Hi Everyone!

Well I'm back from the FVRMA (Florida Vacation Rental Manager's Association) conference and the good news is they didn't feed me to the sharks. :)  Believe it or not, I was quite pleased with the productiveness of the talk.

First off, I'm happy to report that they did indeed greet me with open arms. Though, I did find it funny that not many people sat in front of the room, many were congregated in the back of the room. But thankfully they warmed up pretty quickly.

We talked a lot about the vacation rental industry and my personal take on why people leave their property managers and turn to renting by owner. Of course my response to this was owners were dissatisfied with their services in some capacity, be it their rates, lack of communication, responsiveness, etc. For the most part, they actually agreed. They realize that there are some horrible property managers out there. Unfortunately in this particular case, I was “preaching to the choir.” The property managers who are members of VRMA tend to be the cream of the crop, the best of the best.

One strong message that they gave to me is that they get extremely annoyed with owners who book weeks on their own and discount the rate significantly. And you know what, I agree with them! Ok here's the scenario: say you rent your property through your property manager for $1500/week and your property manager's commission is 30%. So should you rent your property for $1050/week (since you're saving the $450 in commissions?) I say absolutely NOT! Why? Think about it. If renters readily rent your property through the property manager for $1500/week, why shouldn't they pay the same when they rent through you? Do you offer less services than if they were to rent your property through the property manager? Is your house different? Of course not. So why devalue your property when you rent by owner? While it's acceptable to lower the price a smidgen, say $50/week, I don't think you are doing your property justice when you lower the price.

The property managers also wanted to know what they can do to work together with people who rent by owner. My advice was offer ala carte services, such as housekeeping, maintenance, etc. That's the biggest challenge for rent by owners.

I also told them that we need to work together on the issues of impending vacation rental bans, which they all agreed. But single handedly the biggest issue that we all need to work on is promoting the vacation rental industry as a whole. To get more travelers to rent vacation homes in lieu of staying in a hotel.

All in all, though I admit I was a bit nervous before I went, I was very happy that I did.

And now, if anyone asks me if I know of any good property managers in Florida, I can refer owners to some property managers with confidence.

Happy Renting by Owner…or through your property manager,

Christine

*Christine is recording a podcast with a property manager that she met at the conference this week.  Check back in a few weeks for the interview.

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