Owner Onboarding

Welcome to Oceanstays and congratulations. You’ve joined a community of owners who care about creating holidays that feel unforgettable.

You’re not just listing a property, you’re stepping into a partnership where your home is treated with care, your guests are looked after and your investment is protected.

You’re in control of your home and your decisions, while we take care of the detail, the guests and the systems that keep everything running smoothly.

Together, we’ll make sure guests feel the Oceanstays difference the moment they arrive.

The first step is creating your listing. Here’s how it works:

• We organise a professional photo shoot (usually 1–2 weeks’ notice).

• Our team attends the shoot to direct, style and bring props to help sell the dream.

• Photos are edited within 3–5 days.

• We draft your listing within another 3–5 days.

• You’ll receive your draft ad to review and approve.

• We list your property on VRBO (Stayz.com), Bookings.com, AirBnB and Expedia. Your guests may also book directly through our website. This might take a few days to sync.

Alongside your ad, you’ll receive your draft pricing. We use dynamic pricing that adjusts daily according to supply and demand. You set your absolute minimum nightly rate - the lowest you’d accept for low-demand or last-minute bookings. We’ll also set a base rate, usually 30% higher, which drives seasonal pricing.

Nothing is fixed in stone. We’ll refine your ad and your pricing over time as bookings and guest feedback roll in.

We won’t launch until you’ve approved and are happy with your ad and pricing.

FAQs:

DO I NEED ANOTHER PHOTO SHOOT?: If you have existing photos that you wish to use, please double check copyright and ensure you have permission to use them. They should also make your property pop off the page and 'sell the dream' of your holiday home. If the current photos don't do this, it's definitely worth shooting again. We can do a mini shoot if budget is tight. In our experience this investment shows a return for the investment with the additional bookings it generates.

HOW MUCH WILL IT COST?: We like to work with Chloe from Simon Hughes media who charges $620 + GST for stills, aerials and a video (plus travel time if outside of the Clarence Valley). She's very affordable and does a good job for a quick shoot on a budget. If you prefer to scale up, we can also engage Elise Hassey, or Ella from Sana Studio or another photographer of your choice.

Once your draft listing is ready, you’ll receive access to your Owner Portal — your property’s control centre.

Here you can:

• Add owner stays for yourself, friends or family (simply tick the box and enter contact details for friends or family and they will receive communications and support from us)

• Leave cleaning notes or instructions for owner stays

• Update check-in/ check-out times for owner stays

• View bookings and revenue projections

• Access monthly statements and invoices

Simply toggle into the different pages at the top.

If you’d like to host friends or family but still wish for them to pay, they can book through our website with our friends and family discount codes (see below in our FAQs).

'The ‘Owner payout’ in your revenue projections is an estimate only, but is as close as we can get to estimating the net revenue you will receive for a booking. It’s calculated as ‘(Net accommodation fare + cleaning fee) - management commissions - cleaning fee)’ so we’re deducting your cleaning fee as an estimate of your actual cleaning and linen costs since we don’t know what they will be yet. The Net Accommodation fare is the amount the guest pays.

You won’t be able to add Owner Stays until your calendar opens at launch - before then, please send your Owner Stay dates via email to the team member supporting your set-up to ensure we’ve blocked your dates before opening the calendar for bookings.

At the end of each month, you’ll receive your payout and a full statement within five business days. Your statement is itemised so you can see exactly where your money comes from:

Revenue captured is logged at the top of the statements (any ‘pending’ guests haven’t checked in yet or we’re waiting for revenue from the booking channel).

Accommodation fare and cleaning fare are captured under the ‘rentals’ column, the credit card processing fee that is paid to the credit card processor is captured under the ‘cc comm’ column, management commissions are captured in the next column and the difference is at the end. The next section shows your expenses and if you scroll down you’ll see details from your invoices noted at the top.

We offer a full service and very labour intensive, 24/7 service at an affordable price and the only way that we can do this is by having firm systems in place.

Our team is hands-on in your property every week — cleaning, checking and capturing guest feedback.

• If something urgent arises during a stay, we’ll resolve it immediately to protect the guest experience and let you know.

• If it’s a bigger issue, we’ll call you before moving ahead.

• All cleaning and hostie tasks are standardised, so results are consistent no matter who’s on duty.

If you have specific styling preferences — like how you want cushions arranged — share them with us. We’ll record them so your home is presented exactly how you want it.

Before your first booking, we stock consumables, make sure that everything on our set-up checklist is in place, prepare guest instructions and gift bowls and make sure everything is ready. Cleaning is scheduled the day before the first guest arrives to keep it fresh.

Momentum builds after your first three guest reviews. Once those are in, bookings usually accelerate. In the early weeks, we’ll watch your performance closely and promote your property on our social channels to help build traction.

You’ll receive email notifications as bookings land. Do let us know if you’d like us to turn these off for you.

Your property is promoted through Oceanstays’ booking site, e-newsletters and social media. Please subscribe if you haven’t already so you have visibility of our promotions.

If you’d like to go further, we recommend setting up an Instagram page for your property. Even just nine strong images makes your page look polished and allows us to tag you in promotions.

We can also create a dedicated property webpage linked to our booking system. This gives you an easy, professional way to promote your home directly. Just let us know if you would like us to create this for you.

Once your listing is set-up and you are live, you’ll transition from the ‘Onboarding’ phase to ‘Business as usual’. This means that your primary contact person will shift over to your local Operations Team who will support your day to day operations.

This person has full visibility of your listing, performance and history and has the support of our specialist team (eg. Marketing).

Your local Operations Support Manager will reach out to you with a welcome phone call and/or meeting for a warm transition.

Since we manage hundreds of phone calls and messages each day, email is the best way to make sure nothing gets missed and your queries are addressed in a timely manner.

Please find your best contacts below:

During business hours:

• Yamba region: Tess Pitcher tess@oceanstays.com.au please always cc operations@oceanstays.com.au in case Tess is off that day

• Lennox region: Naomi Herbert & Dimity Graham Lennoxhead@oceanstays.com.au please always cc operations@oceanstays.com.au in case the Lennox team are off that day

• Accounts:

  accounts@oceanstays.com.au

If you’d prefer a phone call, please email us and request a callback and specify your availability. We’ll call you back the same day.

Outside business hours:

• Urgent: reply to any reservation-related message (this routes to our duty guest comms manager).

• Non-urgent: email us and we’ll reply the next business day.

Our goal is to reply to all Owner emails/ callback requests the same business day.

We respectfully ask that you don’t sms our team members personally to ensure that your enquiry is in our system and actionable and that you reach someone who is on duty that day.

This system helps us care for guests and owners around the clock while also protecting our team from burnout.

As an owner, you’re in control of your property and your decisions. However there are a few shared commitments we all agree to, because they protect every home in the Oceanstays collection:

• Never cancelling a guest booking

• Maintaining property standards consistently

• Respecting the systems that allow us to provide full service at fair fees

These non-negotiables protect the Oceanstays reputation and keep guests returning, which benefits every owner.

You’re now part of the Oceanstays crew. You’re in control of your home, supported by a team who cares and part of a community of owners who share the same high standards.

Together, we’ll deliver holidays guests remember for all the right reasons — and you’ll see the rewards in your property’s performance and reputation.

Welcome aboard.