Why this matters
Most owners pick a Sedona property manager based on a friendly intro call and a competitive-looking commission rate. They sign a 12-month contract, and twelve months later they discover the manager's pricing strategy is static, the response time to overnight guest issues is six hours, the cleaning fee structure favors the manager, and there are three add-on fees nobody mentioned at signing.
Apply the same standard you'd apply to hiring a financial advisor or a contractor on a major renovation. Ask the questions, get answers in writing, then decide. Anyone who balks at putting answers in writing is telling you something important.
Use this list with any manager you're evaluating — including us. We'd want you to.
What was your portfolio's gross revenue per property last year?
The single most useful number you can ask for. Get it broken down by property size if possible — "average per 4-bedroom home with pool" tells you more than a portfolio-wide average.
Compare against the AirDNA Sedona market median (roughly $50K-$90K for active full-year STRs in publicly available 2025-early 2026 data, with significant variation). A manager whose portfolio averages at the market median is delivering median results. A manager averaging well above it has either a luxury-skewed portfolio or genuine operational outperformance — usually both.
If a manager won't share this number or hedges with marketing language, that's the answer.
What's your average response time to guest messages? Who answers overnight and on weekends?
Airbnb's algorithm rewards fast response. The gap between a 4.7 average rating and a 4.9 average rating — significantly affected by communication speed and quality — is the difference between appearing in default search results and being buried below better-rated competitors.
Specific things to ask: Is there a target SLA in the contract? What happens at 11pm on a Saturday? Is overnight handled by a call center, a rotating on-call rep, or the same person who handles your daytime communication? "We respond fast" is not an answer. A specific number is.
What a strong answer looks like: A specific SLA in writing (e.g., “under 60 minutes during business hours, under 4 hours overnight”), named individuals or a small dedicated team rather than a rotating call center, and the ability to show actual response-time data from their portfolio. What a weak answer looks like: “We're very responsive,” vague references to “our team,” or no commitment in the contract.
Do you use dynamic pricing software? Which one? How often is it manually reviewed?
In a market with as much weekly demand variation as Sedona, this single dimension swings annual revenue by 15-30%. Properties priced statically — "$400/night year-round" — leave significant revenue on the table during peak demand and sit empty during shoulder weeks.
Acceptable answers name a real product (PriceLabs, Wheelhouse, BeyondPricing, etc.) and describe a manual review cadence on top of the algorithm. Unacceptable answers: "we set rates seasonally" or "we let Airbnb's smart pricing handle it."
What a strong answer looks like: Named software, a weekly or bi-weekly manual review cadence, and the ability to explain how they handle Sedona-specific demand spikes (March compression, holiday weeks, wellness retreat seasons). What a weak answer looks like: “Airbnb Smart Pricing handles it” (algorithmic only, no real strategy), or seasonal rate sheets that change every 3-6 months.
What channels do you list on, and do you have a real direct-booking site?
A property listed only on Airbnb misses 15-25% of potential demand from VRBO, direct-booking traffic, and other channels. Multi-channel with synced calendars to prevent double-bookings captures the full demand pool.
"Direct booking" specifically means a website where guests can book your property without going through Airbnb — saving them the 14-18% service fee. Some managers claim direct booking but actually just have a contact form. Ask to see a real, working booking flow on a real site with a real availability calendar.
What's the commission structure, and what does it actually include?
This is where the fee-structure trap lives. Two managers can quote the same 25% headline number with wildly different real costs.
Specifically ask:
• Is commission charged on gross revenue or net of cleaning fees and platform fees?
• Are there separate marketing fees, technology fees, or onboarding fees on top?
• Are maintenance items billed at cost or marked up?
• Are cleanings pass-through to guests or charged to you?
• Is there a payout floor, or do you eat losses in slow months?
A manager charging 28% with everything pass-through often costs less in real terms than a manager charging 22% with stacked fees. Read carefully.
What a strong answer looks like: Commission charged on net revenue (after platform fees and cleaning), no stacked fees, maintenance billed at cost with itemized invoices, and a sample owner statement showing exactly what gets deducted. What a weak answer looks like: Multiple layered fees (technology, marketing, onboarding), maintenance markups described vaguely, or contracts that make the real cost hard to calculate without a spreadsheet.
We'll run a free revenue estimate based on your specific property — bedrooms, amenities, location, photos. You can use it to evaluate any manager you're considering.
Get a Revenue Estimate →How long is the contract, and what's the termination clause?
Reasonable management contracts are 12 months with a 60-90 day notice period for non-renewal, and ideally a "for cause" early termination clause if performance falls below specific benchmarks.
Watch for: auto-renewal terms longer than 12 months, termination fees that approximate the lost commission for the remaining term, and clauses that retain control of your future bookings even after termination. The last one in particular — what happens to bookings already on the calendar if you terminate — is where owners get most surprised.
How do you handle Sedona's permit and TPT compliance?
Sedona requires per-unit STR permits ($210 annually as of January 2025), neighbor notification, $500K minimum liability insurance, and 60-minute emergency response capability. Arizona TPT requires monthly or quarterly filings even when Airbnb collects on your behalf, because you're still required to report and (typically) deduct the marketplace-collected portion.
Ask whether the manager handles the permit application and renewal, owns the relationship with the city, and either files TPT returns or coordinates with your CPA. "We can help with that" is not an answer. Specific responsibility delegation is.
Can I see three references from current owners with properties similar to mine?
Phone numbers, not testimonials. The conversation should last 15 minutes per reference and cover: how long they've been with the manager, how revenue has performed vs. their previous arrangement, how communication has been when problems arise, and (critically) what they wish they'd known before signing.
Reluctance to provide references — or providing only references in dramatically different property categories than yours — is information.
What's your average property tenure, and why do properties leave?
Owners leave property managers for two main reasons: revenue underperformance and communication failure. The manager's answer to this question tells you which problems they tend to create.
An honest answer might be: "Our average tenure is around three years. The owners who leave usually leave because their property's revenue ceiling didn't match their growth expectations — in some cases that's a fit issue at the start, in some cases it's a market shift." That's a real answer.
"Almost no one ever leaves" is not a real answer. Every manager loses owners. The question is whether they understand why.
Who specifically will be responsible for my property?
At national franchises this is sometimes hard to answer — your property is handled by whichever team member is on shift. At local boutiques there's typically a named property manager. At owner-operators the answer is usually the operator personally, or a small dedicated team.
Ask for a name, an email, and a phone number. Ask how long they've been with the company. Ask what happens if they leave the company while you're under contract. The specificity of the answer tells you whether you're hiring a person or hiring a company.
A note on us
For full transparency: we'd answer all ten questions above in writing, before any contract. Our portfolio averages well into six figures per property annually. We use PriceLabs with manual weekly review. We're listed on Airbnb, VRBO, Houfy, and our own direct-booking site with synced calendars. Our commission is transparent and pass-through. Contract is 12 months with a clean termination clause. We handle permits and coordinate with our CPA on TPT. We give references freely. Average tenure is multi-year. The operators are Mike and Garrison — the same two people you'd talk to throughout the relationship.
Use this list with us. Use it with any manager you're evaluating. The point isn't to lead you to one answer — it's to make sure whatever answer you choose, you chose it with full information.
For broader context on choosing a Sedona manager, we've also written How to Choose a Sedona Property Manager → (the decision framework) and Local vs. National Property Management → (a side-by-side breakdown of the three management models).