Meet the Team
Two co-founders, two disciplines, one outcome: your property gets found and booked.
We're not a generalist agency that dabbles in STR marketing. We're not a property management company taking a cut. Crest & Cove is built entirely around short-term rentals nationwide — the search patterns guests use, the visibility gaps that cost independent hosts bookings, the specific content that moves a searcher from "maybe" to "book now."
When you can't be found, you can't be booked. That's the core tension we solve.
Our Story
We noticed a pattern: talented STR hosts with stunning properties, losing bookings because guests couldn't find them. Not because the properties weren't beautiful. Not because the locations weren't worth visiting. Because the people who should have been helping them weren't built for this.
National agencies treat independent-host markets like line items. They run the same playbook in the Smokies that they run in Scottsdale—generic photography, boilerplate listings, no understanding of how a mountain guest searches differently than a beach guest, or why a mountain cabin in the Blue Ridge needs a completely different content strategy than a desert retreat near Joshua Tree. The result is a property that looks passable and can't be found.
Local freelancers move the needle in isolation. A photographer who doesn't know listing SEO. A listing manager who doesn't understand visual content strategy. A consultant who hands you a report and disappears. The pieces exist. The integrated team—photography, platform strategy, SEO, and direct-booking infrastructure under one roof, with one point of accountability—didn't exist for independent hosts in secondary markets nationwide. That's the gap we built Crest & Cove to fill.
We've driven these roads. From the Tennessee River towns of North Alabama to the barrier island coastlines of the Carolinas and the Gulf. From mountain cabins in North Georgia and Eastern Tennessee to coastal cottages along the Atlantic and Gulf shores. And as we've grown, we've kept driving—into desert towns, lake regions, and coastal markets across the rest of the country, applying the same ground-level approach everywhere we go. We've stayed in these properties. We understand the difference between a mountain guest and a beach guest, between a cultural market and an adventure market, between a property that practically books itself and one that needs a sharper story told for it.
We've also watched independent hosts go up against property management companies with full marketing departments, volume OTA relationships, and pricing algorithms—and we've watched those hosts win when they had better content, stronger direct-booking infrastructure, and search visibility those PM companies don't bother investing in.
Crest & Cove bridges that gap. We show up in person. We combine professional visual content, platform expertise, and data-driven strategy under one roof. We build direct-booking visibility so guests search for your property by name—reducing your reliance on Airbnb and VRBO and the percentage they take with every reservation. We don't take a cut of your revenue. We're a marketing partner, not a co-host.
Every property we work with becomes findable, irresistible, and backed by a guest experience that earns repeat bookings. That's the whole point.
Jacob Mishalanie
Co-Founder & Creative Director
Jacob leads all visual production — photography, cinematic video, sound engineering, virtual tours, and color grading. His background is in professional broadcast video production, and he applies those same production standards to every property Crest & Cove works with: the visual quality of a luxury hospitality brand, built around the specific market and guest a listing is trying to reach.
Production quality isn't decorative — it directly affects bookings. Guests can't book what they can't clearly see. Underlit or poorly composed photos cost hosts real conversions, while a well-produced walkthrough — with accurate lighting, sound, and pacing — removes friction from the decision-making process and lets a guest picture themselves in the space before they ever arrive.
Every shoot is planned around how and when a property actually presents best — time of day, season, and the specific angle a guest is searching for — rather than treated as a single generic pass. That planning is what separates a listing that converts from one that simply exists online.
His focus isn't just capturing a property. It's making sure it's visible in the way that actually earns a booking.
Thomas Garner
Co-Founder & Visibility Director
Thomas builds the digital foundation that gets your property found. SEO strategy, keyword research, Google Business Profile optimization, direct-booking website architecture, schema markup, Google Vacation Rentals integration, and the citation networks that feed organic discovery — that's his lane.
Here's what that solves: a traveler searches "beach cottage with private pool, Outer Banks" or "mountain cabin with hot tub near Asheville" or "desert retreat near Joshua Tree." If your property isn't ranking in those searches, it doesn't exist to that guest. Thomas makes sure you appear — not just on OTA platforms, but across the full digital landscape where independent bookers search before they ever open Airbnb.
Thomas has audited hundreds of STR listings across markets nationwide, from mountain corridors to coastal clusters. He knows which Google Business Profile categories actually drive discovery in secondary markets because he's tested them, and he knows why a property ranking for a branded direct search converts at three times the rate of an OTA click — and how to build toward that from day one.
When a guest finds your property without touching an OTA, books direct, and you keep the full revenue — that's the result of deliberate visibility infrastructure. Thomas builds it.
