It is easy to get swept up in the appeal of renting your vacation property yourself. Vacation Rentals By Owner (VRBO) means that you aren’t listing your cabin through a property management company. Instead, you have taken all of the responsibilities upon yourself.
At first, this might sound like a good idea, especially when considering that you won’t have to split your rental income with a property management group. However, this is not a good fit for everyone. Read below to discover some of the reasons that prevent VRBO from being as profitable as you may think.
1. Easy to Make Mistakes
There is a lot of work that goes into managing your vacation rental property, especially if you are new to the rent-by-owner system. Because of this workload, it is easy to make mistakes that affect your property’s profitability.
Examples of the common mistakes that vacation homeowners make when they attempt to rent their properties on their own include:
- Listing with too many sites
- Failing to keep calendars accurately up to date
- Double booking dates due to manual tracking systems
- Taking rentals without a proper rental agreement
- Not having solid backups for housekeeping, maintenance & customer relations
- Failing to report and pay all taxes properly
- Failing to comply with local inspection & safety requirements
Not only do these mistakes cost you money, but they also add extra stress and tension that you can avoid by listing your property with a reputable property management company.
At Stony Brook Cabins, we have decades of experience in the Smoky Mountain vacation industry. We have plenty of industry knowledge to make sure that your vacation home proves to be a positive experience.
2. Maintenance & Cleaning Costs Add Up
In order to keep up the appeal of your cabin, you have to stay on top of cleaning and maintenance. Nothing will ruin a guest’s experience quicker than a dirty cabin or a broken appliance.
In addition, the cost of this upkeep can add up pretty quickly. Even if you choose to do this yourself, you still have to take into account the value of your time that you are spending on the cabin.
However, you can save yourself some of the cost of continually paying for all of the care of your Smoky Mountain cabin rental by choosing to list it with a property management company. For example, we can easily and quickly take care of any immediate issues that arise while you have guests in your cabin. This way, guests are taken care of quickly, and you won’t have to worry about rushing to fix or replace anything at your cabin.
3. You Are Responsible For Marketing Your Property
It’s one thing to make sure that your cabin is in top shape to welcome renters when they visit, but it is another thing to make sure these renters find your property in the first place. The best way to do this is through marketing, and if you aren’t current on the industry's current trends, you can feel overwhelmed.
Not to mention, renting cabins in the Smoky Mountains is a competitive business, so not only are you working to make sure renters find your cabin, but you also have to make sure that they pick your rental over others they may find.
Although this can sound intimidating, you can easily avoid this pressure by listing your vacation home with a property management company like ours.
At Stony Brook Cabins, we take on the responsibility of marketing your vacation property for you. We ensure that all of the properties in our inventory are found on major online search engines, and we use additional professional tools to keep as up-to-date in the industry as possible. In return, we are able to bring more renters to your cabin and increase your revenue.
4. Full-Time Responsibility
Lastly, renting your vacation home can easily become a full-time responsibility. Not only will you be the one that guests will call if there is ever a maintenance or cleaning issue, but you will also be responsible for ensuring a smooth check-in process, answering questions about the cabin and the local area, dealing with lockouts (I forgot my code or key), etc. Believe it or not, that alone will take up much of your time.
Then, when you add scheduling maintenance, cleaning services, and lawn care, it quickly becomes a significant responsibility. If you live out of town, as many property owners do, you lose even more time and money by hiring and paying other companies to handle these things locally.
Here is an example of how much time an average VRBO spends per week:
- Booking Guests: 5 hours
- Check-in Guests: 2 hours
- Providing Information/Answering Questions: 1 hour
- Repairs and Fixes: 1 hour
- Washing and Cleaning Bed Linens: 1 hour
- Cleaning: 2 hours
If you want your vacation home to “not” be a full-time job, we recommend listing your property with an experienced property management company. When you do, you won’t have to worry about late-night phone calls and day-to-day operations of your cabin. We will take care of all of those responsibilities for you.
Start making your cabin rental work for you by calling us today!