--- title: "Secrets of a Pro STR Revenue Manager to Maximize Your Revenue" canonical_url: "https://freewyldfoundry.com/podcast/ep732-pro-str-revenue-manager/" content_type: "podcast-episode" last_updated: "2026-08-31T00:00:00.000Z" --- Episode 732 of the Get Paid For Your Pad podcast. Guests: Patrick Morton (Freewyld Foundry) YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D0ChQ2LNE14 Audio: https://embed.acast.com/5afc793a028014b853c89db4/6a920e71cbb539139768a856?accentColor=161616&bgColor=e48f0c&secondaryColor=161616 Want to outperform the market? Freewyld Foundry's Revenue and Pricing Management service is driving an 18% performance lift for STR operators, even in down markets. If you are managing 15+ listings and want a free pricing audit, **[apply here](https://freewyldfoundry.com/get-started/)** Patrick Morton capped one of his properties at $650 a night. He thought that was what it was worth. Then he joined Freewyld Foundry, removed the ceiling, and watched it book at $1,000. In this episode, Jasper sits down with Patrick, one of Freewyld Foundry's own revenue managers, for a look at what actually moves the needle: pricing, listing optimization, and the tactics the team has discovered by managing hundreds of properties together. **You will learn:** * Why setting a maximum price on your listing is costing you bookings, and what Patrick found when he removed the ceiling on his own property * How Patrick grew one OR Getaways property from $39,000 to $55,000 in a single month by holding prices and trusting the data * Why high ratings and strong reviews are no longer enough to rank at the top of Airbnb search, and what actually moves the needle now * The single amenity Patrick added to a listing that moved it from page 8 to page 3 overnight * Why the answer when a listing is stuck at minimum price with zero bookings is sometimes to raise the price **We also talk about:** * How Airbnb custom promotions can create visibility and urgency without actually lowering your effective price * What Jasper learned about hiring for values over skills after years of building the Freewyld Foundry team * How the weekly team brainstorm with ten revenue managers in one room produces better strategies than any individual could find alone * Patrick's full circle moment: from assembling furniture and listening to this podcast to sitting across from Jasper as a guest **Mentioned in the Episode:** * Freewyld Foundry Free Revenue Report * Careers at Freewyld Foundry Subscribe for new episodes every Monday on YouTube, Spotify, and Apple Podcasts. ## Transcript ## Introduction **Jasper:** Welcome back to Get Paid for Your Pad. This is a very special episode of the Monday Rev Up episodes because I am joined by one of our revenue managers, Patrick Morton. He has been with us for quite a while now and is absolutely crushing it as a revenue manager at Freewyld Foundry. I invited him to join the podcast and share some of his insights: what he has learned since he started, what he is focused on. Patrick, welcome to the show. **Patrick:** Thank you, Jasper. It is really a full circle moment being here on the podcast. This is awesome. **Jasper:** I know this is your first podcast. That is exciting. **Patrick:** Yeah, super exciting. I am probably going to be not great at this, but we will figure it out as we go. **Jasper:** You do not have to be great at everything. But I know you have a lot of valuable insights to share. Why do not you give a quick background? Let us know how you got started in short-term rentals and how you ended up working for Freewyld Foundry. ## Patrick's Background in Short-Term Rentals **Patrick:** I got started in the short-term rental space about nine years ago. I was working in corporate. My background is a mechanical engineering degree. I was living in Naples, Florida and decided to buy a duplex and Airbnb the other unit. It cash flowed really well. When I was setting up that unit, I was actually listening to your podcast, Get Paid for Your Pad. There really were not a lot of podcasts at that time that actually added value. So I was assembling furniture and painting for hours, just listening to you. ## Joining Freewyld Foundry **Patrick:** Working at Freewyld has been an awesome experience. I had been managing my own rental properties and a couple for others. I was listening to the podcast and you guys talked about Freewyld. That seemed like a great place to work. I found a job posting, applied, and reached out to you and Eric on Instagram. Since I joined, everybody has been super helpful, willing to teach, willing to help whenever there is an issue. The value we provide to our clients is absolutely huge. I see it every day in the wins channel. **Jasper:** What is one thing that surprised you since joining? **Patrick:** The ability to adapt to different markets has been very surprising because every market is so different. Also, everyone has such different backgrounds but we always arrive at the same conclusion. When the revenue managers and I are reviewing a portfolio, everybody always says the same thing: I think we should do X, Y, Z. It is awesome because everybody is really on the same page. **Jasper:** That is also part of what Eric and I have learned about how important company culture is. As we grew, we realized it is really important that we are all aligned on values. That really shows with our current team. ## Revenue Management Lessons: No Price Ceilings **Jasper:** Let us talk about revenue management. What is it like managing professionally after doing it for your own properties? **Patrick:** I felt like I did a pretty good job managing my own units. Since coming on board I have learned so much. One thing we talked about is do not put an upper limit. If you put a maximum price, you might actually be preventing somebody from booking at a higher price. One of my properties, I thought the upper limit was $650 and it actually