Twelve stages
to your first guest.

Feasibility & city check

Whether short-stay letting is lawful in the target city at all, and on what terms. Registration or permit regime, night caps, primary-residence conditions, zoning restrictions and tax obligations.

Note. This is the gate. If a city has closed, capped or conditioned short letting in a way that breaks your model, nothing further happens and you have lost only the engagement fee.

Entity formation

LLC or Corporation in the United States, private limited company in the United Kingdom, with registered agent or office, tax identifiers, constitutional documents and ownership register.

Note. The company holds the leases, the contracts and the liability. Operating a short-stay business in your personal name across a border is rarely the right structure.

Tax & statutory registration

Federal, state and local registrations, transient occupancy or lodging tax where it applies, VAT position in the UK, and a written annual filing calendar.

Note. Short-stay letting frequently attracts a separate lodging or tourist tax collected per booking. Platforms collect it in some jurisdictions and not others, and the difference matters.

Property sourcing & the four gates

Identifying candidate properties, then checking each against city permission, the lease or title, the building's own rules, and the mortgage or insurance position.

Note. All four must clear. A property can be perfectly legal under city rules and still be prohibited by its freeholder, its lender or its policy. We check before you commit money.

Consent & contracting

Landlord's written consent for Model B, management agreement for Model A, or purchase and conveyancing coordination for Model C, with licensed professionals engaged for the regulated parts.

Note. For arbitrage this stage is pass or fail. We do not proceed on a verbal assurance, a silent lease, or a landlord who will 'probably be fine with it'.

Registration, permits & safety

Short-term rental registration or licence where required, safety certification, smoke and carbon monoxide compliance, and any inspection the authority mandates.

Note. Safety certification is not optional and it is the first thing an authority checks after a complaint. In several jurisdictions it is also what your insurance depends on.

Insurance

Short-term rental or commercial cover placed through licensed brokers, plus liability and contents, sized to the model and the property.

Note. A standard homeowner or landlord policy generally excludes short-stay commercial use. Platform-provided protection is not a substitute for a policy and does not cover most of what you need.

Furnishing & fit-out

Specification and installation to a standard that photographs well and survives turnover: furniture, linen, kitchen, connectivity, smart locks, safety equipment and the consumables system.

Note. Furnishing is where budgets overrun. We specify to a defined standard with a costed list before anything is bought, and we buy for durability rather than for the photo.

Listings, photography & technology

Professional photography, listing copy and setup across platforms, channel manager to keep calendars synchronised, dynamic pricing tool, guest messaging system and a direct booking page.

Note. Photography drives listing performance more than almost anything else you control. It is the one line in the budget we will argue against cutting.

Local service partners

Cleaning, laundry, linen supply, maintenance contractors and key or access arrangements contracted on the ground, with backup providers identified for each.

Note. These are contracted per job rather than employed, so cost scales with occupancy. A single cleaner with no backup is the most common operational failure point.

Documentation & procedures

House rules, guest handbook, check-in and check-out procedure, cleaning checklist, damage and incident process, maintenance schedule and the compliance calendar — all handed to you in editable form.

Note. You own every document at handover. If you end the relationship with us, the business keeps running on its own paperwork rather than being locked to our systems.

Launch & stabilisation

Go live at an introductory rate to build the first reviews, thirty days of close monitoring, correction of what the plan got wrong, then transition to the standing guest desk.

Note. The first few reviews disproportionately determine ranking and therefore revenue for months. Launching under-priced and over-serviced is deliberate, not a mistake.