuck without a cleaning crew, when your vacation rental is two time zones away, could put your operation out of commission and force cancelations.

Using the TurnoverBnB app will be appreciated by your cleaning crew – take it from me!

Becoming a Vacation Rental Owner

A little background about me: I started up a blog called Abandoned Cubicle roughly three years ago. After a few decades of churning through Corporate America, I was ready to leave it behind. Real estate became my golden ticket, and the opportunities to buy rentals after the housing crash of 2008 were abundant.

I wound up purchasing four long-term rentals for over four years. I was (and still am) learning the ropes about being a landlord and property manager. Having been a landlord for 6 years now, the worst problem I’ve had to deal with has been letting in locked-out tenants. (Knock on wood!!)

I never really had ambitions to take on a short-term Airbnb-style hospitality business. But, the rental market dynamics were changing quickly. You simply couldn’t find good deals in our market anymore. Modest, but solid starter homes that were going for $150,000 were spiking up to $175,000 or higher.

Sure, a few lower-price homes popped up now and then, but they all needed serious rehab. And dropping a lot of coin up-front on a rental property isn’t a smart investment move unless it’s a deep discount or auction property taken on the super-cheap…

Airbnb Has Proven a Profitable Side Gig

So, in 2017 while visiting my parents in northern Michigan, we wound up putting an offer in on a cute upper-level condo. We figured this place, if any, would make a fine vacation rental. Northern Michigan, especially along the Lake Michigan shoreline, is a beautiful getaway during the summer months.

The condo needed some cosmetic TLC and it took a couple of long weekend trips to replace the flooring, and the fixtures and set up all of the furnishings. It was exhausting work. But also rewarding. I headed off to the airport that January day feeling good about the potential this condo had. Even in wintertime, we’d see a handful of guests looking for a ski weekend getaway.

It’s important to note that I did my homework and ran the numbers in Excel before making an offer on this unit. Our long-term rentals clear roughly $500 in net income each month, and I wanted our vacation rental to do as well, or better than that baseline.

If for no other reason than I knew the vacation rental would require more intense management than the highly passive long-term ones.

Here we are, about a year and a half into being hosts, and the experiment is proving successful. Summer months bring in tremendous revenues, but even the winter ski season and fall have been lucrative. What’s our secret? We have an amazingly CLEAN space. The reviews tell no tales – our guests always recognize the cleanliness of the condo.

Cleaning Services Hosts Can Depend On

A host simply cannot be successful in a competitive market, if his or her place is a dump or even just a little unkempt. Luckily, my parents live in the same complex as our condo. They used their network to round up a few candidates and I ended up hiring my first cleaner the last weekend of set up, that frigid January.

Things were going pretty well with her. Never a missed cleaning and never a complaint from guests. I felt I’d hit the jackpot since this was such a crucial part of the business: The turnover. Every single time a new guest arrives, the place has to SHINE. Clean sheets, cleaned towels, and shower curtains, dusted, swept, cleaned out the fridge, etc., etc. Every. Single. Time.

Sadly, my new cleaning friend decided she’d become too busy with this job on top of her others, and she quit cleaning altogether, right before high season was about to begin in late May. D’oh!

Top ways to find cleaning crews:

1. Check listings in TurnoverBnB
2. Craigslist ad
3. Word of mouth
4. Outreach to friendly competitors in your area for referrals
5. Use Handy.com

Handy is worth a look as they provide cleaning crews at a reasonable cost. They perform background checks, have rigid standards, and use experienced cleaners. If your rental is located in a larger market, Handy may be an option to consider.

Finding a reliable cleaning person is essential. Get references from locals or simply ask other hosts in the area who they use. You’ll want your cleaning person to be able to manage same-day turnovers. So it’s best if he or she works with a partner, in case of illness or other conflicts.

Since we live in a different time zone from our vacation rental, our cleaners must get in and assess for any damages or theft before the next guest. This is very rare, but I have had lights left on, the front door left unlocked, and dirty dishes left piled in the sink.

In one instance, a guest decided to help herself to an entire bulk pack of makeup remover wipes. We know to leave out a handful at a time per guest.

How to Compensate and Retain Good Airbnb Cleaners

Paying your cleaner or cleaning crew a working wage is important. Fortunately for most Airbnb hosts, you can afford to pay more if you simply pass on the cost of cleaning to your guests.

This is a fee you add to your listing. We charge our guests $125 for cleaning fees. All of this money is simply passed on to our cleaner after the cleaning is performed.

It’s a fairly high amount for such a small unit, but I’d rather compensate well and keep a good crew dedicated than be cheap and hope the place is being cared for.

Just like all guests aren’t equal, neither is the cleaning that ensues after each stay. Sometimes it takes my cleaner two hours, and other times three.

Not a big deal. We simply make an agreement that every single cleaning is $125 and it’ll average out.

A lot of vacation rental owners pay by the hour, but you have to trust the cleaner is tracking hours honestly. It’s just a lot easier to agree on a flat rate I’ve found.

With the higher flat rate, we also agreed that it’s up to her to help me maintain a 5-star “Cleanliness” category. Regression to four stars could mean less pay or termination.

It’s simply the price you have to pay to make sure your place is ready for a steady stream of guests. Cleanliness is something you can’t afford to go cheap on.

I’d rather pay a bit more, and offer an incentive than get reviews that mention sticky floors, hairs in the tub, or soap scum on the shower walls. It’s non-negotiable.

My cleaning crew is also on task to keep track of cleaning and toiletry supplies. Simple things like toilet paper, paper towels, tissues, soap, and whatnot get used up fast as you churn through guests.

TurnoverBnB to the Rescue!

TurnoverBnB does a nice job of integrating both Airbnb and VRBO calendars. My cleaning crew can accept turnovers and mark them complete as they go.

I had the fortune of finding our cleaning crew before TurnoverBnB came onto the scene. Hopefully, we’ll still have their services for the foreseeable future, but if not, the app has a cleaner listing with local cleaning crews looking for work.

The main advantage of TurnoverBnB is the ability to give our cleaning crew transparency into all of our booking dates. This way, we don’t have to manually manage a calendar or give access to multiple platforms.

TurnoverBnB simply shows the turnover dates and nothing more – not even the guest name. And because its APIs integrate with Airbnb, VRBO, and other vacation rental platforms, the calendar automatically keeps synced in real-time.

My cleaner will accept upcoming cleanings and mark them in the app when a turnover is completed. In each instance, I as the host get an email of these acknowledgments to ensure we’re all in sync. It’s a thing of beauty.

Take Good Care of Your Airbnb Cleaners

You can find a wonderful vacation rental investment opportunity, and you can set up all the right tools to manage the place. But you need to show your cleaning crew appreciation regularly, especially if you don’t live near your rental.

I’ve given our cleaner a couple of raises already, and occasionally send spot bonuses of $50.

I’ll still hear about the occasional “misery days”, where she and her crew are backed up during the seriously busy summer season. But somehow, she got the job done without fail, and I couldn’t be happier.

Make sure you communicate often with your cleaner and be a good listener when there’s a problem. TurnoverBnB makes the process of managing cleaning a lot easier, but you mustn’t forget the personal side of the equation.

Be good to your crew!