Short answer: switching management company takes about 30 days and four separate handovers — the listing and its reviews, the bookings already on the calendar, the money (guest deposits, pending OTA payouts, your own deposit), and the physical unit (lock codes, inventory, building registration). The reviews are the one thing nobody can move for you: they belong to whichever Airbnb or Agoda account the listing sits on. Everything else can be handed over cleanly if you ask for it in writing before you give notice.
Why is switching harder than signing the first time?
The first time you handed over your Johor Bahru unit, there was nothing to lose: an empty calendar, zero reviews, no guest money in anyone's account. The second time, your unit is a running business. Somewhere there are confirmed bookings for next month, a guest deposit sitting in an account, an Agoda payout that has not landed yet, a smart-lock app with twenty old codes in it and a WhatsApp group with the building's security office.
Most articles on this topic are written from the US, where the owner usually owns the Airbnb account and the manager is a co-host. In Malaysia it is more often the other way round: the management company runs a consolidated account with dozens or hundreds of units on it, and your unit is one listing inside it. That single fact changes what you can and cannot take with you. We wrote about the contract side of this in the 12 clauses to check before you sign (clauses 6 to 9). This article is the operational side: what actually happens in the 30 days between "I'm leaving" and the first statement from the new company.
What exactly changes hands when you switch?
| What | Where it lives today | Can it move? | Who does the work |
|---|---|---|---|
| Airbnb / Agoda / Booking.com listing | The old company's account, or yours | Only if it is on your account. If it is on theirs, it is rebuilt from scratch | Old company (hand over content), new company (rebuild) |
| Reviews and rating | Attached to the listing, inside that account | No. Reviews never move between accounts | Nobody can |
| Confirmed future bookings | OTA calendar + the old company's system | Yes, with cooperation: either serviced by the old company to the end, or cancelled / re-booked | Both companies, agreed in writing |
| Guest deposits already collected | The old company's account | Yes — refunded to the guest or transferred with the booking | Old company |
| Pending OTA payouts for completed stays | OTA → old company | Yes — paid out on the final statement | Old company |
| Your owner deposit | Old company | Yes, under the contract's refund conditions | Old company |
| Smart-lock, Wi-Fi, utility logins | Old company's apps and your name | Yes — reset, re-register | New company |
| Building registration (JMB / security system) | Building management, under the old operator's name | Yes — update operator contact | You + new company |
| Photos, floor plan, listing text, pricing history | Old company | Depends on the contract | Old company |
Four of those nine lines depend on the old company's goodwill. That is why the order of steps matters: you confirm what they will hand over before you give notice, not after.
Will my reviews follow me to the new company?
Only in one case: the listing is on your own Airbnb account and the old company managed it as a co-host. Then you remove the co-host, add the new company as co-host, and nothing else changes — same listing, same URL, same reviews.
In every other case, no. Airbnb does not transfer listings or reviews between accounts; its own help pages say listings and reviews are assigned to the host account and cannot be moved. Agoda and Booking.com work the same way. If your 80 reviews sit under the old company's account, they stay there. The new company creates a new listing and it starts at zero.
This applies to us too. Most of the units we manage run under consolidated company accounts, for the reasons explained in clause 6 of the contract article: one account across a hundred-plus units is what makes unified pricing, one inbox and a platform relationship possible. So if you move to Antlerzone from another company, your reviews do not come with you, and if you ever leave Antlerzone, the reviews earned under our account do not leave with you either. We would rather you know that before you sign than discover it on the way out.
What a new listing can carry over, if the old company cooperates: the photos (you paid for them or the unit is yours — ask), the listing description, the house rules, and the pricing history (what the unit actually achieved per night in each month). That last one is worth more than it sounds: a new listing priced from real data recovers visibility faster than one priced from guesswork.
A practical tip for the dead period: in the first four to six weeks a new listing has no reviews and sits low in search. Expect lower occupancy that month, and treat it as a cost of switching rather than a sign the new company is failing. Direct bookings and returning guests who already have the new company's number soften this.
What happens to the bookings already on the calendar?
Say you give notice on 1 November, effective 30 November, and the calendar already holds a 20 December booking and a Chinese New Year booking in February. Three outcomes are possible, and your contract should say which:
| Outcome | What happens to the guest | What happens to the money | When it is fair |
|---|---|---|---|
| Old company services them to the end | Nothing changes for the guest | Old company keeps its commission on those stays and pays you on a final statement after each stay | When the dates are close and few |
| Bookings cancelled by the old company | Guest gets a cancellation, has to rebook | Old company bears the platform penalty — Airbnb charges hosts a cancellation fee of roughly 10% to 50% of the booking value depending on how close to check-in, and blocks those dates on the calendar | Rarely fair to the guest; last resort |
| Bookings transferred to you / the new company | Guest is contacted, told the new check-in contact; the stay goes ahead | Any deposit already paid is refunded or passed on; the stay is commissioned by whoever services it, not both | The cleanest outcome, but only works if the booking was direct or the OTA listing moves with you |
The red flag from the contract article applies here: wording like "the company retains the right to its fee on all bookings received during the term" means the old company keeps charging you for stays that happen months after you have left. Do not accept it; ask for a cut-off date instead.
