Customer type: Property Manager
Property Type: Short-Term Rental
Region: North America
Products: Dynamic Pricing, Market Dashboards, Portfolio Analytics
Number of listings: 100+
PMS: Guesty
Willy Chang, co-owner of Marbella Lane Vacation Rentals, credits much of his company’s success to PriceLabs. He emphasizes the collaboration of PriceLabs’ co-founders with users, continuously listening, understanding, addressing needs and improving features. This consistent partnership is the reason he confidently chooses PriceLabs year after year.
PriceLabs has helped Marbella Lane;
- Excel in competitive, oversupplied markets.
- Maximize income and bookings by seizing crucial last-minute dates.
- Analyze market data for strategic planning and better decision-making
Background: Willy Chang & Marbella Lane Vacation Rentals
With a background in the Hotel Industry, having worked as the CTO at the Payne Mansion Hotel in San Francisco, Willy Chang is now the co-owner of Marbella Lane, a Property Management company managing over 200+ vacation rental homes in San Francisco, Hawaii, and Los Angeles. Marbella Lane focuses on managing properties located in highly constrained environments (markets with stringent controls and restrictions on the availability of permits for short-term rentals). He is committed to protecting homeowners’ returns.
Before PriceLabs
“If you get your pacing right – you have your revenue on your plate. But, if you don’t capture the key dates, you don’t optimize your revenue, and that’s why I needed a solution like PriceLabs.”
– Willy Chang, Co-owner, Marbella Lane Vacation Rentals
Challenge 1: Uniqueness of each Vacation Rental Home
Unlike hotels, where each unit or room group is more or less identical or similar, each Vacation Rental Home is unique. Hence, when planning pricing and revenue strategies, each one needs to be treated differently. Willy needed a platform or solution that would help him accurately price his portfolio of properties at scale according to each of their unique attributes.
Challenge 2: Unable to capture key dates and optimize revenue
As mentioned earlier, for Willy, pacing is a very important piece of the puzzle that helps him determine his revenue projections. However, it is impossible to optimize revenue without identifying and then capturing occupancy for key dates.
Challenge 3: Last-minute pricing in an oversupplied market
It’s easy to book or pace and optimize revenue on far-out rates, as you have time to get it booked. However, pricing right to capture last-minute bookings in an oversaturated market is key, yet extremely hard. You have a very short window to capture last-minute bookings.
The Journey with PriceLabs
It’s interesting to note that when Willy was first introduced to PriceLabs, he was overwhelmed by the number of customization options. However, the more he researched and educated himself he understood that it was just what he was looking for.
Benefit 1: Incredibly granular customizations that address the uniqueness of each home
“What was overwhelming at first, made absolute logical sense when I thought about it. Vacation Rental Homes are very unique offerings, and cannot be compared to hotel rooms. And that’s why the granularity and incredible array of customizations offered by PriceLabs is so logical; it is built to address the uniqueness of every home.”
Benefit 2: Optimized revenue by capturing last-minute dates in oversaturated, low-occupancy markets
The PriceLabs Hyper Local Pulse algorithm is getting more accurate in recommending prices in oversaturated markets where one usually experiences low occupancy. It provides the right recommendations on key last-minute dates, allowing you to capture market share.
Benefit 3: Clarity and visualization of data, especially for large Property Managers saving time and maximizing revenue
Many companies produce similar data and reports; however, PriceLabs presents this data with clarity and is visually easy to consume, making it stand out. The filters they provide to sift through the data are meaningful and reduce time spent on understanding the data and using it to maximize revenue.
Benefit 4: Constant innovation based on a deep understanding of user feedback
Willy reiterates that the PriceLabs Breakthrough release was a testament to their commitment to listening to users and understanding their needs and pain points to innovate and improve the product offering continuously.
Benefit 5: 24-7 customer support and a solid Knowledge Base
Willy talked about how the plethora of options and features within PriceLabs does get overwhelming. He appreciated PriceLabs’ well-curated Knowledge Base with explainer videos and guides to better understand almost any feature or functionality. That and their prompt email support are sufficient for smaller hosts to operate their accounts. Larger accounts always have the option of reaching out to their account managers.
PriceLabs’ Breakthrough Release
“The pick-up data is better, more real-time. The accuracy is better.
In terms of switching to the Hyper Local Pulse algorithm is easy – it’s simply a toggle switching it on. I didn’t experience any downtime, and the transition was smooth.
We have properties in over-supplied markets, and the Hyper Local algorithm is getting so accurate to address these over-supply situation. A day is already here whereby you could go empty at-least 50-60% of the calendar, and only 3 days you get booked. So you have to be that good to get those 3 days. PriceLabs truly, truly addressed this for me.
– Willy Chang, Co-owner, Marbella Lane Vacation Rentals
