Hi Everyone,

I hope you had a wonderful long weekend. For me, it was pretty good. I try to make a habit of not traveling on holiday weekends. People always ask me if it's because I'd rather get the rental income, but honestly, I just hate the crowds.

Last Friday, however, I came home from work to 22 voicemail messages! Luckily, they were not for Labor Day weekend — they were mostly for late September and October bookings. But the call volume was almost comical, after a point. As I was on my cell phone taking one booking, the home phone rang (and I gave my husband the look — the one that says “Answer it!”) As soon as he hung up…the phone rang again. He took four calls from prospective renters while I was on the phone taking one booking.

And now that the summer is “officially” over, I just realized that I got tripped up by the same problem that trips me up every single year — my summer rates got removed from my HomeAway.com ads. Ugh. Sometimes it seems vacation rental owners never get a break!

Next week I'll be in Baltimore, Philly and Jersey giving seminars. Come if you can!

Christine