A good rental year

[NewUrbanGirl]

Hope you all found this year to be a good rental year. At the beginning of the season (before spring), I was a bit concerned, since rentals seemed to be coming in later than prior year. Looking back, though, we are up 24% over prior year in nights rented, so it turned out just fine. I'm sure El Nino helped us out. !Gracias senor!

I remember when we were building our home and speaking with the rental company, and they said we'd probably get about 9 weeks rental, mostly between Memorial Day and Labor Day. We elected to rent on our own and set up our own website, handled our own marketing and guest contacts. Our rentals have been much better than their estimates. Shows you that sometimes you shouldn't listen to the "experts".

 

[Pelican Porch]

how have you been marketing your property and handling cleaning if you don't mind me asking

 

[Beach Runner]

Thanks to Mermy's suggestions, we've had a great rental year. And with all of the inquiries we've had lately, I think we'll be full for next spring/summer before our rental management company gets their act together (which means they'll get a smaller cut). I don't feel guilty about this because I've told them multiple times that they open up spring/summer rentals online way too late.

Of course, damage is another thing. It has all been repaired, but our pool guy told us that at our place and others, humans didn't rent this past summer -- they were for the most part animals from what he observed.

 

[Paula]

Our rentals in the spring summer were about the same as the year before, which was quite good -- I think we were full during spring break and I know we were full during peak summer season. (I do my comparisons at the end of the year when we do our taxes and can see all the income/expenses at the same time.) We may have had slightly fewer rentals in fall this year compared to last year, but not by much. On the other hand, we didn't lose any weeks to hurricanes this year whereas we did the year before. And this year we did not invest as much in the cottage in terms of furniture and other things, so we'll see how that affects the balance sheet come tax time this year. But taxes and insurance went up. We did not raise our rates from the year before.

We're very happy with how the rentals have been during the 4 years we've been renting in SoWal. As I've said before, our renters have been great -- taking good care of our cottages, staying on top of maintenance that needs to be done (e.g., telling the management company about maintenance problems before they get to be bigger problems), leaving kind words in our guest book, and sometimes leaving behind some nice beach toys and other things for future guests to use. We rent primarily to families and not to big groups, so that may be one reason we've had good experiences.

Most importantly, we love coming to SoWal ourselves which is why we got our cottages in the first place And I'll be there in less than 12 hours...

 

[Mermaid]

Thanks to Mermy's suggestions, we've had a great rental year. And with all of the inquiries we've had lately, I think we'll be full for next spring/summer before our rental management company gets their act together (which means they'll get a smaller cut). I don't feel guilty about this because I've told them multiple times that they open up spring/summer rentals online way too late.

Of course, damage is another thing. It has all been repaired, but our pool guy told us that at our place and others, humans didn't rent this past summer -- they were for the most part animals from what he observed.

Thank you BR. I'm glad you had Kurt do a VT & list on VRBO. It's nice when the renters help pay the mortgage, and to do that you have to have primo advertising tools! ;-)

This was our first year renting, started in March. It's curious the way the season works. April, May, and July were booked solid. August was deader than a doornail and September wasn't much better. The fall is doing just fine (we're booked twice already in November, of all months!). What I'm curious about is how many repeat renters we'll get in 2007. I plan to send e-mails at the holidays to all my guests, telling them our rates are remaining the same & that we hope to see them again. We'll see how it works!

Thankfully--knock on wood here--we had only good renters. Several of my friends were not so lucky with theirs (BR gives a very good example). My guests leave adorable presents and I hope that's the way it stays. Merman and I deliver a top notch product and it makes us feel good that it's appreciated.

 

[spinDrAtl]

We had a pretty good August, thanks to a late rental for a week from a neighbor. September was dead as described above, but October is in good shape.

 

[NewUrbanGirl]

how have you been marketing your property and handling cleaning if you don't mind me asking

Will PM you.

Interesting to read all of your posts. We had about 1/2 of August open, but were very booked in all other months since the beginning of the year. Walton has been getting a lot of bed tax from us this year. November and December are still pretty open at this point, but I'm hoping we'll get a few more weeks out of the year.

And I agree with Paula "Most importantly, we love coming to SoWal ourselves which is why we got our cottages in the first place". We love it too, and try to come as frequently as our work schedules allow. Sometimes more frequently than our work schedules allow. ;-)

 

[PTWizard]

We had a great rental year! Last fall and early this spring we spent $80,000 on renovations and new furniture for a home we purchased in June, 2005. We were very nervous worrying about whether a hurricane would blow it all away. However, even though many of the rentals were "last minute" reservations we were booked SOLID from mid-March through the third week in October, except for a couple of weeks in the April-May timeframe. And this was despite a 10% bump up in rental rates justified by the new pool deck, new furnishings, new electronics, etc.. We use Garrett Realty exclusively and are VERY satisfied. No one is perfect but they've been extremely pleasant to work with and consistantly reliable in their service. A big step up from the company we used for our condo at High Pointe. A company which was not necessarily bad.

For next year we are considering a new strategy, no price increase but weekly/monthly rentals only, with Saturday to Saturday only from mid-March through mid-October. With the increase in cleaning fees it just seems to make sense for us, especially since we've only had three non-weekly rentals this season anyway. What do you think?

 

[rentalio]

Many customers report good rental yaer and growing trend. I think it's because much more Internet presence in selection process.

Earlier people go to agencies and order trips, usualy not so many vacation rentals in offer. Now Internet users can contact owners directly or find good agancies that offer vacation rentals.

My site Rentalio Vacation Rentals Directory is one way to help surfers to find rentals.

 

[Bobbi Griggs]

The Beach Butlers grocery shopping and delivery service fills special requests for groceries and personal items prior to guest arrival. Visit the web site at www.thebeachbutlers.com and add their service to your marketing.