This patriotic short-term rental business more than doubled its size in just six months
More than a Short-Term Rental Business
When Joe Riley deployed to Afghanistan, he and his family knew he wouldn’t be gone long enough to rent out their house to a traditional 12-month tenant, so they decided to list it on Airbnb. This move had a big impact – the property ended up doing so well that when it was time to move to the next duty station stateside, the family kept the property on Airbnb. And with that, Patriot Family Homes was founded.
The Patriot Family Homes team consists mainly of veterans and military spouses and in just a few years, has expanded to over 150 listings across 8 states. This business began with most of its properties located near military bases so that families have short-term housing options while moving between bases, but it has since expanded beyond military towns to popular vacation destinations.
The Patriot Family Homes mission is to “serve families, friends, and colleagues by providing budget-friendly spaces for life’s priceless moments.” As part of their business model, they run an incredible internship program for service members who are in the process of getting out of the military to help them learn the ins and outs of the short-term rental and general real estate market, and transition to the private sector as an effective professional.
The Challenge
The previous PMS Patriot Family Homes used prior to Guesty lacked proper integrations and channel communications and had frequent bugs and glitches in their automations. The team was also searching for a tool that had more robust reporting capabilities and the ability to integrate with some of their other backend systems.
The Solution
Guesty was the perfect solution for Joe and his team. Patriot Family Homes was expanding across the country and the ability to integrate with a variety of OTAs while having a centralized booking channel gave the team peace of mind knowing that their business would run smoothly as it continued to grow and that reservations and communications with guests would come through quickly and accurately.
“What stood out the most was how Guesty has the ability to successfully integrate with a variety of different platforms and booking channels through their Marketplace,” said Joe. Patriot Family Homes has taken full advantage of the Guesty Marketplace. Not only were they able to integrate Guesty with Pricelabs who they were already using for dynamic pricing, but they also discovered Safely and Ximplifi, two additional partners through the Guesty marketplace. “We are now able to offer our owner’s the peace of mind of rental insurance through Safely, and our accounting department has worked with Ximplifi to fully integrate Guesty with Sage Intacct.”
Whatsmore, Patriot Family Homes was in the process of transitioning to having multiple communications agents on at a time because of the volume of bookings and inquiries. Thanks to Guesty’s Unified Inbox, and ability to automate messages across similar listings, they have been able to maintain only one communications agent at a time, even during a period of significant growth.
“It has also significantly simplified the process for onboarding new owners and team members because the Guesty app and website are both more intuitive than any other PMS that we have used,” said Joe.
The Results
Patriot Family Homes has been able to automate bookkeeping, provide advanced analytics to owners, and allow data to flow between systems that multiple directors touch. “Because Guesty integrates so accurately with a multitude of booking channels, imports data from other listings, and duplicates automations to relevant listings with the use of tags and conditions, we are able to quickly build and push new listings to all of the connected channels,” says Joe. This process used to take the team several hours and is now completed in less than thirty minutes.
With the help of Guesty and instituted systems that address the scale of their business, the team has added 10-15 listings to their portfolio a month, expanding to more than 150 listings in 8 states, and have seen occupancy rates increase to over 75%.
Despite industry challenges from Covid, Patriot Family Homes has more than doubled in size over the past six months, increased the number of markets that they operate in, and has doubled the number of employees in the company. With such a rockstar team of military spouses and veterans, all experts in assisting and empathizing with families on the move, Patriot Family Homes is sure to continue this incredible momentum.
