Food For Thought – a Travel and Business Idea You May Never Have Considered! I know the title of this article seems crazy. Why would you buy a place that you will probably only live in a couple of months a year? However, there are millions of people around the world doing just this and sustaining the mortgage as well as their own home mortgage. And the reason they are able to do this is due to the numerous vacation rental websites have been cropping up over the last half a decade. Why it might be good for you to buy a property on a destination that you love.Take a look at this article to learn holiday destination.
There is Airbnb, Housetrip, Booking.com, HomeAway, TripAdvisor, VRBO, HomeToGo, and Flipkey to name a few. Now, these companies are committing million dollar plus budgets into their advertising to get traffic to their website. All you have to do is visit Google or Facebook and make a simple search for ‘Vacation Rentals’. You will see anyone if not all of these vacation rental company sites appear on the paid ads section or search engine section.
So Why Is Mentioning These Websites So Important?
Well just imagine you see a new build property development being advertised in the area you love to visit two or three times a year. Who knows, maybe you spend three months a year there. Whatever your situation is, you must have imagined owning your own home in the one area in the world you wish you could live permanently.
Well, this is exactly where the many vacation rental websites come into play. You can buy one of these houses. The reason you can afford to do this is that once you purchase the property, there are a handful of websites that you can list your property on as available for short-term lease. Essentially what you are doing is living in your holiday home when you are on vacation, and when you are not there, you are using it as a vacation rental.
Likewise, your home back in the village, town, or city you leave behind to go away, you can list that on the vacation rental website. Therefore, when you are not at either one of the properties, you could be making money renting them out to people that use the aforementioned vacation rental websites; Airbnb, Housetrip, Booking.com, HomeAway, TripAdvisor, VRBO, HomeToGo, and Flipkey.
A vacation rental channel manager is a great tool you can use that allows you to connect all your listings on external travel agents, like Airbnb, Vrbo, Booking.com and Expedia, with your vacation rental property management software.
What Is The Catch?
Hand on heart, there is no catch. Websites like VRBO have millions of visitors not per year, but per day. Now granted not all of those visitors are looking at the area that your property is in, but there will always be a market for travelers looking to stay in a property where your vacation rental is situated.
Add a listing to all the other websites such as Airbnb and HomeAway, then you have multiple listings increasing the chances of your property being booked on one of these websites.
Now the reason there is no catch is simply down to the fact that listing your property on these vacation rental websites is free. The only way you ever have to pay any fees is if someone books your place. For instance, Airbnb will charge you 20% of the booking rate. Many of the other sites are the same with varying fees.
Now that is a fair deal when you consider these companies are the ones going out there on the World Wide Web and spending a fortune on advertising their websites so people will come and browse people’s listings – that means people like you.
In the past, people had to use property management companies and pay a monthly fee if they wanted to own a holiday home. Moreover, if there are no bookings, the monthly fee stands. In fact, you have probably heard of the old style timeshare systems. Well, these companies are now long gone or at least shrinking because websites like HomeAway and VRBO are not charging you anything until someone actually makes a booking.
Why Is Investing In New Builds As Vacation Rentals So Profitable?
Firstly, new builds we should really refer to them as pre-builds. This could be a house, condo, apartment block and so on. The construction company has either bought the land and is ready or preparing to build, or they are mid-way through the build. In almost every project like this, the construction firm puts aside a certain percentage of homes that can be sold before the development has been completed.
Check out any of these travel destinations, and do some research. You will see an abundance of new project developments either in progress or being planned.
That means you are buying the property for around 20% less than the post-build price. As soon as the property has been built, you have made 20% back on the value of your investment.
Next, you will be making money by advertising it as a brand new establishment for holidaymakers looking for a comfy vacation home to stay in (as opposed to a hotel) while on their vacation.
The Vacation Rental Business is Booming
Right now, the vacation rental business is booming. People prefer the idea of staying in an apartment rather than going through the higher expense of booking a hotel room. If you get in on the market now, get some good feedback on the vacation rental websites, then you too will be able to take advantage of this ever-increasing vacation niche.
Not to mention the fact that as property prices in the area rise, plus your home property prices will also be rising (well in most places anyway), you are making a solid investment. Even if you need to remortgage and have two mortgages, as long as you do your research and make sure the area you purchase your vacation rental is a popular destination for tourists, then you are sure to not only pay off your mortgage but also make a profit on top.
And who knows? One day you may decide to move there permanently when you have saved a decent pension and some spare cash.
Would You Believe Managing Listings On Multiple Websites Is Very Easy
Now every sire mentioned here has its own calendar. Admittedly when one booking comes in on a site, then you need to block off the dates on the calendar on all the other sites. If you don’t, then you run the risk of double bookings. Luckily there is also a solution for this too. Use something called the Lodgify vacation rental channel manager. It is a central management system that will connect to all the vacation rental website calendars your property or properties are listed on. In turn, it will then sync all the other calendars telling them to make the dates booked on one site unavailable on all websites.
Therefore, all you have to do is place your property on all of these vacation rental websites to maximize exposure to people searching for a holiday home in the area your place is located and let the automated channel manager do all the hard work when bookings are made.
If you want to know more about how vacation rentals work so you can stay longer or more often in your dream location, then check out this vacation rental guide from Lodgify.
Now just to add a final note on this. Imagine now when you own your own place in your favorite destination, you don’t have to pay a penny to stay there. Possibly you may have a small mortgage set up, but even then this would be far less than the price you would pay for staying in a hotel or someone else’s vacation rental. Plus, if you are really brave and don’t mind renting out your hometown property while you are away, then you will likely not be paying a penny.
I hope you found this insight useful. And remember, you don’t have to buy an expensive place. There is all manner of travelers out there with low, medium, and high budgets. Just check out some of the vacation rental websites we mentioned.
