Have you ever considered buying a villa in Florida with a view to renting it out to friends, relatives and other people, not to mention for your own use? It has many pro’s and cons.
First of all, let me dispel what most realtors will tell you, that is, that you will easily rent your house out for forty weeks a year without trying- it doesn’t happen unless you have built up a strong following of people who love holidaying in Florida and also love your villa and return year after year. On a good year you can reasonably expect between twenty and thirty weeks, but don’t expect this when you first start, as any business, you have to build up your clientele. Part of this process is getting on to the web sites that really produce results for you, of these; we have found that consistently Orlando Villas is by far the best.
The next and a very important step is to find the correct management company, these people are your eyes and ears whilst you are so far away from your villa and some management companies are not altogether honest, you may find that they have put people in your villa, not informed you and have pocketed the rent money, these people are few and far between, but there are still some out there. Ask experienced villa owners for recommendations, they will always be prepared to help in any way that they can and you will not fall into some of pitfalls that some of us fell into. By and large, do your own bookings, do not let management companies etc do them for you.
Have your own presence on the web, with modern software it is reasonably easy now to build a web site and promote it to bring it up to the top of the search engines.
Most of all look at your villa objectively, what would you feel if you had paid money to rent this villa, would you be satisfied with the level of decoration, facilities, cleanliness etc if not then gradually bring it up to a level where you would be happy to pay rent for it because this is what your renters will be doing.
Finally, enjoy your villa, you will become obsessed with it and although there will always be work to do whilst you are on holiday there, you will enjoy the work and the laid back lifestyle that owning and holidaying in a villa in Florida provides. Publicise your villa anytime you can, casually mention it to friends and colleagues and pretty soon you will get close to the villa paying it’s way.
First of all, let me dispel what most realtors will tell you, that is, that you will easily rent your house out for forty weeks a year without trying- it doesn’t happen unless you have built up a strong following of people who love holidaying in Florida and also love your villa and return year after year. On a good year you can reasonably expect between twenty and thirty weeks, but don’t expect this when you first start, as any business, you have to build up your clientele. Part of this process is getting on to the web sites that really produce results for you, of these; we have found that consistently Orlando Villas is by far the best.
The next and a very important step is to find the correct management company, these people are your eyes and ears whilst you are so far away from your villa and some management companies are not altogether honest, you may find that they have put people in your villa, not informed you and have pocketed the rent money, these people are few and far between, but there are still some out there. Ask experienced villa owners for recommendations, they will always be prepared to help in any way that they can and you will not fall into some of pitfalls that some of us fell into. By and large, do your own bookings, do not let management companies etc do them for you.
Have your own presence on the web, with modern software it is reasonably easy now to build a web site and promote it to bring it up to the top of the search engines.
Most of all look at your villa objectively, what would you feel if you had paid money to rent this villa, would you be satisfied with the level of decoration, facilities, cleanliness etc if not then gradually bring it up to a level where you would be happy to pay rent for it because this is what your renters will be doing.
Finally, enjoy your villa, you will become obsessed with it and although there will always be work to do whilst you are on holiday there, you will enjoy the work and the laid back lifestyle that owning and holidaying in a villa in Florida provides. Publicise your villa anytime you can, casually mention it to friends and colleagues and pretty soon you will get close to the villa paying it’s way.