Top 10 tips for succeeding with your Vacation Rental property

There are a lot of do’s and don’ts with regard to running your holiday home as a business, and here are a few.

1. Take the trouble to find a decent agent. bad management can cause unnecessary vacancies, and worse. Disreputable managers have been known to rent property out, and pocket the proceeds.
2. Price your rates correctly, too little and you are selling yourself short, too much and you will not get the bookings you deserve.
3. Exercise extra marketing activities yourself. Obviously, tell friends and family of your holiday property, but don’t expect to get your full rate from these. Then there is an endless variety of websites with which to market your property, these will have varying degrees of success. Press advertising, articles, the list goes on.
4. Keep a useful events folder, with leaflets, and details of all your local attractions. This folder would also incude local restaurants, shops, taxi and local transport services.
5. Always keep your property clean, with necessary utencils available.
6. Keep a Guest Book, and encourage your renters to write down their findings, and thoughts for your property.
7. Have a welcome Pack ready for each of your guests as they arrive. Important things such as milk, bread, and tea or coffee, plus a little extra such as a bottle of champagne, or maybe a bottle of your local wine or produce (local being obviously cheaper).
8. As the weather may not always be conversive to outdoor pursuits - have books, and board games available. A video games console is good for kids. Try to have as many varied activities as possible, so as to keep most people happy.
9. Ensure that you have a do’s and dont’s list. In this list you can also provide instructions for everything that may need more than one brain cell to operate.
10. To ensure that your guests leave on a good note, you could give them a goodbye gift. This need not be expensive, just some local produce. Remember -  it’s the thought that counts.

So there you have it. As you have a great property in a great location, then you cannot fail to do well - but similar things have been said shortly before a great demise. With this in mind - never become complacent. 

This entry was posted on Sunday, March 23rd, 2008 at 3:27 pm and is filed under Advice for Owners. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.