OwnerRez: Empowering Vacation Rental Owners with Software Solutions

The following is a sponsored post by OwnerRez, fast, flexible vacation rental software that covers small homeowners and large PMs alike.

Meet Paul Waldschmidt and Chris Hynes, OwnerRez Software Developers

OwnerRez founders Paul Waldschmidt and Chris Hynes have been developing software together for over 20 years. They’ve developed software for tiny non-profits, massive media corporations, large bureaucratic government agencies, and everything in between. They’ve learned invaluable lessons from their involvement in both failed startups and wildly successful ventures.

Challenges in Vacation Rental Management

Like most Vacation rental property owners, Chris and Paul saw a tremendous opportunity and great personal and financial benefit in getting into the short-term vacation rental space. They co-purchased a cabin on the river and immediately discovered that it was going to take time, money, energy, and effort to run a successful rental business, even with just a single property!

They had the resources, but not the time to devote to the business, as both were still very busy with their primary careers as software developers, so they hired a property manager, which drastically ate into their profit margins. Chris and Paul added more properties over time, but still felt like the property managers were overcharging and under-delivering.

From Software Projects to Vacation Rentals

Chris and Paul looked into software that could help them manage the properties themselves, but surprisingly for such a burgeoning industry, there were few options, and none that would meet all their needs. Airbnb had yet to be created, and VRBO was nothing more than a glorified classified ad site at the time.

What Chris and Paul were after was software that would help them automate much of the process, thereby limiting their time spent doing repetitive menial tasks and allowing them to spend more time on tasks that would maximize their profits – really, the gist of most business software programs.

OwnerRez’s Comprehensive Solutions

Chris and Paul did what any good entrepreneurial-minded business owner/software developers in their position would do – build the software themselves, and OwnerRez was born. Initially they focused on building a program that would auto-respond to inquiry emails with a custom quote and then allow the guests to finalize the booking and make payment, then have this booking sync across calendars. From its humble beginnings, OwnerRez has grown into the world’s most powerful, top-rated vacation rental management software that can handle all of the following vacation rental management needs:

• Channel Management – Instead of using third party managers, OwnerRez built direct partnerships with the major channels with lightning fast, clean and simple connections.
• Messaging – Guest communication is a critical element for any business. OwnerRez users can create personalized templates that represent their brand and send messages automatically with powerful triggers.
• Websites – Build a brand and start driving customers to your own website instead of third party channels.
• Payment Processing – As an independent software product for vacation rentals, OwnerRez does not dictate what specific payment method or listing site you use.
• Integrations – OwnerRez has tons of integrations, and continues to add more while keeping existing ones up to date.
• CRM – Customer Relationship Management is key to running a successful business. OwnerRez helps automate and store all guest records for your marketing purposes to build and maintain lasting relationships.
• Reporting – OwnerRez offers a wide variety of reports, which are able to cover most situations where you’d want to extract data that has been collected. The vast majority of these reports can be exported to Excel and/or CSV files, allowing you to perform your own research with the data.

Customer-Driven Development

OwnerRez is constantly adapting and improving as the needs of its users change. Chris, Paul, and their team of hand-selected developers have released hundreds of product updates, new features and integrations with third-party companies to continually make OwnerRez the top tool available for property owners/managers.

Many of the new features have come as a direct result of listening to feedback from OwnerRez customers about what they’d like to have in a comprehensive, one-stop Vacation Rental software program. That’s the beauty of having in-house development and a great relationship with your customers.

Chris and Paul’s Ongoing Roles

Chris and Paul continue to play significant roles in the day-to-day operations and the development side of OwnerRez, empowering the company to remain profitable and debt-free while eschewing outside investment, thereby maintaining control and providing the best product possible at the best price possible for OwnerRez customers.

Learn More About OwnerRez

To learn more about what OwnerRez can do for your short term rental business and have any questions you may have answered, join us for one of our weekly Demo Webinars, where one of our client engagement team members will give a brief overview of OwnerRez, demonstrate some of OwnerRez’s most useful features, and answer questions from attendees. Oh yeah, and we’ll give you a free t-shirt just for attending!