The world’s most successful property management companies understand the delicate balance of setting prices, manipulating restrictions, coordinating distribution, and revenue management. A solid vacation rental revenue management strategy is essential for increasing the profits of such companies. To get a bit more technical, revenue management is ‘trying to balance the risk and reward by capturing the highest ADR while optimizing the occupancy to get to the best possible RevPAR’. This can be done by managing the pricing, restrictions, and bottom line of the rental companies.
While most newcomers to revenue management begin by adjusting their prices and minimum length-of-stay restrictions, a true revenue manager takes charge of all aspects of the revenue side of the business and this is how Andrew McConnell founded RENTED.
Andrew McConnell was born in Birmingham, Alabama, the United States of America, on June 24, 1981. In 2003, he graduated from Harvard University with a BA in History. In 2006, he received his LL.M. degree from the University of Cambridge, and in 2007, he received his Doctor of Law (JD) from Harvard Law School. Having the abilities of a number-crunching expert, he worked as a banker, an attorney, and a consultant before going out on his own.
Prior to launching RENTED, McConnell founded and ran Vacation Futures, Inc. and Rented Capital, LLC, and worked with some of the world’s largest public and private entities as a management consultant at McKinsey & Company and as a director, Solutions Design at Axiom Global, Inc. His former experience also includes putting his law degrees to immediate use at Eversheds Sutherland (US) LLP and Ashe, Rafuse & Hill, as well as time at Merrill Lynch.
Later, McConnell founded his own company named RENTED, a leading provider of technology, tools, and services to help vacation rental professionals optimize their property portfolio. RENTED provides revenue management solutions that are both full-service and self-service. For over three years, its revenue management team has provided dynamic pricing solutions for over 4,000 listings globally. With hands-on service, property managers have consistently realized RevPAR increases of over 30%, even during the most difficult periods of COVID travel challenges.
McConnell has strengthened his team to create the product roadmap for his own Automated Rate Tool (ART), after working with all tools in the market. ART provides short-term rental managers access to a very powerful, yet simple-to-use pricing tool that is unique in the industry. The data warehouse of RENTED is fed by proprietary source data, historical market data from its partnership with KeyData, and billions of data points scraped from all channels. ART’s models and cohorts are demand-driven, and its dynamic pricing is forward-thinking and unique in the space.
McConnell understands all aspects of the role of vacation managers, from operations to sales, because of his background in short-term management and revenue management. Property managers, revenue managers, and support staff from the industry make up the expert team of RENTED. With many years of experience, the company has managed, marketed, and built relationships from and within the industry.
The revenue managers of RENTED are the driving force behind its product roadmap; they have firsthand knowledge of all pricing tools on the market. RENTED developed a powerful yet user-friendly tool with extremely robust functionality as a result of his diversified experience. Given his expanded knowledge, he is a board member of Sheltering Arms, a founding board member of Atlanta Technology Leaders, and a TechStars Mentor for social impact startups.
Andrew believes in keep changing the original operating idea for property managers repeatedly due to which his business model includes the ability to adapt to customer and market demand. He began trading futures contracts for vacation rental weeks, which grew exponentially until he discovered a small demand for the product. The company’s next phase included raising a fund to guarantee the owners’ rental rates in order to provide owners with a consistent stream of returns and book renters at market rate.