Florida Guide > Accommodation
Why buy a villa in Florida
You may ask yourself that question and from time to time existing owners do, buying and maintaining a villa together with the upkeep of web sites, booking, quoting and all of the other things that go with owning a property so far away is hard work. It is essential that you work with a good management company, these are your eyes and ears while you are in your native country and are worth their weight in gold if you do get a good one, be careful though, there are a lot who will not work on your behalf but on their own.
It is always best if you thoroughly research the market that you are going in to and there are many instances on the world wide web, perhaps on some of the forums, where existing owners will pass on the benefit of their experiences, perhaps some of the mistakes that they made, to enable others to enjoy a smoother ride into villa ownership than they experienced. Be wary, there is always someone out to make a fast buck.
Once you have found your perfect villa you may want to decide whether you wish to have a mortgage in the US, or a mortgage in the UK, some prefer the UK offering, we went for a US one because they still give tax relief on the mortgage similar to the old MIRAS system in the United Kingdom. Make use of a realtor and again there are good and bad, we were ripped off for $5000US by not knowing what happened, again get advice from people who have gone through the process.
Everything has now gone ahead and you are the proud owner of a little bit of America, how many bookings do you need to cover your costs? What can you charge per week?
A little bit of advice that I had when we first started, don’t be to cheap, if you go to cheap you get people who by and large do not look after your property and you will need to book more weeks, therefore more wear and tear, to make ends meet, keep your property in good order and charge what it is worth, not what other cheaper villa owners are charging and you will get the right clientele.
Finally, take time to enjoy the property yourself, at least one visit per year and more if you can, pretty soon you will get return visitors who absolutely adore your villa and these are the people that you want, they will look after your villa as though it where theirs, and they come back year after year.
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