0 Shares Is Your Vacation Rental Home Family Friendly? This is a question we hear occasionally although it’s not one of the most common ones our rental agency receives. When I ask the potential renter what they mean by ‘family friendly’, there’s often a vague response asking about the waterfront and if it has shallow entry. We rarely get questions about safety issues or […]
0 Shares Let’s Respect Our Vacation Rental Guests and Provide Them With Pillows! I clicked through a Google Ad today to a site advertising a cottage rental here in Ontario. I thought I would approach it as a potential renter and see how user friendly the site was and whether I could be encouraged to book. The home page was fairly good and provided a lot of information […]
0 Shares Does It Sell More Chickens? Or…Do We Really Need That Patio Heater? Every so often I go off on a tangent and decide we need something for the cottage that will please our guests and keep them coming back for more. And that is the key….if the new addition will attract more guests and repeat renters, then we evaluate the decision to buy based on the income […]
0 Shares How to Contribute to Greener Vacation Rentals My good friend and author of children’s books on composting, Larraine Roulston is an environmental journalist and over the past few years has taught me a lot about living responsibly in cottage country. She and her husband Pete, are building a straw bale home in Elliot Lake which will be a prime example of sustainable […]
0 Shares Is Your Vacation Rental Hot Tub Squeaky Clean? There is little doubt that having a hot tub is an advantage in attracting low and shoulder season rentals. When there’s a lot of choice for prospective renters looking for an out-of-season break, extra amenities can be the deal decider, so the more options you can offer the better chance you have of converting a […]
0 Shares Be Prepared For Vacation Rental Breakdowns An appliance break down at any time of the year is a challenge, but when the fridge stops working on a hot summer day, it’s important to have a game plan in place. We’re fortunate in living so close to our vacation rental that it’s just a 10-minute drive to get there to manage any […]
0 Shares Is The Welcome Mat Out for Your Vacation Rental Guests? Have you ever taken a completely objective look at the first impression your guests get of your vacation rental home? Not from the moment they walk in, but from the approach to the place – even from a few kilometers out? For the moment, forget the interior and concentrate on what they see as they […]
0 Shares How Much Should You Share With Your Renters? Part-time vacation rental owners make up the bulk of those entering the market in many areas. By part-time, I mean those who are, perhaps reluctantly but for good economical reasons, renting out their cottages, cabins, villas, vacation homes (whatever you want to call them) for the weeks they are not using them personally. I talked […]
0 Shares The Five Most Common Mistakes Made by New Vacation Rental Owners With so many new properties coming onto the vacation rental market, owners are bound to make some mistakes along the way. I did when I started out, and learnt to my cost that if you don’t do the homework and get the systems in place at the outset, more problems are created along the […]
0 Shares Save Time with FAQ Lists for your Vacation Rental Guests Do we have to bring pots and pans? Is there an Ipod docking station? How many pillows are there on each bed? How often do you empty the hot tub? Are there enough outdoor chairs for all of us? Should I bring my blender? Do you have sports channels on your satellite program? Is there […]
