All Forum Posts by: Kevin C.

Jon, I remember you were building a cabin on your property just for this reason. These are two different animals for sure, your cabin has been purpose built to be a VRBO, our home was not.

I believe your cabin is on the same acreage as your home, so you can easily oversee it. Given enough demand, additional cabins and a B&B are real possibilities for you.

With the damage considerations, something I had not really considered, VRBO no longer looks enticing, not for our current home anyway. The cabin we own, that one would work, would be all about the cabin experience yet still minutes from 'town'. There is also a Lake just a few minutes away, it's too low for boating now, but under normal conditions, it's where we generally take our boat.

Looks like I'll put any VRBO consideration to rest for our current home, but it's still up for consideration for our cabin property.

Jon - Keep us all posted on how your cabin works out, sounds like you have a solid plan.

The times we've stayed at a VRBO, there was a deposit.
I guess it varies by owner.

You are right in that the VRBO's we've stayed at, the places were typically pretty generic, as in nothing expensive to damage.

One listed a pool table and foosball table in a gameroom - the tables were both junk, hardly usable. We did not rent for the gameroom, but were surprised at how bad the tables were.

Potential damage, that could easily be a deal breaker.

60% would be a long term goal, something I think could be achieved if marketed properly.

Short term, if we had the house set up properly, any bookings at all would be a positive. This of course would only work if we were set up to live between two homes, which at this point we are not.

In order to ease into this, I would want this home furnished how I would want it as a VRBO, and wife and I would basically be guests in the home when we stayed there. If there was a booking, all we'd have to do is grab our clothes and head to our other house.

At some point there's a good chance we'll downsize.
Once we are prepared to downsize, and have purchased that home, that's when this would come into play.

Worst case, no bookings and we would then need to decide if we want to keep it as a long term rental or sell.

I'm leery of doing any marketing until we're prepared to rent it out. Good reputations are built over time, bad reputations can go viral in an instant. Last thing I'd want to do is string along a potential booking then back out when it's time to close the deal due to 'property not available'.

A property we recently purchased was purchased as a second home, one that we would have considered downsizing to. That property we were considering setting up as a VRBO, it would have either been that one, or our current home. Those plans changed when a son and his family took a liking to that home (cabin on a couple acres), and they are in it now,

We have rented homes on occasion when we travel.
The times we've rented a home, it's been shared with friends while on vacation. If there was a home like this available near an area we wanted to visit with friends, I'd book it in a heartbeat.

I appreciate all the comments.
Just bouncing ideas around right now. Our current home and the cabin property I think would both work as VRBO's. Can't do anything with either at the moment, but nothing wrong with bouncing ideas around so that when the time comes, you're better prepared to implement one of those ideas.

House is close to a major hwy that takes you right into Dallas.
A right turn and a two lefts and you're at the highway, just a few miles.

If the calendar I linked to earlier is accurate, someone is paying $175 a night for a regular subdivision home in Allen. We're a couple miles from that house.

Dallas IS a destination, and not everyone wants to stay in a Hotel, nor does everyone want to stay in the heart of a major city.

It's a long shot, I'm aware of that.
Would be interested to hear from anyone that has marketed a home that is not what might be considered a home you would expect to see as a VRBO.

I would have never thought to market a home in Allen as a VRBO, but someone did, and they appear to have gotten bites.

It's not something we're prepared to do right now, but it's something I think could work. There are things we'd have to have in place before we could give it a shot, but it's certainly worth considering.

LOL - Even people that live nearby sometimes have not heard of Lucas.
I would advertise under Dallas, then describe location in the listing.

Here's an example of a listing for a home in Allen that's listed under Dallas.
http://www.vrbo.com/331154
Allen is a fairly good sized city, but you've probably never heard of it either.
We're right next to Allen, but we're Rural, Allen is not.
I think Allen's population is around 80K, Lucas is closer to 5K.

