Homeowner FAQs

Magical Stays is a full-service Orlando Vacation Rental Property Management company for vacation homes located near Disney, Florida.

With over 22 years of operating experience, Magical Stays provides guests with trusted quality and consistency vacation stays, while optimizing the management, marketing, and return on investment for vacation rental homeowners.

Our innovative approach and use of latest technology ensure magical stay experiences for every home, every stay, every time.

Magical Stays takes care of everything. We manage every aspect of vacation rental: from maintaining it in best condition to keeping it booked and servicing guests stays. It is our goal to help you earn more, worry less and enjoy your vacation rental investment.

Joining Magical Stays is easy and can be done remotely or in person. You can stop by our Orlando office located in Ovation Publix Plaza at 7770 Lake Wilson Rd, Davenport, and meet our Team. Or we can meet you on Zoom to answer any of your questions.

We’ll handle everything from taking photos of your home and writing your property listing, to marketing it to potential guests and coordinating their stays.

Your home will always be guest ready since we provide professional housekeeping, upkeep (e.g., pool cleaning, lawn care, pest control, trash service, AC preventative maintenance, replacing light bulbs, batteries, etc.), and more. We even have in house repair technicians and access to the best contractors to carry out any repair work no matter how big or small. We provide 24/7 emergency maintenance and guest support.

When you partner with Magical Stays, you’ll be free to come and go from our management as you please. All we ask is that you give us notice in writing. We will terminate our agreement on the checkout date of the last existing reservation that is in place as of the date when your notice is delivered, or any other date we can mutually agree on.

If you are interested to review copy of our agreement, please inquire now and we will be more than happy to send it to you.

It’s easy and we will take care of everything! As soon as you sign with us, our Team will start collecting your information, inspecting your property, taking photographs that capture your home’s best qualities and amenities and crafting a property listing that will give your property extra exposure on all booking sites. Normal activation also includes inventorying your property in detail, preforming a deep clean, setting pricing, activating advertising on the main internet channels and beginning to take reservations.

Of course! We do everything: from preparing and filing all required State and County licensing and tax certificate to giving you professional advice on the best rental furnishings and supplies. We help you succeed and get the most out of your rental.

Magical Stays will collect any taxes that are required of your home for a small monthly fee of $20. We will put them into our owner escrow-style account, file monthly tax returns and remit tax funds on your behalf. Each reservation has State Sales and Tourist taxes added to the amount of the rental. You will not need to send any extra money to pay taxes, or file any returns yourself.

Ideally all homes that wish to use Magical Stays are year-round rentals. You are free to use your home for as much personal use as you’d like.

Yes! You will need certain items to comply with Hotel License requirements, like fire extinguishers and pool gate/alarms. All Magical Stays properties will need to have high speed internet, keyless door lock or smart lock, supply closet lock, etc. There are certain things we advise that you provide to rent your home “fully furnished”, like small kitchen appliances, cookware and dinnerware. We will work with you to make sure that you have everything in place. Well decorated homes tend to rent at a higher rate, and we always encourage owners to have a home that is properly stocked and shows well.

That’s up to the discretion of each homeowner. We do charge guests pet cleaning fee to ensure that the home is fully cleaned after each pet stay.

Please take note that by Law we are not able to prohibit service animals.

You will receive monthly statement from us that detail how much rental revenue you earned and any charges that you may have incurred during the month (for example items like: pool service, pest control, cleaning after your own stay or if you requested us to do any repairs or maintenance, etc.) You will also get Profit and Loss Statement and be able to see completed work orders. Our Finance Team will be happy to guide you through your monthly reports and answer any questions.

We pay owners once a month. Expect to receive an owner statement and an ACH deposit to your bank account by the 15th day of every month. This statement and deposit will cover all guest stays that check out during that month. If you have a guest crossing over one month to the next, the payment for that reservation falls in the month they check out.

We use Streamline Vacation Rental Software - leading and reliable management solution for professional managers to push your rental to over 50+ booking sites. It is backed by a publicly traded company and works very well for enabling all aspects of guest bookings and payments.

We list your home everywhere guests are looking for rentals! In addition to our own site, we’ll automatically list your property on the major listing sites.

We sync your availability calendar across every site, so each site will show the right rates and availability at all times, making it easy for guests to view the correct information and book your home.

Many homeowners already have property listings on these sites, so we’ll work with you to migrate your listing over to our managed account. We’ll also professionally rewrite your listing, take new photos of your home, and sync the pricing and calendar with the other sites your home will be listed on.

No. In preparation for listing your home, Magical Stays uses the latest technology to capture photos, a digital floor plan, and create a virtual tour, which we have found to be a key selling point for potential guests. When captured, our highly-trained team of expert photo editors make sure your home looks fantastic on every listing site.

