A vacation home is a property where people spend their vacations, it is not a person’s main residence. This sector is well known as second homeownership. According to the Washington Post, the pandemic has increased the demand for vacation homes. In the summer of 2020 there were 44% more vacation homes sold than in 2019.
It is obvious that Americans are not choosing to invest in vacation homes just to have a nice getaway. Owning a second home opens various financial opportunities and one of them is a vacation rental business model.
What is a vacation rental business?
Many people have made a living off of renting out vacation homes. Some will do this as a part time thing on the side while others have gone into creating an entire business around it. Businesses centered around vacation rentals can have several different angles to go at.
One the first is the most obvious way of owning multiple homes and renting them all out as a vacation rental. This is becoming more and more popular as technology makes it easy to manage it all.
The other is a property management company. This is where companies could own a few homes and manage them in addition they will also manage other people’s properties for them and collect a fee. Both of these are very profitable and are becoming more popular to create.
How can I rent out my vacation home?
Renting out a vacation home is not as complicated as it might sound like. You just need to follow through the process and do not be discouraged by little issues. First of all, you have to decide when you would like to rent out your home.
You should do research, look for similar properties on different vacation rental websites and set the pricing. Remember that you should not have a fixed price for the whole year. With short-term rentals it is best to change prices according to different seasons and days of the week.
After you do your initial research, prepare your home for potential guests. Make sure there are enough kitchen and household appliances for the number of guests you expect to receive. Provide high-speed internet and do not forget linens, towels and toiletries. Try your best to create a comfortable environment. That’s what your guests are looking for. After the preparation stage, organize a photoshoot. Great photos will get various guests interested from all over the world and they should represent the best of your home. After this, you are ready to create listings on different websites.
How can I manage my vacation home?
If you want to reach a big audience, then you should make sure that your listing can be found on every major renting app. Some of the most important sites include: Airbnb, Booking.com, VRBO and Expedia. Syncing together all of these websites can become an issue and create double bookings, start using management software. Software will make managing vacation homes so much easier. Software such as Lodgable will even help you increase your nightly and occupancy rates and hosts see an average 30% increase in revenue.
