I’m a New VRBO Owner — Here’s What I Wish I Knew Before I Purchased
Vacation rental owners can make bank, if they do it right. But owning a VRBO or Airbnb property isn’t easy. You’ll need a high risk tolerance, lots of patience and a knack for knowing how to go above and beyond to create an experience for your guests.
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Many vacation rental owners purchase their property as a semi-passive income stream. Others just want to offset their own vacation costs and have a property they can enjoy. And then there’s Ryan and Stephanie Walker, a New Jersey-based couple who purchased their property in the Poconos on a whim after picking up a pamphlet at their local grocery store.
“If I said it was because of a ‘Relocate Now’ pamphlet in our local grocery store, I’m not sure if people would believe me … But that is the truth,” Stephanie Walker told GOBankingRates. “We had picked up one of those free fliers while shopping with our toddler to keep him busy in the store. But when we got home, Ryan and I started looking at the houses and were immediately hooked.”
Ryan Walker is the owner of R.J. Walker & Co., a boutique public relations firm specializing in finance and technology. With his corporate background and connections in the financial world, he has a keen understanding of investments. It wasn’t long before Ryan and Stephanie began running the numbers and realized a vacation home in the Poconos could be a feasible investment property.
“We had always been intrigued with the idea of owning a short-term rental property as an investment and have frequently used VRBO and Airbnb for vacations. Knowing the type of experience we would want to create, the excitement of designing a new home and most importantly, the concept of having a secondary stream of (semi) passive income, was a huge draw to us,” Stephanie said.
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Natives of the Northeast U.S., Stephanie and Ryan gravitated toward a property in the Catskills region of upstate New York. However, they quickly shifted their search to Pennsylvania’s Pocono Mountains, a popular vacation spot stacked with water parks, lakes and other attractions for all ages. The couple found 109 Hazleton Drive, a 1,800-square-foot cabin in Greentown, Pennsylvania, with four bedrooms, two bathrooms and a 1,000-square-foot detached garage. The community features a clubhouse, pool and tennis courts.
“The house had great juju, [and] there were so many activities and attractions within a 10-minute drive — such as Lake Wallenpaupack, several public golf courses, Skytop Lodge, a zoo and tons of breweries and restaurants,” Ryan said. “Most importantly, the community allowed short-term rentals.”
With synchronicity on their side, finding the vacation home was the easy part. Even so, here are seven things – good and bad — that the Walkers said they wish they had known before making their first VRBO purchase.
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Permitting Takes Time
Before you dive into owning and renting a vacation home, understand the local laws where you plan to purchase the property. Some communities don’t allow short-term rentals, and some municipalities make hosts and landlords cut through a lot of red tape.
“Most places in the Poconos and Catskills require you to register short-term-rentals with the local government,” Ryan said. “It took far longer than expected to get our STR permit.”
Good Contractors Are Hard To Find
Going into the project, the Walkers knew the home needed a lot of TLC.
“The kitchen required a complete gut job, and there were a few rooms that I was afraid to enter … Piping and electrical made absolutely no sense,” they said.
They had challenges finding a contractor and ended up relying on a family friend in the area who was able to help out with the larger renovation jobs.
“We put in some elbow grease and were able to modernize the cabin to feel like a clean and comfortable place to stay,” the Walkers said.
Budget for 10% More Than You Expect
When you’re hiring contractors, the Walkers recommended, always budget for at least 10% more than you expect.
“For us, it was all about making sure the math continued to work and we stayed on budget,” Stephanie said. It wasn’t just the aspects requiring a professional contractor that put the Walkers dangerously close to their budget line. “Furnishing a home from scratch gets expensive fast!”
It Takes Time To Make a House a Home
Likewise, it surprised Stephanie how much time and money it took to make sure all the amenities you’d find in your own home were replicated in the vacation property.
“You take for granted the things you use every day in your own home, and having to re-create that in a short period of time from scratch took much longer than we anticipated. There were a lot of trips to Home Goods, Home Depot and Hobby Lobby (plus countless Amazon boxes) before we had everything that people would need,” she said.
It Also Takes Time To Find Your First Guests
If there’s a lesson to be learned from the Walkers’ experience, it’s that every aspect of owning and renting a vacation home takes more time than you might expect.
“It was so hard to predict just how quickly it would get rented,” Stephanie said. “We optimistically thought it would start getting bookings immediately … When in reality, it took a couple of weeks before rental requests started coming in.”
The home is listed on the VRBO and Airbnb platforms, so the Walkers spend a lot of time ensuring their home stands out amongst the many Poconos properties listed.
“The trend is to ensure your STR is an ‘experience’ and not just a bed to sleep in. Making sure guests have firewood, provisions for s’mores, a stocked beach bag for the pool and lake are all part of building a listing that stands out,” Stephanie said.
Being Remote Hosts Requires a Solid Local Network
Time and money challenges are compounded when you live several hours from your vacation property. But if you wish to use the property yourself as a vacation spot, it makes sense to choose a remote location.
“We live 2 hours away, have 3 little kids and have full time jobs — so it became cumbersome to constantly go out for the day to do the landscaping and upkeep. It was a balance of figuring out how much we needed to do ourselves and how much work we could afford to outsource,” Stephanie said. “I think the most surprising thing was how hard it was to find a good network of people to help maintain the home.”
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Ultimately, though, a short-term rental can help you, and others, build core family memories — and that makes it worth all the time, money and hassles.
“As we were putting the finishing touches on the cabin, we started getting very attached to it. Much more so than I thought we would when the whole thing was just a concept,” Stephanie said.
With this in mind, the Walkers go the extra mile to ensure guests enjoy the home as much as their own family does.
“I put a lot of time and effort into our website to provide our guests with suggestions on things to do in the area. I always appreciate having a list of restaurants and activities shared with me when I travel someplace new, so I wanted to give that to our guests as well,” Stephanie concluded.
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This article originally appeared on GOBankingRates.com: I’m a New VRBO Owner — Here’s What I Wish I Knew Before I Purchased