You purchased a Vacation Rental, now what?

Make auto-responder bring you more booking!

2007-02-20T21:00:00.001-08:00

What is the auto-responder or auto-reply? It is a function of your email program which automatically emails a prewritten message to any incoming email.

Why do you need it? You know that all portal sites work – inquiry is created right on your listing and submitted through portal’s email system to your email address. Up to this point, your potential guest doesn’t know about your vacation home, other then what he reads on the listing.

Auto-responder will email your potential guest information you want them to see if they would come to your site. Let’s now think what we want to include in the auto-responder email. This is your chance to market your property and you don’t want to miss it!

Studies show that if your email visually has not more then 20 sentences, it will be read. People usually want to see photos of your property, they are interested in prices and only then they are looking for availability. So your email should be concentrated on these points. If you have a web-site, then you want to place links to
appropriate pages.

Small note. There is a big discussion on strategy for disclosing the price to your potential clients. Depending on how you feel about it, are you firm on the price? Do you want to negotiate and are you ready to lower the price? How flexible are you? By answering these questions, you will be able to create a proper block in your auto-responder for prices.

You also must assure your potential client that you will get back to him within a reasonable time. Don’t wait too long to respond or people will forget about your property. Everyone likes personal attention and if you want your property to be booked, you need to show it quickly.

To summarize, here is your points for auto-responder to the inquiry from portal sites:
1. Thank you for your interest
2. Our property is the best choice for you and your family
3. See pictures of the property here: myvr.com/pictures
4. Rates are here, but we are flexible: myvr.com/rates
5. You can check on availability, we keep it current: myvr.com/calendar
6.Thank you again and we will contact you shortly

The possibilities with auto-reply are endless and this is an excellent tool to make a first step to a client and show him you care.

2007-02-04T14:32:00.000-08:00

Choosing the location.
Start from where you live. Think about places you went and you loved it within 2 hours of driving. Think what you liked there and what you didn’t like. Imagine what you you would do if you went there for 1 week. Are there any nice dining places? Are there any activities to take the kids to? Is there water where guests can swim, fish or bring a boat? Are there hospitals near by? Are there mountains, a forest, a creek or any other setting?

Things to consider:
Families with children (activities for kids and hospitals)
Couples and adult companies (activities for adults and places to dine)
Mixed groups (all of the above)

What would be the activities for kids:

Swimming (beaches on any water – lake, ocean, river, creek)
Tubing, water rafting, canoeing (lakes and rivers)
Horse back riding
Amusement parks
Movies
Zoos
think about you when you were small and your kids, what they like to do?

Some activities for adults:

Golf
Casino
Restaurants
Bars
Clubs

you can make this list bigger just using your common sense :)

Why you should ask yourself that if you know this perfect secluded area in the mountains? Because people like to be out there, close to nature, but they want to have all the civilian attributes close by. If given a choice, people would prefer a cottage in a forest 5 miles from downtown of the small city, as opposed to a beautiful cabin on top of a mountain with an unbelievable view to which that you have to drive for 30 minutes. I am not saying that this cabin won’t be a good vacation place for someone; I am just saying it will bring less business in my experience. We are very accustomed to the luxury of life and we don’t feel good when it’s too far to the store where we can buy a box of milk or a loaf of bread.

So let’s suppose we know this place and it’s just perfect,; it’s close to a some small city with little stores and a country meal available, it has many sightseeing places around, there’s beautiful nature and it’s only 2 hours for you to drive there. Or perhaps it is this another place right in the downtown area of your city, next to Six Flags and museums with so much to do in the day time and many places to party at night. See the picture? I would start my property search right here.

But perhaps you don’t recall places like that close to you. And after you did a lot of research, you still can’t find it and you are very firm on wanting of making money. You can be a long- distance owner, but prepare for the task. This will be a harder business. It can be very successful, but it requires more time for you to invest. We will talk about this in chapter 5.

I guess it can be summarized as following: If you are to buy it to have it as a business, look around you and take it as a business move. If you want it as pleasure from the place you really love, try the long- distance.

TIP: There’s something to consider. If you live in Florida but absolutely love to ski in Colorado, don’t rush into buying and renting in Colorado. You can make a very successful vacation rental where you are and spend money that you make right there for this nice vacation in Colorado Aspen (name of famous resort???). Or you can simply exchange with the owner. I can assure you there are plenty of vacation rental owners in Colorado that want to spend their own vacation in Florida. All you need to do is ask.

OK, let the process begin…

2006-12-03T22:04:00.000-08:00

OK, let the process begin…

I want to approach it as a business, so let’s think as business owners and

Our business objective
Find the location
Research on market in this location
Research on real estate available
Financing and such
Pre-buying plan
Post-buying plan
Enjoying the profit from our business

vacationrentalslisted.com

Who should read this blog?

2006-11-26T23:38:00.000-08:00

If you want to buy a vacation rental for extra income, this blog is for you.

If you want to buy a vacation house as an investment and looking for ways to pay it by renting it out sometimes, this blog is for you.

According to statistics, about 1 million vacation homes are sold each year. Thanks to the Internet, more and more people are looking for vocational spots on-line, and more and more people prefer a cozy cabin by the lake to the fancy hotel room by the same lake.

This is not a blog for someone who wants to know how to buy vacation rental with no money down. And it’s not about how to use someone else’s money to invest into your vacation rental business. This book is for someone who knows his finances, who wants to try it, and is open-minded for every obstacle that might occur.

This blog is for everyone who dream of doing it, but is a bit afraid to really do it. And this book is just an attempt to show how I made it work for me - just see www.BlueMountainCreek.com.

OK, let the process begin…