Published 13 Jan 2023
What is a Vacation Rental Checklist?
A vacation rental checklist is a tool used by property managers and owners in listing and verifying the availability of stocks and supplies in their vacation rental properties. It is also used for cleaning, maintaining, and inspecting the condition of vacation rentals to ensure they are ready for occupancy by guests.
Vacation Rental Home Inspection Checklist
Download and customize this free vacation rental checklist to assess, inspect, and clean a vacation rental home. Using the checklist template’s various sections and elements, thoroughly review the different areas in your vacation rental property and do the following actions:
- Indicate who conducted the inspection and when it took place. Put the name of the vacation rental property and its location.
- Conduct checks on the general home or property area, including walls, floors, doors, and lighting.
- Using separate sections for each specific area in your vacation rental property, inspect the condition of the bathrooms, bedrooms, kitchen, laundry area, dining room, and living room.
- Put any additional notes to complete the checklist.
- Export the completed template into various formats depending on your needs. These include PDF, Word, Excel, or CSV.
In this article
- Why Use This Checklist
- 3 Major Aspects to Check in Your Vacation Rental
- How to Use and What to Include in a Vacation Rental Checklist
- FAQs About Vacation Rentals
- Improve Vacation Rental Inspections Using a Mobile App
- Featured Vacation Rental Templates
Why Use This Checklist
Having processes in place to maintain and clean your vacation rental properties before and after guests occupy them is a must to ensure safety and quality service. Also, it helps streamline the process of checking and maintaining the stocks and supplies in your vacation rentals.
Using this tool also allows you to spot areas you need to repair, replace, or remove to improve guest experience and satisfaction during their stay. Some areas might need quick fixes and cleaning, but others might need deep cleaning and major repairs that involve professional help. Overlooking these things might jeopardize the quality of your service and cost you more in the long run.
3 Major Aspects to Check in Your Vacation Rental
Now, what do you have to focus on when checking and inspecting your vacation rental property? Here are the 3 major aspects you must not forget:
Cleaning and Maintenance
When renting out a vacation home or property, it’s important to keep it clean and in good condition. In this aspect, creating and using a dedicated vacation rental cleaning checklist is encouraged. For housekeeping, make sure to sweep and mop the floors, clean the bathrooms, and vacuum the carpets. It’s also a must to stock up on supplies like toilet paper, paper towels, and dishwashing detergent.
For maintenance, check the smoke detectors, change the air filters, and test the plumbing and electrical systems. If any issues arise, be sure to address them as quickly as possible. By following these tips, you can help ensure that your vacation rental home is clean and in good condition for your guests.
Inventory
A vacation rental inventory checklist comes in handy for this aspect. You may dedicate a separate cabinet or storage room for paper products, cleaning supplies, and other household items. You can also assign a specific person to take charge of regularly restocking essentials in your vacation rental property.
Listing
It’s also a must to ensure that your vacation rental listing is met when the guests arrive at your property for their stay. After doing renovations, repairs, and maintenance tasks on your property, make sure that these are reflected in your listing to help inform your potential guests what they should expect.
How to Use and What to Include in a Vacation Rental Checklist
Make sure your vacation rental checklist form has the following sections and elements to ensure a comprehensive walkthrough and inspection:
- Title Page – The first page of your checklist must include the date of the inspection, the name of the inspector, the name of the vacation rental property, and its location.
- General Home Area – Before proceeding with the specific areas, do a general check of the property, including walls, lights, Heating, Ventilation, and Airconditioning (HVAC) system, and doors.
- Bathrooms – Check essential supplies found in bathrooms to see their quality and quantity. Also, verify if all equipment is in good working order.
- Bedrooms – Inspect the condition of bed linens, clothes hangers, and lights. See if there are enough spare supplies.
- Kitchen – Verify if kitchen equipment and appliances are working properly and free from scratches. Check if cutlery, plates, and other eating necessities are complete.
- Laundry Area – See if there are spare towels available, the floors are free from damage and slip hazards, and appliances are readily available for use.
- Dining Room – Ensure that the dining table and chairs are working and safe to use.
- Living Room – Double-check if all electronics are in working order as designed and if all furniture is free from damage.
- Exterior – This includes the pool area and patio. Check if outdoor furniture and equipment are working and if there are sufficient supplies.
- Health and Safety – Do a thorough check on the property if it’s disinfected, it has working smoke detectors and alarms, and it has an available fire extinguisher.
- Additional Notes – For any other observations, recommendations, and findings, use this space for additional notes, photo documentation, and needed actions.
FAQs About Vacation Rentals
Vacation rental properties must be able to meet the most basic and even the advanced demands of the paying public to maintain their credibility and status in the market. The minimum amenities your rental property must have include:
- HVAC system
- Fast wi-fi
- Well-stocked and equipped kitchen
- Free parking
- Clean bedrooms and bathrooms
Other popular amenities and additional inclusions that guests look for are:
- Keyless entry
- Smart TV
- Pool
- BBQ grills
Apart from the most basic amenities and additional facilities, guests want to feel comfortable, relaxed, and safe in their rented vacation homes. The most notable things that guests look for are the following:
- Reasonable rates
- Modern amenities
- Set cleaning fees
- Flexible terms
Having separate checklists for each area or amenity in your vacation rental property can be a helpful way for you to ensure you won’t miss anything in stocking up on the essentials. The kitchen, bedroom, bathroom, and living room areas are usually the ones that must be well-stocked due to the guests using them more often than the other amenities.
Improve Vacation Rental Inspections Using a Mobile App
Why use SafetyCulture (formerly iAuditor)?
Improve the way you inspect and maintain your properties for vacation rentals toward better guest experience and customer satisfaction. Also, ensure quality and safety in your business by using a digital tool like SafetyCulture to help you streamline your housekeeping and maintenance operations.
As a workplace operations platform, SafetyCulture lets you use the following features and functionalities and more:
- Download, use, and customize vacation rental checklists and templates to help your property manager and vacation rental caretaker maintain and inspect your property.
- Take photos of damages, issues, areas needing attention, and proof of the task done on various aspects of your vacation rental property. Assign corrective actions for immediate resolution.
- Use the SafetyCulture Exporter and integration capability to export accomplished templates into various formats like weblink, CSV, PDF, Excel, and Google Sheets files.
- Generate relevant reports that you can use in benchmarking relevant insights and data regarding your vacation rental property.
- Automatically save completed vacation rental checklists in the cloud for secure recordkeeping.
- Sign off completed templates with digital signatures.
Featured Vacation Rental Templates
Vacation Rental Inventory Checklist
Use this comprehensive, easy-to-use checklist to keep track of items in their inventory. Log items daily, weekly, and monthly and easily monitor if supplies are running low. You can also export the completed template into a vacation rental inventory checklist PDF that you can save in the cloud for recordkeeping.
Vacation Rental Cleaning Checklist
Download this free vacation rental cleaning checklist template to help streamline the process for housekeepers and property owners in maintaining the orderliness of the rental property. This checklist contains six sections and lets you take photo evidence, record low supplies, and flag damaged areas anytime and anywhere.
Rental Inspection Checklist
Landlords and property managers can use this rental inspection checklist when assessing the condition of a rental property and looking out for areas needing action (like cleaning, repairing, or replacing).
SafetyCulture Content Specialist
Patricia Guevara