The guest comes first in all three cases. Whoever services the stay must hold the check-in details, the deposit and the door code. A guest who arrives in Johor Bahru on a Friday night and finds two companies pointing at each other is the worst outcome for everyone, including your future reviews.
Who holds the guest deposits and pending payouts during the switch?
Three pots of money are in motion:
Guest deposits already collected. For direct bookings, the old company usually holds a damage deposit (we collect ours on check-in day and refund it after check-out, minus documented deductions with photos — see how we handle problem guests). For a stay that will be serviced by the new company, the old company should refund the deposit to the guest before handover and the new company collects it fresh at check-in. Passing deposits company-to-company is messier and leaves the guest unsure who owes them money.
Pending OTA payouts. Agoda and Booking.com settle monthly; Airbnb pays after check-out. A stay that ended on 28 November may be paid to the old company in mid-December. Your contract should say that the final statement includes every stay with check-out before the exit date, and name the date that final statement and payout will arrive. Ask for a written list of "stays completed, payout pending" on the handover day.
Your owner deposit. If you paid one, check clause 9 of the contract: the amount, the refund conditions, and whether your reason for leaving counts as a breach. Selling the unit, moving in yourself, or the building banning short stays should not be breaches. A plain switch of company, mid-term, usually is — and the deposit may be forfeited. Of our three plans, the 80% and 70% plans have no fixed term and two months' notice; the 90% plan is a three-year term and leaving early forfeits the RM5,000 deposit. Read your own contract's equivalent before deciding the timing.
What has to happen to the unit itself?
This is the part nobody writes about, and it is where most handover-week problems come from.
Smart lock. The old company's app holds the admin rights. Either it is handed over (admin transferred to the new company, all old guest codes wiped) or the lock is factory-reset. In our system guests set their own door code at booking, it goes live at check-in time and is cleared after check-out — so there should be no permanent guest codes on a lock. If the old lock has twenty standing codes in it, assume every one is a former guest or cleaner and wipe them.
Inventory and condition. Walk the unit with both companies, or at least with the new one, and photograph every room, every appliance serial plate, the aircon remotes, the number of pillows, towels, hangers. This is the baseline for the new company's damage claims and the end of the old company's. Without it, the first chipped table in month two becomes an argument about who chipped it.
Utilities and internet. TNB, SAJ and Unifi are usually in your name; what changes is who receives the bill and who pays it from your income. Make sure autopay from the old company's account is cancelled, or you will be paying two months of Unifi twice.
Building registration. Many Johor Bahru condos register the homestay operator with the management office, and some run a guest-registration or eKYC gate at the lobby. Update the operator contact, otherwise your new guests are refused at security on Friday night. If your unit's licence or registration was done in your name (see what you actually need to register a homestay in Johor Bahru), the registration stays — only the operator contact changes. If it was done in the old company's name, it needs redoing. Check which.
Consumables and keys. Spare keys, access cards, parking transponders, the Wi-Fi router password, the gas cylinder, the stock of toilet paper. Count the access cards especially; replacing a condo access card in Johor Bahru typically costs RM50 to RM150 and the management office will ask who authorised the old ones.
What is the 30-day timeline?
| Day | Step | Who |
|---|---|---|
| Day 0 | Ask the old company in writing: who owns the listings, what will be handed over (photos, text, pricing data), how future bookings will be treated, when the final statement comes | You |
| Day 0–3 | Sign with the new company, with the start date set to the day after the old contract ends; share the old company's written answers | You + new company |
| Day 3 | Give notice to the old company, quoting the contract's notice period | You |
| Day 3–25 | New company builds the new listing (or prepares co-host takeover), prepares building registration update, orders new lock admin | New company |
| Day 25 | Old company's final direct bookings closed; agreed treatment for future bookings executed; deposits refunded to affected guests | Old company |
| Day 30 | Handover walk-through with photos; lock reset; access cards and keys counted; utility autopay switched | Both + you |
| Day 30 | New listing goes live; building management informed of new operator | New company |
| Day 45–60 | Old company's final statement and payout, covering stays with check-out before Day 30 | Old company |
| Day 60 | New company's first full statement | New company |
If your contract has a two-month notice period, stretch the middle of this table; the order does not change.
Is switching always worth it?
Not always, and a good new company will tell you so. Before switching, put the actual numbers side by side — not the headline percentage, the net. What an owner actually takes home shows the kind of monthly statement to ask for from both sides. If the old company is paying you late but the net is fine, the fix might be a stricter payout clause, not a switch. If the gap is real — the three-plan comparison in 90% of revenue vs 80% of net profit shows how expense share changes the answer — then the one-month dip in occupancy from a fresh listing is a price worth paying.
What to be sceptical of: any company that promises your reviews will "carry over" (they cannot, unless the listing is on your account), or that says the handover is "no problem, we'll sort it out" without putting the nine lines in the first table in writing.
This article describes commercial practice, not legal advice. Contract terms, licence requirements and tax treatment vary; have a lawyer read your agreement and check the current rules with the relevant authorities.
If you are weighing a switch for a unit anywhere in Johor Bahru or Desaru, send us the old company's answers to the Day 0 questions and we will tell you honestly what would and would not survive the move — including what you would lose coming to us. The form is at /ownerenquiry.