The allure would be all the amenities of a home, privacy, room for most any outdoor activities, plenty to do at the house, still close to whatever Dallas has to offer, and minutes to major shopping and entertainment in the area.

Home is not in a HOA, not really in a subdivision, we're just one street with maybe a dozen homes.

We have deed restrictions, but those restrictions pertain to what type construction is allowed and livestock (only horses allowed, with a limit of 2 per property). Since there is no HOA, and our deed restrictions are really limited to structural and livestock issues, I don't see where renting by day or week would be an issue, at least not from a legal standpoint.

As far as access to property, would probably go with electronic locks on the doors.

Cleaning, Initially anyway, cleaning would be handled by wife and I.

It's a long shot for sure, wife doesn't like the idea of allowing 'strangers' into her home. She does not see it as a potential incoming producing property, just as her home.

Long term rental is a possibility too, but I think there would be more potential as a VRBO - on the flip side, VRBO's I'm sure are more work than long term. There are always trade-offs.

As a long term rental, Rent would be high, and rental pool would be limited - but at some price there is a tenant for every property, just depends on where the demand/price line would intersect.

Appreciate the comments Scott.

Curious, how would one 'test market' a VRBO before you're actually ready to rent it out?

In other words, if we were to post an ad to gauge the response, what happens if someone wants to see it in person, or wants to book it - and you're not ready for that since you're just 'test marketing'?

Anyone have any experience marketing a VRBO (Vacation Rental By Owner) property?

We're considering marketing our current home as a VRBO.
We really enjoy the place, don't want to sell it, but really don't need it either.

All our kids are gone and it would make sense financially to downsize to something smaller and less expensive than where we are now.

But.... hate to give this place up because it's a one of a kind property in a very desirable area and I'm thinking it could do well as a VRBO.

In a nutshell, it's a 4 Bed, 3 Bath home on a little over 2 acres with:
Indoor Pool and Spa with Retractable Roof.
Separate but connected Diner / Malt Shop with Fridge, TV and Stereo.
Huge Game Room off said Diner.
The Game Room is actually a oversize 4 car garage, but it's fully finished, fully insulated, has it's own central heat and air and a full bathroom.

Prior owner used this portion of the garages as a showroom for his car collection, we use it as a huge Gameroom.

This gameroom has a 65" HD TV, Stereo system, Regulation Pool Table, Professional Quality Fooseball Table, Professional Quality Ping Pong Table and a low end Air Hockey table in it.

House also has a 3 car attached garage and 4 more garage bays in addition to the 4 bay garage area we use as a gameroom.

There is also a horse barn on the property, but we use that just for storage.

Home is near major highways, major shopping, dining, entertainment etc. in the city of Lucas which is North of Dallas.

I've seen VRBO homes in Allen that are in the mid to upper 100's per night that look like they are doing fine - I'm basing that on pulling up their calendar and seeing the days they have booked into the future. We're just east of Allen, so basically the same area.

My initial guess would be we could get get mid to upper 200's per night, possibly into the 300's per night for this place. If we could in fact get those numbers, and get say 60%+ utilization, the place would throw off some nice cash.

Wife and I would manage it ourselves.
When it was not booked, we'd probably stay there.

Those of you that have experience with VRBO, what do you think? Are we crazy, or do you think we'd have a good shot at making it work?

Here's a link to some pics from when we bought the property. Pics are fairly small, but big enough to give you an idea of the property. These pictures don't really do it justice, but they're all I have handy.

http://s1187.photobucket.com/albums/z396/TXCav/Home%20on%20Acreage/

I missed that Amerisave did investment too, asked about it after I closed with them on my primary residence.

You have to enter all the info for a quote first, then on the next page when the rates are displayed, you have to change one of the selections from 'Primary Residence' to 'Investment Property'.

Don't confuse Heat Pumps with Electric heat.

Electric heat is just that, heating elements that get hot when high current passes through them, also known as resistive heat.

A straight up electric furnace, using resistive heat, is an expensive way to heat a home.