The Flex Stay Revolution with Tiffany Moldovan of Beach Realty

Tiffany Moldovan, Director of Property Management at Beach Realty in the Outer Banks of North Carolina, joins Lynell Gordon to discuss one of the most dramatic market shifts in vacation rental history. The traditionally stable Outer Banks market, known for generational Saturday-to-Saturday seven-night stays, saw 10,000 additional three-to-six-night reservations in 2025 while seven-night bookings dropped by 9,000. Tiffany reveals how Beach Realty adapted to this revolution by implementing flex stay pricing strategies that yield 120 percent of weekly rates through strategic combinations of shorter stays. She shares the data-driven approach that convinced resistant owners to embrace change, including quarterly stats updates and year-end profit analysis. Tiffany also discusses managing 450 properties with dedicated rental managers, converting OTA guests to direct bookings through SMS marketing and urgency-based tactics, and why booking windows have compressed from 180 days to just 60-90 days. This episode is brought to you by LSI Tools, with 22 customized tools designed to supplement your vacation rental software and transform how you manage guest information. This episode is sponsored by LSI Tools.

The Outer Banks of North Carolina has long been the exception to vacation rental market volatility, a place where generational families returned year after year for traditional Saturday-to-Saturday seven-night stays. That stability is being disrupted in ways property managers everywhere need to understand. In this episode of The Vacation Rental Show, host Lynell Gordon speaks with Tiffany Moldovan, Director of Property Management at Beach Realty, about managing through one of the most dramatic market transformations in recent vacation rental history and what other markets can learn from their experience.

What you'll learn:

How one market saw 10,000 additional short stays while losing 9,000 seven-night bookings in a single year
The pricing strategy that yields 120 percent of weekly rates through flex stay combinations
Why travelers drove demand for shorter stays years before software could automate the pricing
Data-driven tactics that convince resistant owners to embrace flex stays and maintain profitability
Converting OTA guests to direct bookings through SMS marketing and urgency-based deadlines
How booking windows compressed from 180 days to 60-90 days and what that means for revenue management

Tiffany Moldovan has been in vacation rental management since 2012 and currently oversees approximately 450 properties at Beach Realty, one of the mid-sized management companies serving the Outer Banks market. Her experience spans the dramatic post-COVID shift from traditional seven-night stays to flex day demand, and she's developed systematic approaches to help owners navigate this transformation. As a member of the Outer Banks Association of Realtors board of directors, Tiffany brings both operational expertise and market-level insights to understanding booking trends, traveler behavior, and competitive positioning.

In this conversation, Tiffany shares how Beach Realty implemented length-of-stay pricing that ensures owners never receive less than 60 percent of weekly rates on three-night stays, the zone-based property manager structure that allows personalized service at scale, and why showing owners year-end profit numbers matters more than per-booking anxiety. She reveals the unexpected success of one owner's 40-property portfolio after pulling the trigger on flex stays across every unit, discusses the challenges of operating in a remote island market where Amazon delivery takes three to four days, and explains why OTA presence has become essential even in traditionally direct-booking markets.

This episode is sponsored by LSI Tools.

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Previous guests include: Jim DeVos of Best Beach Getaways, Stacy Wesson of Cascara Vacation Rentals, Michael Friedman of The Simple Life Hospitality, Steve Caron of Inhabit, John An of TechTape, Jessica Gillingham of Abode Worldwide, Justin Ford of Breezeway, Mahwussh Alam of One Perfect Stay, Lisa Stinnett of Inhabit, and many more.

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