booked at $1,000. Every week there is something new, whether it is different OTA promotions, different markups we need to be adding. One of my favorite meetings is our team brainstorm where we sit together for an hour with all the revenue managers. We now have eight or nine people. Every meeting we learn something new. **Jasper:** Let me go back to that point about not putting a maximum price. When I started with Airbnb in 2012, I thought my apartment was worth about $200. The first dynamic pricing tool came along in 2014, Beyond Pricing. It started putting my apartment above $400 for certain dates. I called support and the founder told me there was a huge medical conference in town, 50,000 people coming. I felt the tool was crazy, but I kept the prices there and it got booked. That is the point: in the end of the day, it is not up to us to decide what a property is worth. It is the person who books who decides. ## The OR Getaways Portfolio **Jasper:** Let us talk about the OR Getaways portfolio. Patrick is managing that account. Tell us about your experience with it. **Patrick:** I took that over from you. That portfolio has some unique properties, larger ones in the area. We tend to have a little bit higher prices. I kept noticing we were charging significantly higher than last year, slightly above the market, but we kept getting bookings. It started to instill a lot of confidence. There are not many seven-bedroom homes in that part of Oregon. It was a wait-and-see approach, and it has worked. There is nothing better than seeing David post in the Slack channel: did you see that booking at a $3,000 a night ADR? They brought in $39,000 last year and this year they were at $55,000 for the month of July. Having that confidence, knowing you do not need to decrease the prices, is huge. ## Listing Optimization and the Airbnb Algorithm **Jasper:** Let us talk about listing optimization. As inventory has grown, just having a high rating and a lot of reviews is not a guarantee anymore. What moves the needle? **Patrick:** Airbnb has really prioritized hosts who put a lot of emphasis on their listings. If you are not ranking in the first three pages, you are probably not getting many bookings. I prioritize listing optimization because I have seen a huge impact. A lot of times amenities are missing or the top five photos just are not the best. I had one yesterday where a client said the property should be getting booked. I put it into RankBreeze and it highlighted ranking amenities that were not checked. One was essentials: linens, towels, and toilet paper. I have also noticed that the laundry mat nearby amenity, if it is not checked and then I check it, a listing can go from page 8 to page 3 from that one change. We made those tweaks and the property got three bookings yesterday after going a week with none. **Jasper:** It is funny how even a small change can make such a difference. Airbnb actually tracks how many parts of the listing are not filled out. If you do not fill out everything, you get an incomplete listing tag and that hurts your search rank. Going through the listing and filling out all the details, even the guest guide and house manual, helps because Airbnb tracks that. ## Raising Your Price to Get a Booking **Jasper:** One thing that came up in our team meeting this week: sometimes a listing is stuck at minimum price with no bookings. You have optimized the listing, cannot lower the price any further, already have all the promotions done, and still nothing. What did someone on the team suggest? **Patrick:** Raise the price. I had never thought about that before. Just that price fluctuation seems to spike a booking sometimes. If you have the price at the minimum for a while, some guests might be eyeing the property, thinking they will wait for it to drop even more. Then suddenly it goes from $100 to $109 and they think, the price is going up, and they book. It is similar to how people think about stocks or airline tickets. It also seems like Airbnb sees that the host is actively involved in the property and rewards that. ## Airbnb Custom Promotions **Jasper:** Any final thoughts for the audience? **Patrick:** Promotions go a long way. Sometimes a property is not getting a ton of bookings. I can go in and add a promotion, and Airbnb bases the displayed price off of average prices. So if I add a 20% discount, it may show at the same price point I am already listed at but now it has the visibility of being 20% off. Somebody might look at that and think this property is typically higher, it must be a better quality property. It also gives you a ton of visibility. I have seen a huge impact from it. It is a little tidbit that seems to go a long way. ## Closing **Jasper:** It is always fun playing around with those Airbnb custom promotions. Thank you Patrick. If you are listening to this podcast and you need help with revenue management, you can apply for a free audit at freewyldfoundry.com/get-started. And if you are interested in being a revenue manager just like Patrick, reach out at freewyldfoundry.com. We are always looking for the best revenue managers in the space. Thank you for listening. Hope you enjoyed this and we will see you next time. --- ## About this file This is the agent-readable version of a page on freewyldfoundry.com. The canonical page for people is https://freewyldfoundry.com/podcast/ep732-pro-str-revenue-manager/ Freewyld Foundry runs revenue management for short-term rental operators: pricing strategy, distribution, and the systems around them. We manage 3,500+ listings representing $170M+ in annual bookings for 70+ clients. Pricing is custom and scales with portfolio size. Related machine-readable resources: - Every page in this format: https://freewyldfoundry.com/agent/pages/index.json - Site overview: https://freewyldfoundry.com/llms.txt - Request a free revenue report: https://freewyldfoundry.com/get-started/