One furnished property. Three ways to let it. One fee.
Every property we manage is furnished. That means it can run as a short stay, a mid-term corporate let or a long stay — and move between them as the market moves — without being refitted each time.
The fee is the same whichever it is: 15% + GST of accommodation revenue[2]. And whichever it is, the property is cleaned and reported on while a guest is in it — including on the long ones.
The Cleaning Company manages furnished Auckland properties across three lengths of stay — nightly short stays, mid-term and corporate stays of roughly a month to three months, and long stays beyond that — all at 15% + GST of accommodation revenue[2], with no setup fee, no retainer and no minimum term. Every property stays furnished throughout, so it can be moved between the three as demand changes rather than committed to one for a year. Every property we manage has its own carpark — we do not take on properties without one. The difference that matters is what happens in between: we go on cleaning the property while a guest is in it, whatever the length of stay, and you get a written record of its condition. Under the Residential Tenancies Act a landlord may inspect a tenancy no more than once every four weeks[1]. A serviced property is seen more often than that — not as an inspection, but because somebody is in there cleaning it.
The three lengths
Same property, same furniture, same team. What changes is who is in it and for how long.
Short stays
Nightly and weekly bookings. Highest rate per night, the most changeovers, and the most sensitive to season and to how well the listing is run. Turnovers, linen and consumables are handled in-house.
Mid-term and corporate
Roughly one to three months. Business travellers, relocations, people between homes, and project and contract work. Lower rate per night than a short stay, far fewer changeovers, and a guest who expects the place serviced while they are in it.
Long stays
Beyond three months, still furnished and still serviced. Steadiest income of the three and the least handling — but the one where a property can quietly deteriorate if nobody is going in. Ours go on being cleaned like everything else.
Every property we manage has its own carpark. It is the one thing we will not make an exception on, because a guest who is here to work needs somewhere to put a car, and in central Auckland that is the difference between a property that books and one that sits. Properties are furnished and equipped for people who are working or travelling rather than for a photo shoot — a desk that is usable, a kitchen that is cooked in, and a bed and linen standard that survives being slept in three hundred nights a year.
The part nobody else prices in
An extra $5,000 of rent is not a gain if it comes back out at the end as wear and tear. The usual way an owner finds that out is at the final inspection, when it is too late to do anything about it.
We are a cleaning company that manages properties, not a management company that hires cleaners. So our own team keeps going into the property regardless of how long the guest is staying, and you get a written record of what condition it is in.
That is not an inspection and it is not sold as one — a serviced stay is not a tenancy, and the cleaning is part of what the guest is paying for. But the effect for an owner is the same, and you get it more often than the law permits an inspection on a standard tenancy[1].
- Damage is found while it is still small, not at the end of a twelve-month stay — which is also while it is still attributable and still cheap to put right.
- Maintenance gets caught early. A slow leak, a failing seal or a sticking window is a small job in week two and a large one in month eleven.
- The property does not fall behind. Furnishings that are cleaned continuously last longer than furnishings that are deep-cleaned once at the end, which is most of what an end-of-tenancy bill actually is.
- You are not relying on being told. You get the record whether or not anything has gone wrong, and whether or not you ask for it.
- The next guest starts from a known state. A property handed over in a documented condition does not inherit the last stay’s argument.
The cleaning that happens during a stay is agreed in writing before the stay begins and forms part of what the guest is paying for. What it covers, and how often, is set per property and confirmed in the scope before any work starts.
Why the fee is the same for all three
Most managers charge more for short stays and less for long ones, on the basis that a long stay is less work. That is true of the letting. It is not true of the property.
What changes between the three
The number of changeovers, the pricing work, the volume of guest messaging, and how exposed the income is to season. A short stay is more of all of those.
What does not change
Somebody still has to go into the property, still has to launder and replace linen, still has to notice the leak, and still has to write down what they found. That work does not get smaller because the guest is staying longer.
So the fee is 15% + GST of accommodation revenue whichever length the property is running[2], with no setup fee, no monthly retainer, no minimum term, and nothing payable in a month with no bookings. If the property moves from short stays to a long stay in June and back again in November, nothing about the arrangement changes and there is no new agreement to sign.
Accommodation revenue means the booking total after the cleaning fee. The guest-paid cleaning fee comes to us and covers the turnover, the linen and the guest consumables — the same way it works on our short-stay management.
How we work out which one your property should be doing
This is the actual job, and it is not a decision made once. It changes with the season, with the building, and with what is in front of us that month.
- Whether it has its own carpark. If it does not, we are not the right people for it, and we will say so straight away rather than take it on and hope. It is the only fixed rule we have.
- What the building allows. Many Auckland apartment buildings restrict or prohibit short stays in the body corporate rules. That is the first check, before anything else is worth discussing, and it sometimes ends the conversation.
- What the property is actually good at. A studio near the hospital, a two-bedroom on the waterfront and a three-bedroom in a school zone do not suit the same guest, and the honest answer is not the same for all three.
- Where the calendar already is. A property with a strong forward book behaves differently from one with an empty April, and committing an empty month and committing a full one are not the same decision.
- What is in front of us. A good mid-term enquiry for the exact weeks a property is empty is worth more than a theory about what that property should be doing.
