Emperor Rentals Review
A Tampa Bay full-service manager that actually publishes a fee range — 10% to 25% of revenue — but only inside one FAQ answer, alongside a real disagreement between its own pages over whether Pasco County is part of its service area.
Pros
- Publishes a real management-fee range — 10% to 25% of rental revenue, with no separate setup fee and no long-term contract penalty stated — inside its FAQ, which most "Not published" Tampa Bay competitors don't disclose at all
- 100+ properties under management across a genuinely documented, county-by-county footprint — 53 named communities across Hillsborough and Pinellas counties on its own Locations page
- Broad distribution: we counted 16 listed booking platforms on its site (Airbnb, VRBO, Booking.com, Expedia, Google Travel, HomeToGo, Homes & Villas, and others), not just an Airbnb/VRBO setup
- Two active Florida DBPR licenses (DWE3913342 and BK3438949) and a BBB business profile showing an A+ rating, giving a real regulatory paper trail most single-market independents don't surface
- Specific, published owner policies once you expand the FAQ: monthly payouts by the 10th of the following month, unlimited owner use of the property via the owner portal, and direct handling of Florida state and county tourist development tax filing
- Founder Mark Malevskis is named on the About page and linked to a public Airbnb co-host profile, giving the company an identifiable owner-operator origin story rather than an anonymous management shell
Cons
- The 10%–25% fee range is disclosed only inside a single collapsed FAQ answer — not on the homepage, About, Services, or dedicated Airbnb-management pages — and it's a 15-point-wide range with no tiers, examples, or typical-property figure given
- The company's own pages disagree on service area: the About page claims coverage of "Hillsborough, Pinellas, and Pasco counties," naming "snowbird rentals in New Port Richey," while the dedicated Locations page and homepage service-area module cover only Hillsborough and Pinellas counties and state outright that coverage runs "from the Gulf beaches to the heart of Hillsborough and Pinellas counties"
- No founding year, team size, or contract-length figure is published anywhere on Emperor's own site; the only founding date we could find — September 7, 2021 — comes from its BBB profile, not the company itself
- Two of the three customer reviews visible on Emperor's BBB profile are guest complaints — one alleging a VRBO listing was "falsely advertised," the other describing a property where "pictures and descriptions did not match" and shared laundry went undisclosed — both listing-accuracy issues that fall under the manager's own job
- Headline stats ($60M+ assets under management, 4.9★ guest rating, 20%+ higher revenue, $10M+ in owner payouts, plus a sister booking site claiming 6,558 guest reviews) are entirely self-reported across Emperor's own domains; Yelp and the founder's linked Airbnb co-host profile both returned 403 errors and blocked our independent verification
Emperor Rentals is a Tampa Bay, Florida short-term rental manager built around the tagline "Built by Investors, for Investors." Founder Mark Malevskis started the company after managing his own short-term rentals on the Tampa Bay coastline and, in the company's own account, concluding that existing management options were "either too expensive, too hands-off, or too unfamiliar with how the local market actually worked." Emperor now manages 100+ properties across Airbnb management, short-term rental management, and vacation rental management, distributing listings across 16 booking platforms we counted directly on its site — a broader spread than most single-market Florida independents we've reviewed.
How it works for owners
The service package covers the standard full-service list, laid out on Emperor's Services and Airbnb-management pages: daily dynamic pricing pegged to local demand (the site name-checks Tampa's Gasparilla weekend as an example of event-based rate spikes), professional photography and listing copy, pre-booking guest screening against prior host reviews and booking patterns, turnovers built around a "photo-verified checklist," recurring property inspections, and monthly owner statements. Onboarding runs a named five-step process on the About page and homepage: an intro call, an in-person property walkthrough (the company specifically says a team member visits "not virtually"), a neighborhood-level revenue analysis, full setup, and a simultaneous launch across all platforms, monitored closely for the first two weeks.
The details that matter most for a management decision aren't on the homepage, the Services pages, or the dedicated Airbnb-management page — they only surface inside the FAQ's expandable answers, which we had to open individually to read. There, Emperor states its management fees "start at 10% to 25% of the rental revenue," depending on "property type, location, and level of service required," with no separate setup fee and no long-term contract penalty ("we only make money when you make money"). Owner payouts run monthly via direct deposit, landing by the 10th of the following month. Owners keep utilities in their own name; maintenance and vendor costs Emperor pays on the owner's behalf are deducted from the monthly statement rather than invoiced separately. Owners get unlimited personal use of their own property through the owner portal, provided they work around bookings already on the calendar. Guest damage is handled through a damage waiver or security deposit plus Airbnb AirCover claims, and Emperor says it handles Florida state and county tourist development tax collection and filing directly. A furnished, guest-ready property typically goes live within 1–2 weeks of signing.
What we could verify
Two inconsistencies are worth flagging directly. First, on pricing: the "fee not published" status we'd previously catalogued for Emperor turned out to be only half true — a real fee range is published, just buried in a single FAQ accordion rather than stated anywhere on the site's pricing-adjacent pages, and it's a 15-point-wide range with no worked example or tier breakdown. Second, on coverage: the About page states Emperor manages properties "across Hillsborough, Pinellas, and Pasco counties," naming "snowbird rentals in New Port Richey" — a Pasco County city — as an example market. But the site's own dedicated Locations page, which names 53 specific communities, covers only Hillsborough and Pinellas counties and states outright: "We cover the full Tampa Bay region — from the Gulf beaches to the heart of Hillsborough and Pinellas counties." Neither Pasco County nor New Port Richey appears anywhere on that page, or in the homepage's own service-area module. That's a real inconsistency between two of the company's own pages, not a rounding error.
On third-party verification: Emperor holds a Better Business Bureau profile showing an A+ rating (the business is not BBB-accredited) and two active Florida DBPR licenses — DWE3913342, expiring February 1, 2027, and BK3438949, expiring September 30, 2026. BBB lists a business start date of September 7, 2021, which is the only founding date we could find anywhere; it doesn't appear on Emperor's own site. Of the customer reviews visible on that BBB profile, one was positive ("quick responses to questions"), and two were guest complaints — one alleging a VRBO listing was "falsely advertised," the other describing a property north of Tampa where "pictures and descriptions did not match" and shared laundry went undisclosed. Those are listing-accuracy complaints, which sit squarely inside a manager's job. The homepage's own stats ($60M+ assets under management, 4.9★ guest rating, 20%+ higher revenue, $10M+ in owner payouts) and its sister guest-booking site, emperorrentals.com (4.99★ across 6,558 reviews), are self-reported on Emperor's own domains and weren't independently confirmable. Yelp returned a 403 and blocked our access, and the Airbnb co-host profile the About page links to for founder Mark Malevskis also returned a 403 — both consistent with what we typically run into across this category.
How it compares to our top pick
Emperor's actual fee range — once you find it — lands in a normal band for full-service Florida management, and its published tourist-tax handling, damage-waiver process, and monthly-payout timeline are specific enough to plan around. What it's missing is the front-and-center pricing and internally consistent market-coverage messaging that let an owner compare it against alternatives without a phone call first. One Fine BnB takes the more transparent approach on both fronts. See how the rest of the field stacks up in our best Airbnb management companies ranking.
Bottom line
Emperor Rentals is a legitimately licensed, BBB-rated, multi-county Tampa Bay operator with a real — if hard-to-find — 10%–25% fee range and specific, published answers on payouts, taxes, and damage handling once you know to look inside the FAQ. Before signing, get the exact percentage for your property in writing, ask directly which counties and cities are actually in scope given the site's internal disagreement over Pasco County, and don't treat the homepage's self-reported stats as your only due diligence.