Christine: Today's question comes from many homeowners. I always get asked this question at seminars, via email; and it's something that I have a very difficult time answering. So, I'm going to do my best here to try to answer this question in a way that will be helpful for everyone. Everyone wants to know about screening guests. They want to know, Q: How exactly do I screen out guests? A: Now, the answer to this question is very difficult for me as I said before because it's one of the things that I actually feel that I'm quite good at, just sort of naturally. It just comes to me; I have a really good gut feeling, I guess, when I'm looking to screen my guests. And the fact of the matter is, for the most part, I don't really screen too many people out. However, you do want to look for some red flags when you're going through your inquiries to make sure that you have the best guests staying in your home. So, the first thing you do before you even screen is you need to figure out who is the right traveler or the right guest to stay in your home. Because if you don't know that ahead of time, then you won't know who to screen and who not to screen. So, let me just take my properties and give you sound examples. For instance, I own a condo in Panama City Beach, Florida. Now, Panama City Beach is a known market for a lot of Spring Breakers, young kids, college kids, to come and party, drink and have a good old time. Those are not the ideal guests for my vacation rental, and as a matter of fact, my condo complex even has restrictions against me renting to someone under 25. So, first and foremost what I want to do, I want to screen out anyone who is under 25. And how do you even do that? There's some things that I look for to help me determine whether or not they are under 25. First and foremost would be if they are all adults, no children. That's a red flag for me, especially when they're inquiring about week during Spring Break. The next thing would be the email address. If it's from whatever university.edu, that's usually a red flag. The next thing I look for is how many people do they have? I don't like to exceed the maximum occupancy for my vacation homes because I don't like that extra wear and tear. It's taxing on everything, especially the power and the housekeeping. So, what I look for in an inquiry is how many people do they have? The other thing is, if they have say 12 people and I only sleep eight and I reply to them and say, "I do have that open, however, you have too many people in your party to fit in my home. If they reply and say, "Oh, well, only eight of us are going" I'm not so sure I would rent to them because I'm not so sure that only eight are going if twelve are going to begin with. Watch out for the number of people that they have as well. The next thing I watch out for when I'm screening is again sort of a difficult one to articulate, but what I'm doing is I'm ultimately trying to make sure that every guest who stays in my vacation home is the perfect guest for my vacation home. Now, let's just say the husband is doing the searching and the wife wants directly on the beach and my condo is on the side, it doesn't have a direct beachfront view. The husband wants to be finished, he just wants to rent a place, he tries to get his wife to settle. Now, I'm not so sure that I would encourage that person to rent. I want to make sure that each guest is happy in my home. If my home is not the perfect home for them, I usually encourage them to go and try to find another home that would be better for them. I know a lot of you would be cringing going, "Hello, Christine, that's a bird in the hand. If they want to rent, heck with it, let them rent." However, as I said, I just don't want anyone to be unhappy while they're in my place. I don't know how they would treat if they weren't happy in there. So, I always encourage the guests to make sure that my place is indeed the place they want to rent. And I guess the last thing I really screen for is parties. Now, how do you even screen for that? One indicator might be, I'm coming to town for a wedding, we're coming for a bachelor party or a bachelorette party, somebody's birthday and the guests happen to live locally. Those are things that I watch out for because, again, I don't want my property to be abused. I don't want 50 people being in there, when it only sleeps six or eight. Also it could be tough for the amenities as well. Perhaps they live locally, it's their kid's birthday party and no one is going to sleep overnight, but they just want to use the amenities. That could cause problems with my homeowners association. So again, that's sort of the last thing that I screen for. In the end, what happens is I always talk to each guest who is ever going to be renting my vacation homes. Now, it doesn't necessarily mean I, personally, am going to talk to them. I do have a husband; he does talk to the guests as well. However, one of us always talks to each guest to determine whether or not they would be the perfect guest for my vacation home. I hope you enjoyed this episode of "Ask Christine". If you have a question, we'd love to hear from you. Please leave a message at area code 512 493 4340. Again, that's area code 512 493 4340. Don't forget to enjoy your vacation home yourself. Happy renting by owner!