DoorLoop vs Hostaway: Which is a better fit?

Charlie: Hi, I'm Charlie. I'm broker and owner and property manager with Front Porch Properties here in Madison, Wisconsin. We're a small boutique property management. We handle single family short-term rentals, and then smaller multifamily portfolios. We would give Doorloop five out of five stars. We used a software platform that is online right now. We just felt that that platform didn't have all the tools integrated into one space, and then we thought that was what was really missing. And so that's why we took the opportunity to meet with Doorloop and have the conversation about, "Here's what we have that is what we think is wrong, what we'd like to fix in the future, and if we grow our company, how would Doorloop grow with us?" And they seem to match all those needs. The ultimate reason we decided to go with Doorloop is because everything's in one platform, from managing tenant requests, handling applications that come in, and we can create specific ones on property, we can do all of our advertising, we can keep all of our files in one space. And I think one of the better things is from a income and reporting, to get all of our distribution and information to our ownership groups, but also, our tenants have a portal where they can use it and be very integrated to pay all their stuff online. So again, just everything seems to fit into one area, and that was really, really important to us. Onboarding Doorloop seemed to be very easy. They gave us some really nice instructions of how to pull information out of our old system, what it would look like... Basically onboarding all the information we needed for Doorloop. And then it was just some simple training. We went through their online academy, learned all of their steps, and anytime we've had any particular issues or stuff that we didn't know how to handle, they've been available to either chat with us or to jump on a call. Well, we recommend Doorloop highly to other people that are running property management companies, or if you're managing your own small portfolio of properties, we would say give Doorloop at least a chance. Look at their software, look what they're offering and see if it's right for you.

Doug: Hi, I'm Doug. I'm the manager of The Pickleball Haven of Naples. I've been working with Hostaway now on the onboarding process, and I'd rate them a five on a scale of one to five. We're a brand new property that was just completed in Naples, Florida. The Pickleball Haven of Naples is a pickleball retreat that needs exposure, and we're brand new and we're just getting started, with Airbnb initially. And then we needed a channel manager to really work with Hostaway. That was the reason for working with the Hostaway company. So we did some research on the internet and looked at different companies, interviewed a few different companies for channel management. We'd actually been referenced to Lodgify, but we met with the Hostaway people, real impressed with the process, real impressed with the people, real impressed with the app. So we made the decision to go with them. So getting started with Hostaway was really quite simple. They do have an onboarding fee, which was quite reasonable compared to some of the other options we were looking at. The thing I'm most excited about with the onboarding process is we've got a wonderful leader that's taking us through the process, [inaudible 00:01:10]. And when you go through the process on these one-hour meetings, which are efficient, but they keep working with you until you get it right. So we've got a lot of complexity attached to what we're doing. We're building websites, we're doing payment processes for different sophisticated payment options for how we do the algorithms, and it takes a number of processes to go through that. So they just keep working with you on the onboarding process until you're satisfied with where you are, which is a huge advantage for us because if you try to rush this, you're going to miss stuff. So it's been a really good, healthy process so far. So I'd strongly recommend Hostaway to anybody that's in our situation of really trying to figure out the complexity of Airbnb, Vrbo, Booking.com, Expedia, Google. I mean, it's complex. And the opportunity that we've had with working with Hostaway is really coordinating all of that and have a direct website as well. So you get challenges. It's not an easy process, but the support is fantastic. I just spent an hour with the support team yesterday on a particular problem I had with creating a new website, a new web domain that's integrated with the website Hostaway. And they just kept sticking with me. And I've just had so many calls with support teams in the past where they get frustrated, they throw their hands up. It's like, Booking.com is one of them, and they don't follow through on what they said they're going to do. And Hostaway, in their situation they just kept getting more people, frankly, to help with the complex situation I was in until we figured it out. So they stick with it, and it's a great app. The app does so much for you. It's almost limitless in terms of what it can do for you, but to take full advantage of it, you need the support to be able to get it right. And we're really trying to build a sophisticated process with the Pickleball Haven of Naples. It's a wonderful new property. It needs exposure, and it's getting us that exposure. And so far, so good. And we've already had two bookings before we're even fully onboarded with Hostaway. So Pickleball Haven of Naples is very happy with Hostaway at this point.