How to Choose a Villa Manager in Tulum: 12 Questions to Ask
Handing a villa to a management company is a bigger decision than most owners treat it as. The manager controls your pricing, your guest experience, your maintenance spend and, in practice, the resale story of the property. In Tulum the gap between a good manager and a bad one is wider than in most markets, because the jungle is hard on houses, the guest expectations are high, and a lot of companies are newer than the buildings they run.
Here are the questions worth asking before you sign anything, and what a good answer sounds like.
1. Who is actually in Tulum, and what do they do?
Ask for the size and shape of the local team: who answers a guest at 11pm, who inspects after a clean, who meets the plumber. A manager running your house from Mexico City, Toronto or a laptop in Europe will be slower on the things that cost you money. Zuna Stays is based in Tulum, with the team on the ground.
2. How many properties do you manage, and how many like mine?
Scale matters in both directions. Too few properties and the company has no buying power with vendors and no pricing data. Too many per staff member and your villa becomes a queue position. Ask how many homes each coordinator handles, and ask to see two or three listings comparable to yours.
3. What exactly does your fee cover, and what gets billed on top?
Get it in writing: what falls inside the percentage, what is passed through at cost, and whether vendor invoices carry a markup. A 15% fee with a 20% margin on every repair is more expensive than a 25% fee without one. Our full breakdown of Tulum fee structures is in the villa management cost guide.
4. Is the commission calculated on gross or net?
A percentage of gross booking value and a percentage of what remains after platform fees are two different numbers. Ask which one the contract means, and ask who keeps the cleaning fee guests pay.
5. When do I get paid, and what does the statement show?
You want a fixed payout date, not "when the platform pays out". You also want a statement that shows bookings, nightly rates, gross revenue, deductions and expenses line by line. Zuna pays owners by the 15th of each month.
6. Where will my villa be listed, and do you book direct?
Airbnb and Vrbo alone leave money on the table. Ask about Booking.com, Expedia and, most importantly, the manager's own direct booking channel. Direct bookings avoid platform commission and tend to bring back the same guests year after year.
7. How do you set prices?
Tulum has sharp seasons: high season through winter and spring, a soft late summer, and holiday weeks that should be priced very differently from the rest of the year. Ask whether pricing is done by hand or with a revenue management tool, how often rates are reviewed, and how minimum stays are handled around holidays.
8. Can I use my own villa, and how much notice do you need?
This is where owners get surprised. Some contracts block owner stays in high season entirely. At Zuna, owners can use their villa any time, as long as the dates do not require cancelling a confirmed reservation.
9. What happens when something breaks at 2am?
Ask about the on-call arrangement, the spend limit before they need your approval, and the vendor list. In Tulum specifically, ask how they handle power cuts and generators, water supply and cisterns, humidity and mould, pool chemistry through rainy season, and pest control. These are the recurring issues, and a manager who has not thought about them has not managed here long.
10. How do you handle cleaning and standards?
Ask whether housekeeping is in-house or subcontracted, how many staff turn a villa of your size, how long they have between check-out and check-in, and whether anyone inspects afterwards. Ask what the linen standard is and who replaces it. Most bad reviews in this market trace back to cleaning.
11. Who is legally invoicing the guest, and who files the taxes?
Short-term rental income in Mexico carries IVA and the Quintana Roo lodging tax, and platforms withhold income tax at source. Ask who issues the CFDI, who files the lodging tax, and what they need from you. A manager who cannot answer this clearly is a risk you carry, not one they carry.
12. What does leaving look like?
Ask about the contract term, the notice period, who owns the listing and the reviews on it, who holds the photography, and what happens to bookings already on the calendar. A manager confident in their work will have an easy exit. Zuna's handover takes about 30 days in either direction.
Red flags
No written management agreement, or one that will not be shared before a deposit
Vague answers about markups on maintenance
Revenue projections presented as guarantees
No references from current owners
Reviews that mention slow responses, cleanliness problems or surprise fees
Owner payouts on no fixed schedule
No local team, or a team that changes every season
How Zuna Stays answers these
Local: based in Tulum, managing 21 villas with an average guest rating of 4.9
Fee: 15% to 30% of gross rental income depending on service level, stated up front
Payouts: by the 15th of each month with a full statement
Owner stays: any time that does not require cancelling a confirmed booking
Onboarding: about 30 days from signing to live bookings
Areas: Aldea Zama, La Veleta, Region 15, Riviera Tulum, Flora Fauna, La Privada and Los Santos
If you want a straight answer on what your villa should be earning and what it would cost to have us run it, see how our management works or email zac@zunastays.com.