Host & Keep Review
A Miami-founded boutique manager that publishes a flat 20% fee in exactly one spot on its own site, while its main service page and dedicated FAQ page both send owners to a signup call instead.
Pros
- Publishes a specific management fee — 20% of revenue — in its homepage FAQ, a real number rather than an indefinite "request a quote," even though its own service and FAQ pages don't repeat it
- Genuine in-house, no-outsourcing cleaning and maintenance operation: hotel-grade linen replenishment, bi-monthly inspections, and air filters changed every 30 days, all named on its service page
- Bundles in a $2,500 guest damage waiver at no cost to the owner and keeps an on-staff CPA specifically for occupancy-tax management
- Distributes listings across 35+ booking platforms and layers on adjacent services rare among single-market boutiques: a licensed-realtor acquisition arm, a hotel partner program, and long-term/yearly tenant management
- Founder Caroline Ramos has an independently documented professional track record — a former corporate marketing and hospitality executive profiled by name in multiple local business-press interviews — unlike many boutique managers in this category that disclose no leadership at all
Cons
- The 20% fee appears in exactly one place — a homepage FAQ accordion; the dedicated vacation-rental-management page asks for a free property analysis instead, and the site's separate FAQ page describes pricing only as "commission-based, with details provided during the signup process"
- The homepage tells two different founding stories in two different sections — a first-person bio naming Caroline Ramos as the 2020 founder, and a separate "About" blurb describing the owners as an unnamed "couple who formerly worked as corporate executives"
- International reach extends to Belize, Costa Rica, and Guatemala alongside its core Miami-Dade/Broward market, with no local portfolio size or team headcount published for any of those countries
- No contract length, minimum term, or owner-side cancellation policy is published anywhere on the site — only the guest-facing booking cancellation policy is addressed in the FAQ
- No Better Business Bureau profile exists under "Host & Keep" or "Host and Keep" in Miami, FL, and Yelp and Trustpilot both blocked automated access during our review, leaving the company's self-reported 30%-more-income and 70%+-occupancy claims unverified by a third party
Host & Keep is a Miami-founded boutique short-term rental manager working across Miami-Dade and Broward County — Miami, Miami Beach, Fort Lauderdale, Hollywood, Hallandale Beach, Cutler Bay, Homestead, and North Bay Village all appear on its own service pages — plus an international arm the company describes as covering Belize, Costa Rica, and Guatemala. Founded in 2020, Host & Keep positions itself as a full-service, in-house operator: it runs its own cleaning and maintenance crews rather than outsourcing them, and layers a licensed-realtor property-acquisition arm, a hotel partner program, and long-term/yearly tenant management on top of its core short-term rental management business.
How it works for owners
Host & Keep's vacation rental management page lists what's bundled into its service without stating a fee on that page: photography and listing distribution across "more than 35 platforms," dynamic pricing and calendar optimization, guest communication and coordination, "Hotel Level Turnover" with hotel-grade linen and toiletry replenishment, bi-monthly property inspections, air filters changed every 30 days, 24/7 guest-inbox coverage, and "$2,500 guest damage insurance, free of cost for owners." The same page states the company keeps an "on-staff CPA for occupancy tax management." Owners move through a five-step onboarding sequence — property assessment, marketing and listing, guest-experience setup, maintenance/housekeeping handoff, and reporting/payments — and, per the site's FAQ page, are paid via bank transfer "by the 10th of each month," minus commission.
Host & Keep's headline performance claims — that owners "earn 30% more income compared to self-managed" properties and see "70%+ occupancy rates," with one named example (The Garden House in Homestead) at 76% occupancy — are all self-reported on the vacation-rental-management page; we found no independent data to confirm them. Beyond core management, the company runs two adjacent lines: a Hotel Partner Program that promises to help small hotels "boost your revenue by 30% annually" through Airbnb/Vrbo-style listings (no pricing published), and a Realtor Program exclusively for licensed Florida agents, paying a $400 referral bonus per vacation-rental client, $250 per long-term-rental client, plus a 1% commission, with referred properties launched "in as little as ten business days."
What we could verify
The 20% fee cited in our ranking table is real, but it's published in exactly one place: a homepage FAQ accordion under "Is the pricing at Host & Keep cost-effective?," which answers "Yes, we provide full-service management at a standard 20% vacation rental management fee." Neither the dedicated vacation-rental-management page nor the site's separate /faq/ page repeats that number — the FAQ page's owner section instead says listing is free and the company "operate[s] on a commission-based model, with details provided during the signup process." An owner who lands on the service page or the FAQ page without also checking the homepage accordion would come away with no number at all.
The company's own site also tells two different founding stories on the same homepage. A first-person bio reads: "Hi Folks, I'm Caroline Ramos... In 2020, I finally heard my inner calling and started Host and Keep," and the FAQ confirms "Host and Keep was founded by Caroline Ramos." A separate "About Host & Keep" blurb elsewhere on that same homepage instead describes the ownership as "a couple who formerly worked as corporate executives," without naming anyone. Outside coverage lines up with the named-founder version: in interviews with Shoutout Miami and Voyage MIA Magazine, Ramos is identified as Host & Keep's founder and CEO, a former corporate marketing and hospitality executive (including roles at Unilever and Matomy Media Group) who converted her own Miami real estate investments into short-term rentals in 2019 before launching the company. Its values page shows an unnamed "Leadership Team" section with photos but no names, founding date, or team size.
We couldn't confirm current portfolio size — the site's own live listings page returned "No items found" at the time of our review — and no contract length, minimum term, or owner-side cancellation terms are published anywhere we could locate; only the guest-facing booking cancellation policy is addressed in the FAQ. Its In the News page lists eleven placements; several are genuine interview features about Ramos (Shoutout Miami, Voyage MIA, CanvasRebel), while at least three — an openpr.com submission and URLs on bloomberg.com's /press-releases/ path and Business Insider Markets' wire feed — are press-release distribution rather than staff-written articles, confirmed only by URL structure since all three blocked our direct access. On independent review platforms: we searched the Better Business Bureau directly for both "Host & Keep" and "Host and Keep" in Miami, FL, and found no business profile under either name. Yelp and Trustpilot both blocked our automated access (HTTP 403), so the company's self-reported performance numbers remain unconfirmed by a third party.
How it compares to our top pick
Host & Keep's in-house cleaning operation and its bundled damage waiver and tax-compliance support are genuine, specific selling points, and a 20% fee is at least a real number rather than an indefinite "request a quote." The tradeoffs are that the number is easy to miss unless you land on the right page, the founding story doesn't match across sections of the same homepage, and there's no BBB, Yelp, or Trustpilot record to check the company's self-reported growth claims against. Our top-ranked pick, One Fine BnB, pairs owner-first management with terms that are consistent wherever you find them on the site. See the full field in our best Airbnb management companies ranking.
Bottom line
Host & Keep is a real, active South Florida manager with a genuine in-house operations team and a specific — if hard-to-find — 20% fee. Before signing, get the fee, contract length, and cancellation terms confirmed in writing during the signup call the site keeps pointing to, ask directly about current portfolio size, and don't expect the Better Business Bureau or Yelp to back up the company's own growth and occupancy numbers — neither could be independently confirmed during our research.