Questions for Owners who Rent Their Properties

[spinDrAtl]

For any owners who rent their properties, either all themselves or in combination with a rental agency, how do you take/keep track of your rentals?

Do you just write them down in a notebook/calendar, use a spreadsheet, or some kind of software? If you rent in combination with a rental agency, do you have to call them every time you get an inquiry yourself to find out if your property is available?

When dealing with prospective renters, is it all email's back and forth, phone tag, etc.? Anyone have online booking? Do you allow anything like a 24 hour hold?

Anyone set up for credit cards? I know it can be done, but what is the best/cheapest way to take cc's. Paypal is pretty decent.

What are the best self-rental sites? I know VRBO is probably the biggest (40k plus now) and best known?

Thanks for any information.

[wetwilly]

I use both the web directly (three sites I use are VRBO, findvacationrentals.com and vacationrentals.com) and a rental company. Send me a direct email and I will share with you how it is working for me. It is working pretty well 80% booked for the Summer and we the house just became rental ready 5/15/05. We didn't catch the Spring but we have had good luck doing it direct and thru the agency but I am looking at going 100% direct thru the web. The connection with the renters is a bonus and I am enjoying the process of "managing" it even though it is alot of work. I have made some very good connections and relationships doing it direct.

[sunsetdunes]

For any owners who rent their properties, either all themselves or in combination with a rental agency, how do you take/keep track of your rentals?

Do you just write them down in a notebook/calendar, use a spreadsheet, or some kind of software? If you rent in combination with a rental agency, do you have to call them every time you get an inquiry yourself to find out if your property is available?

When dealing with prospective renters, is it all email's back and forth, phone tag, etc.? Anyone have online booking? Do you allow anything like a 24 hour hold?

Anyone set up for credit cards? I know it can be done, but what is the best/cheapest way to take cc's. Paypal is pretty decent.

What are the best self-rental sites? I know VRBO is probably the biggest (40k plus now) and best known?

Thanks for any information.

If you are not already a member, I suggest signing up for this Yahoo Discussion List:

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/vacation_rentals/

It really doesn't take that much work to manage your rental property, as long you "work smarter, not harder." After a number of years of managing my own property, I've devised many ways to cut the amount of time I spend managing my property. You can contact me privately if you want more info.

[Philip_Atlanta]

Marketing :

Web - Vrbo is where most of our leads come from - but we are on about 4-5 sites and have a website which has decent traffic.

Print - I wasted money on the Atlanta newspaper - I'd suggest you not do that. However; I did have some success with more localized, targeted marketing to households.

Repeats - this should be your goal - web/print, etc are expensive and your goal should be to book that majority of your rentals via word of mouth or repeats - there are a few ways to encourage this, I took a lot of ideas from Sandestin - IMO, they do a great job at generating return customers.

Network with other homeowners - we have a good network of homes in our area where we share leads. i.e. if I get a customer who wants to book a week that is already booked - I'll refer them to some other houses that are self-managed. Done right, it works quite well and you'll get those ready to rent leads back to you.

Admin:

We run most rentals via credit cards, it just makes things that much easier than running to a PO box looking for checks.

Managing of when it is booked - I use a spreadsheet and the rentors.org calendar .

IMO, its well worth it on your own. You are the best salesman for your house.

[Paula]

We use VRBO for advertising, as well as a rental agency for the management of the cottage (e.g., cleaning, maintenance, bookings, handling payments, handling questions, etc.). If the renters have a problem when they are at the cottages, they can easily call the agency and get a quick fix (we can't do that from a distance).

It works well for us because we live far away and can relax because we know someone is looking out for the cottages regularly. We REALLY like VRBO because it is so flexible -- you can change the text anytime, but you can only change the photos once a year at payment time (you may be able to change them during the year for a fee).

[GraytonBound]

So far we have used ResortQuest since they are on-site at High Pointe. Homeowners can log onto their website which is updated about 6AM daily, so if a friend or co-worker wants to rent from us we just check the website for availabilty. Seems to work ok for us.

[kurt]

I recommend vrbo to everyone. I'm not affiliated with them. They get lots of traffic. Some have said they get lost in the competition, but I think it depends on the area you are in.

Here's a page that might help:
http://www.mooncreek.com/rentals.html


Our Moon Creek services I feel are a bargain, and many people tell me that. I could charge more, but I want to keep my volume of tours up so that we have a good selection on the sites we own. I understand rental owners have lots of costs and budgets. On the other hand - if you can spend a few hundred to get even one, but probably dozens, of extra bookings - gosh - that's a forehead-slapping no brainer. :lol:

Having rentals on our sites benefits the sites overall and the long-term view is to continue building our sites over the long haul.

And, with arranging a shoot, picking up and returning keys, dodging renters and cleaning and maintenance people, getting perfect weather, shooting photos, processing photos, use of stock photos, creating web page and publishing it, hosting it, making changes, archiving files, maintaining other websites to advertise your rental, invoicing, etc - - - - - all that goes into it - - - I think it's a bargain :!:

And for a bit extra we place your property on several of our sites. We don't track hits on the virtual tours so you don't always know renters come from our sites. But I have many people who don't advertise elsewhere and they do very well with us. And many who've said their bookings went up after signing on.

Here are our packages:
http://www.mooncreek.com/rentaltours.html

[spinDrAtl]

Thanks for all the info everyone. Does anyone use any software for booking/tracking?

What is the best deal that anyone has used/heard of for credit cards? I think rentors.org is $99 setup, $19.95 per month, plus a % of each transaction.

[spinDrAtl]

Software rec's, anyone?

[ShallowsNole]

I'm not an owner, but a rental tax auditor - and most of the individual owners who have given me a glimpse into their world use a spreadsheet program to track their revenues.

One of our owners (who has given me the OK to send folks to her site) has started another career helping other owners rent their properties, and I think she has put together an organizer geared toward rental management. Her website is www.howtorentbyowner.com . There may be some software out there geared toward individual rental ownership, but I haven't run across any.