- What it costs to be wrong. Committing a property to a long stay through the strongest months of the year has a price, and it is worth being explicit about that price before taking the booking rather than afterwards.
And sometimes the answer is that we are not the right fit. If a property would do better as an ordinary unfurnished tenancy with a letting agent, we will say so. We would rather tell you that at the start than manage something badly for a year.
What we do not promise
Worth stating plainly, because this part of the market is not short of promises.
An occupancy figure for your property
We publish what a portfolio we clean actually achieved — 78.7% of listed calendar days over the twelve months to August 2026[3] — and we publish what that percentage is a percentage of. What your property will do depends on the property. A number quoted before we have seen it would be a guess with a decimal point on it.
An income figure before we have seen it
Nightly rate and occupancy decide almost everything, and both are property-specific. If you want to model it yourself, our income calculator takes your numbers rather than ours and shows what comes off the top.
That short stays will beat a tenancy
Often they do. Sometimes they do not, and for some properties a long stay or an ordinary tenancy is simply the better answer. We would rather run the right thing than the more expensive thing.
Talk to us about your property
We have cleaned central Auckland properties since 2012 and have run turnovers for a boutique operator’s portfolio continuously since 2018. Send us the address and, if it is already listed, the listing — and we will tell you which of the three we think it should be doing, and why.
Talk about my propertyShort-stay management
Related: run your own numbers · Airbnb vs a long-term tenancy · our published cleaning prices.
Sources
Where a figure is ours rather than somebody else’s, we say so and explain how we got it.
- 1 Tenancy Services (MBIE) — Inspections. tenancy.govt.nz/maintenance-and-inspections/inspections “The maximum frequency for inspections is once every 4 weeks. Notice of an inspection must be given to the tenant at least 48 hours before the inspection.” This is the rule for tenancies under the Residential Tenancies Act, and it is the comparison used above. A serviced furnished stay is a different arrangement from a tenancy, and access for cleaning is agreed in writing beforehand rather than exercised as a right of inspection. Accessed 13 September 2026.
- 2 Our own published pricing. Full management — 15% + GST of accommodation revenue and our published cleaning rates. The fee is published rather than quoted on enquiry, and it is the same across all three lengths of stay. Cleaning prices are listed per property size on the pricing page.
- 3 Our own booking records — not a published dataset. Occupancy of 78.7% is nights sold as a share of listed calendar days across a central Auckland portfolio we clean, for the twelve months to 31 August 2026: 5,344 nights sold across 6,793 listed calendar days. The two possible denominators, and why we quote the smaller number, are explained in full on our Airbnb vs long-term rental page. It is one portfolio in one part of one city, and it is not a market average.
Questions owners ask
Do you manage long-term rentals as well as Airbnb?
Yes. We manage furnished Auckland properties across three lengths of stay: nightly short stays, mid-term and corporate stays of roughly one to three months, and long stays beyond that. The property stays furnished throughout, the fee is 15% + GST of accommodation revenue whichever it is running, and it goes on being cleaned and reported on while a guest is in it in every case.
Why is the fee the same for a long stay as for a short stay?
Because the letting work changes but the property work does not. A long stay has fewer changeovers, less pricing work and less guest messaging — but somebody still has to go into the property, still has to deal with the linen, still has to notice the leak and still has to write down what they found. We would rather charge one number that covers all of it than discount the fee and quietly stop going in.
Do you really clean a property during a long stay?
Yes. It is agreed in writing before the stay begins and forms part of what the guest is paying for, so it is not an intrusion on them and not an inspection of them — a serviced stay is not a tenancy. You get a written record of the property’s condition while the stay is running rather than only at the end of it.
How often can a landlord inspect a rental property in New Zealand?
Under the Residential Tenancies Act the maximum frequency is once every four weeks, and the tenant must be given at least 48 hours’ notice, no more than 14 days in advance. That is the rule for a standard tenancy. A furnished serviced stay works differently, because access for cleaning is part of the agreement rather than a right of inspection — which is why an owner of a serviced property ends up with a record of its condition considerably more often.
Can my property switch between short, mid and long term?
That is the point of keeping it furnished. Nothing has to be refitted, no new agreement is signed, and the fee does not change. What decides it is what the building allows, what the property is suited to, where the calendar already is, and what enquiries are actually in front of us that month — not a plan set twelve months in advance.
What happens to wear and tear on a long stay?
It is the risk owners most often underestimate, because it shows up in one bill at the end rather than month by month. A property that is cleaned continuously does not accumulate the same deferred deep clean, damage is found in the week it happens rather than eleven months later, and small maintenance is caught while it is still small. An extra few thousand dollars of rent is not a gain if it comes back out at the end as a reinstatement bill.
Do you manage properties without a carpark?
No. Every property we manage has its own carpark, and it is the one requirement we do not make exceptions on. Guests staying for work or a relocation almost always have a vehicle, and in central Auckland a property without parking is harder to fill and fills at a lower rate. If your property does not have a carpark we will tell you at the first conversation rather than take it on and underperform with it.
Is there a minimum term or a setup fee?
No to both. There is no setup fee, no monthly retainer, no minimum term, and nothing payable in a month with no bookings. Every scope is agreed in writing before any work starts.