Time That Counts: How the right vacation rental technology gives Mary Ann Kaye work-life balance

Mary Ann Kaye loves working as a short-term rental property manager at Casas de Guadalupe in Santa Fe, New Mexico, because of the personal connections she makes with guests.

The hamlet of 12 vacation rental “casitas” is a short stroll from Santa Fe’s most illustrious attractions: the historical plaza, the Santa Fe Railyard, and the Georgia O’Keefe Museum.

“My favorite thing is when I get to visit with the guests as they’re getting ready to go out and enjoy the city or go hiking or whatever they’re going to do,” Mary Ann said.

Yet, it’s her connection with short-term rental technology that has enabled her to focus her energy on where she can make the greatest difference in the business and to simultaneously achieve greater work-life balance.

All work and no play

After a 15-year career working in various roles in the hotel industry, in 2009 Mary Ann accepted an offer from her brother-in-law to manage Casas de Guadalupe, which he had bought along with two other partners in 2007.

At the time, Casas de Guadalupe was listed on two different booking platforms. In just a few years, Mary Ann had expanded that to at least five different platforms. Keeping up with bookings on multiple platforms and then manually adding those reservations to a master calendar presented an ongoing challenge.

 “Every time we booked something, I had to go back in and block out the space so that there wouldn’t be any overbooking because the different platforms didn’t talk to each other,” she said. “I had no life. I couldn’t do anything. I couldn’t even go out for dinner and a movie because I was freaking out that someone might double-book a casita.”

Connecting the dots

In 2017, Mary Ann received a call from a sales representative from Futurestay describing the company’s online operating system for short-term rental management. Some of those services include interconnecting and automating channels, guests, and payments with a short-term rental’s website and brand.

“I can’t remember the name of the gentleman I talked to, but he was like my angel coming down from the heavens and saying, ‘Well, we have something that can help you,’” Mary Ann said.

She started using Futurestay’s platform in 2017. The company upgraded Casas de Guadalupe’s website and linked the master calendar with all of the booking sites so that reservations populate the calendar automatically and notify other booking sites that the spot is reserved.

“I no longer had to worry about going in and blocking out the space and having issues or problems with some other guest down the road,” Mary Ann said. “The immediate bookings made my life so much easier.”

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More time for friends, family and fun

While she uses the extra time she saves to market the casitas and connect with guests, she also has gotten her personal life back. She now has more time to indulge her hobbies like cooking and entertaining friends and family.

“I have a huge family and a big group of friends,” she said. “We gather together, and it’s typically done at my house.”

She has Greek heritage so she likes to cook Greek dishes, like gyros, lasagnas, and pastas. “I make a really mean lasagna,” she said.

In the autumn, the family carves pumpkins together, and during Christmas, they make gingerbread houses. “We get all the kids together. All the kids are over 18, but they still enjoy doing the pumpkin carving,” Mary Ann said. “It’s a big event, and we have a lot of fun doing it.”

When she wants to spend time with her family, she can give them her full attention instead of having to check her phone or computer constantly to prevent overbooking. She could even bring her family on a vacation to Disneyland.

“I was able to have a wonderful time with the family all day long,” she said.

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