Hospitable introduces a number of new features for scaling

USA: Vacation rental management platform Hospitable has announced a series of new features designed to give hundreds of thousands of hosts the opportunity to professionalize and scale.

Starting today, Hospitable customers can automatically generate owner statements, perform additional guest screening, deploy rental agreements, and customize payment terms—all without any prior co-hosting experience. The features, some of which are being introduced in Hospitable’s new “Mogul” plan, provide hosts with the professional tools and reporting capabilities they need to transition from managing their own properties to managing the properties of others.

Aspects such as financial reports, rental agreements, guest screening and setting payment terms have traditionally been difficult for hosts without experience and required extensive resources and expertise that are out of reach for many. With the new tools, Hospitable aims to bridge the gap between self-managers and professional property managers, enabling hosts of all sizes to professionalize their operations and achieve scalable growth.

Automated owner statements allow hosts to provide ultimate financial transparency to the owners of the properties they manage. The feature provides a consolidated view of reservations, commissions and other transactions, laying a solid foundation for efficient accounting.

Hosts can also easily present rental agreements to guests for signature, thus improving their legal protection.

Additionally, Hospitable has partnered with Autohost to offer ad-hoc guest verification, coming soon. This feature will enable hosts to perform thorough checks on OTA bookings, including ID and selfie verification, fraud detection, social media account verification, and checking for negative media content.

Unlike other platforms, hosts can screen guests ad hoc and have the choice of whether to do so for properties where the owner has requested it or for new guests, providing an additional layer of protection beyond the basic screenings provided by OTAs.

Hospitable’s new Payment Terms feature allows hosts to set up structured payment plans on their direct booking websites, which is ideal for larger properties or longer stays. Similar to OTAs, managers can set partial payments (e.g. 50% up front and 50% 30 days before a stay), simplifying the booking process by not requiring full upfront payments.

Pierre-Camille Hamana, Founder and CEO of Hospitable, said: “The technology landscape in the short-term rental industry has prevented self-managers from growing their business. Many property management software options have a minimum number of properties and are tailored to managers who already issue owner statements or leases themselves, making it incredibly difficult for entry-level individual hosts to make the transition to managing multiple properties.

“For self-managers, managing complex aspects of property management such as financial reporting and drafting solid lease agreements can be very challenging. At Hospitable, our goal has always been to provide self-managers with a level playing field and access to the resources they need to succeed.

“By equipping self-managers with skills traditionally reserved for large property management companies, we continue to break down the barriers self-managers regularly face and empower them to become moguls,” he added.