You can call us, and we will book your property for you, or you can view your availability and book online through your Owner Dashboard. There is absolutely no charge for booking your own home. If you choose to have us clean your home after your stay, we will bill you on your owner statement for the cleaning. You may also choose to clean the home yourself.

We accept all major credit cards and charge a deposit of 10% of the total rental upon booking, with the full payment due 30 days prior to check-in. All reservations which are made more than 10 days in advance of check-in are fully refundable if the guest cancels the reservation within 72 hours of booking. After this cancellation period expires, all payments are non-refundable. The guest who books the property must be 25-years-old or older unless otherwise noted.

We set separate rates that vary based on day of the week and time of the year. For example – mid-week days will be set at one price and weekends at another; holidays and peak periods will likely be set higher and off-season prices are usually set a bit lower. We set these initial prices based on several factors like input from each owner, characteristics of the home (size, amenities, location, recent remodels, etc.), comparable home prices in the area, and guidance from our local General Manager. As the homeowner, you have the option to set your floor rate – which we will never price your home lower than.

Once we agree on the initial pricing, we ask you if you want to be included in our dynamic pricing program. Over 90% of all owners decide to participate. Once in the program, we watch the performance of your unit and make pricing adjustments as needed. The key is to monitor and adjust pricing up or down based on actual market demand. This is where Magical Stays excels. We monitor conversion rates of your rental at initial pricing and adjust up or down according to how well the rental is booking. It is an ongoing process that is always a top priority.

We monitor the market availability calendars on sites like VRBO and HomeAway, we use pricing reports from AirDNA, we receive hotel pricing reporting from RateGain, and benchmark every home's inquiry and reservation volumes against historical numbers and comparable homes. Here are just a few examples of the many ways we adjust your pricing to make you more rental income:

If your home is booking more quickly for comparable times of year than other homes in your area – this may be an indicator that your price is too low, and we may adjust your nightly rate to make it higher.

If your unit has last minute availability and has openings within the next two weeks, we may apply different levels of discounts to try and get that last minute traveler who is used to getting a last minute deal.

If we notice large periods of time that are farther in advance that have lower than expected occupancy, we may lower the nightly rate. As occupancy fills in, we will make adjustments to raise the nightly rate back up.

Any property that allows dynamic discounts is subject to marketing incentives at the discretion of Magical Stays Vacation Rentals. These incentives could fall below rate thresholds in an effort to secure deal seeking guests and materialize stays that are unlikely to book otherwise.

Our housekeeping fees cover laundry service for linens with every professional clean. Our cleaners will do it on-site if time permits or bring it to a laundry facility as a backup.

Magical Stays makes sure your home remains stocked for every guest. We supply a kit for each guest that includes a couple rolls of toilet paper per bathroom, a roll of paper towels, soap, shampoo and conditioner, and dish soap.

We highly encourage homeowners to take pride in their home and invest in decor. Guests want a unique and local experience. Your home’s decor is a great way to provide this.

Magical Stays uses a digital smart lock, which is known to be the gold standard in the vacation rental industry. They are expensive – but we cover the cost – and they are worth it. They are proven to be reliable, secure, and stand up to harsh outdoor environments. Each guest has their own code that is only valid during the time of their stay. Additionally, all of our housekeepers and vendors are issued unique one time codes for when they need to clean or make a repair at your property.

Each lock comes with the ability to have several master codes set for it at any given time. As the homeowner, you will have a master code and can access the property whenever you want – we recommend not sharing this code with anyone.

Magical Stays provides guest services and management, and property management to owners, but Magical Stays is not a maintenance company. Our employees are not trained contractors or repair personnel. We staff a 24/7 call center, manage reservations, guest support, schedule regular housekeeping and inspections, dispatch qualified maintenance personnel, monitor internet uptime, control indoor temperature (when equipped), control pool temperature (when equipped), maintain electronic locks, and more – but we do not personally handle maintenance requests.

During inspections, we will restock consumable items like soap, toilet paper, shampoo, etc., and we will perform simple maintenance like changing remote control batteries or light bulbs for lamp fixtures. We will schedule vendors as needed, and all maintenance work will be billed at cost to you. We make it easy by paying vendors directly – saving you the headache of coordinating anything during a guest stay!

We are happy to schedule a regular lawn or pool service, but most owners already have this in place and continue to use their preferred vendor. We require that all owners have repeat services in place. Owners typically pay these fees directly to their contractors, along with utilities, internet, and TV. We can set up recurring services for you, and the bills for the service will be sent directly to you.