Beckon Homes: Navigating the New Landscape Together

A Decade of Excellence
Beckon was born on the back of a napkin in 2013 and officially launched in 2015. Over the past decade, we've navigated three election cycles, half a dozen natural disasters, a global pandemic, a travel boom, inflation, and economic fluctuations. Throughout it all, we've managed a short-term rental portfolio worth $150 million and welcomed about 250,000 guests. We've seen and done it all, and each season has brought new challenges, crossroads, decisions, and technology.

Our Founding Promises
In reconnecting with our owners lately, I've realized it's hard to quantify, let alone qualify, the attention we bring to the homes we work in and the owners we care so deeply about. Shaun and I founded Beckon with two promises to ourselves and each other:

1. We would only work with people (clients, team members, contractors) who were "brunch" people—those we'd happily spend a Sunday morning over pancakes dreaming with.
2. We wanted to make our corner of the world a better, more beautiful, equitable, and kinder place.
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Bridging Hospitality and Home
Managing properties for us is about creating a beautiful, comfortable place for our guests to gather, celebrate, grow deep roots and memories, and invest in meaningful vacations with meaningful people. For our owners, our mission is to maximize their investments from both a revenue-generation perspective and in the capital preservation and improvements of their properties. All too often, we tour new properties managed by other companies to find tens of thousands of dollars worth of repairs, improvements, or renovations needed due to a lack of attention and care.

The Current Landscape​
As of May 2024, the environment is no longer the "easy money" era that followed Covid. With inflation and interest rates higher, and domestic travel opening up, travelers now book higher-end travel less often. In these harder times, our job becomes exponentially more important. We fight for every reservation, every dollar, every guest, and every owner.

Our Commitment to Excellence​
1. Recurring Monthly 50-Point Marketing and Hospitality Audit:
Our team spends time in each listing daily, manipulating listing quality by changing titles, picture captions, offering special coupons, soliciting add-on days, manually overriding our automated pricing algorithm, and more. These "simple" pings are a complex web of actions we've developed to keep your property listed as high as possible in search results. Each action pings the search algorithms on each platform, hopefully rewarding us with more interest in our listings.
2. Routine, Preventative, and Proactive Maintenance:
We understand a well-maintained property is no longer a "nice to have" but a necessity. Our master carpenter and facilities manager are on staff and on call, not just to respond to guests, but to spend meaningful time in each property to suggest or make improvements to its overall condition. The average property has someone spending a minimum of 6 hours per week in it—cleaning, inspecting, repairing, and reporting.
3. 24/7/365 Responses:
Your guests receive 24/7/365 responses via text, phone, and email from our highly trained, thoughtful, and kind team. The human element often makes the difference between a negative and positive review, especially during challenging times. Our team has considered every touchpoint of every stay, ensuring guests never feel deserted, even in unprecedented circumstances.
4. Leveraging Technology and AI:
Our tech stack, including property management software, operations software, pricing algorithm software, and AI, helps us manage properties masterfully. We invest in these tools to make management seamless for your guests and as profitable as possible for you. Our AI tools scan guest messages and reviews, creating task reports to assign to our team, ensuring everything a guest notices gets addressed.
5. Listing Your Property Across the Universe:
Our reach has now surpassed over 17,000 sites! Our main hubs are Airbnb, VRBO, Expedia, Tripadvisor, Whimstay, and Marriott, but our partnerships extend far beyond, ensuring your property is seen by potential travelers everywhere.
6. Revamping Our Financial and Reporting Systems: So much of this industry is so new. We were one of the first-of-its-kind companies to manage vacation homes and rentals, and the backend of the business is still catching up. This year, we revamped our financial reporting and just this month, we've launched access to your statements directly in your owner portal. We have big plans to continue to share transparently with our owners and want you to be able to see, on demand, anytime something is going on at your property. We also have plans to allow you to pay all property-related expenses directly via credit card, maximizing your gross revenue numbers for business building or funding purposes...and of course- those airline miles!
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Embracing the Future
We understand that the impact of our work is hard to feel when numbers are down, which, transparently, they are across all of our markets and properties right now. This is typical of an election year, especially given the current market conditions, but we know this doesn't make it easier to hang in there.

Optimism and Commitment​
Despite the challenges, we remain committed to supporting you and your home while providing excellent service. Over our decade of service, we've seen time and again that what goes down always comes back up. The wait can be frustrating, but we believe in what we do, what you've invested in, and what lies around the bend. This belief is reinforced not only by our past experiences but also by our meetings with venture capital firms, mentors, and industry professionals.

While the current environment may not be reassuring, we will continue to fight hard for you and your home. We believe that the tide will turn, the cream will rise, and we intend to be there alongside you.

Thank You

Thank you for your trust, confidence, and business. We're honored to partner with you.

Isabeau and Shaun

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