What to do About Bad Reviews Regarding Your Vacation Rental

The vacation rental business is becoming so very difficult with all of these bad/negative reviews, most of the time they're distorted and so one sided.  Yet these same reviews can hurt our business and prevent our business from growing or flourishing because of bad reviews.

Of  course the guests who has posted the bad review doesn't have to prove anything, they can say anything they want and the poor vacation rental owner has to defend their position so they'll get more
business the next time.

We as vacation rental owners have to come up with a better system.

Maybe have a website where only owners can give reviews about their guests and this can be found on the internet.  So other owners can find and place reviews of both bad or good guests and thus prevent the abuse occurring from one rental to another rental.

What I've noticed in the 14 years of being a vacation rental owner/operator, that most of the bad reviews occur during my high season, in July and August of each year.

I think part of this reason is that there are a lot more inexperienced travellers who travel during the high season, and have very high unattainable vacation rental expectations that can't be met.

More experienced travellers travel in the off season where there is a more relaxed mood and climate in the travel industry as a whole. I haven't had bad review from guests in my off season.

Let me know what your experience has been with bad reviews.

Happy Reservations,
Maria Rekrut

http://niagaraonthelakecottagerental.com

niagaracottage1@gmail.com

http://realwealthrealestate.com/ 

https://www.facebook.com/niagaraonthelake.cottage.rental

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Bio: Maria Rekrut, a Canadian real estate investor, has been investing in real estate since 2000  in Ontario, Canada. Maria is focusing her efforts in marketing and developing programs on social media strategies for vacation rental home owners.  Maria is in the process of  writing her upcoming book on Social Media Strategies for Vacation Rental Owners.

Her diverse real estate portfolio includes: Rent to own homes, student rentals, family homes, executive homes, executive bachelor suites, cottage rentals, Vacation homes, and a Bed & Breakfast. Her strategy has been to purchase good properties in stable neighborhoods, and hold them long term. She has diversified her portfolio over the past year to include properties to fix and flip.

Vacation Rentals have an Advantage over Hotels

Why Do Guests prefer Vacation Rentals over Hotels?

The reason our guests like to come to vacation rentals is because they want to get away from the hotels and stay in a very original vacation home.

Part of their experience of choosing a vacation rental over a hotel is the fact that guests can actually speak to the owner of the vacation rental.
Since when did a fancy, streamlined booking system over ride the one on one owner contact with a guest? 

What I believe and where I see the trend going is that our guest will have a variety of vacation rental experiences at their fingertips. 

Guests can either go for the sophisticated modern model or an authentic model of one on one "human talking to each other, and prefer the Touchy Feely human model". 

Our guests will decide for themselves which model they choose. Let me know what your thoughts are on this new hot debate.

Happy Reservations,
Maria Rekrut

http://niagaraonthelakecottagerental.com

niagaracottage1@gmail.com

http://realwealthrealestate.com/ 

https://www.facebook.com/niagaraonthelake.cottage.rental

https://www.facebook.com/real.wealth.vacation.rentals

http://niagaranews.blogspot.ca

https://www.youtube.com/user/980116m


Facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/real.wealth.vacation.rentals

Google+:
https://plus.google.com/u/0/+MariaRek...

Linkedin:
http://www.linkedin.com/pub/maria-rek...

Pinterest
http://www.pinterest.com/980116m/

Twitter
https://twitter.com/NOTLcottagerent

Bio: Maria Rekrut, a Canadian real estate investor, has been investing in real estate since 2000  in Ontario, Canada. Maria is focusing her efforts in marketing and developing programs on social media strategies for vacation rental home owners.  Maria is in the process of  writing her upcoming book on Social Media Strategies for Vacation Rental Owners.

Her diverse real estate portfolio includes: Rent to own homes, student rentals, family homes, executive homes, executive bachelor suites, cottage rentals, Vacation homes, and a Bed & Breakfast. Her strategy has been to purchase good properties in stable neighborhoods, and hold them long term. She has diversified her portfolio over the past year to include properties to fix and flip.

3 Marketing Tips to Increase Vacation Rental Reservations

Three ways to increase your vacation rental business during the slow season:

1.  Cater to young families by offering along with their stay some toys and games that you can leave at your vacation rental for them to find.  You can leave a list of nearby children friendly facilities along with a list of baby sitting services. 

2.  You can cater to wedding parties, stags and does, anniversary and birthday  parties. 

If you have a large enough facility and the grounds to accommodate actual weddings on your property this might be an additional service you can offer. 

Weddings are now more about the destination as there is an increase in groups going to Jamaica and other islands for wedding parties. 

On that note you can cater to the older couples who are getting married for a second time and want to stay closer to home. 

3. Specializing in one market place is a good idea for increasing your business. For  example if you want to be pet friendly you need to get yourself listed on pet friendly websites. 

There's a whole new market place that you can cater to.   You can find the pet friendly listing sites by googling the words "pet friendly hotels". 

These are a few ides they I've seen working out very well with some of my Vacation rental and B&B buddies.  

Happy Investing

Maria Rekrut

3 Reasons why Vacation Rentals are Better than Regular Rentals

I just got off the phone with one of my real estate buddies.  He's been in the real estate rental business for over 25 years.  

So Kevan has been around the block and back a few times. He was telling me about 2 of his tenants from Hell. 

If you've never experienced at least a couple of Tenants from Hell then you can't call yourself a real estate investor. 

These tenants will "break you into the business".  I've had a few  of them myself but thank God I didn't experience the worst of them.  

Why am I so lucky?  It's because of the paperwork that all the Tenents had to sign and because everything was documented, that's what's saved my butt.  

3 Things that Will Save You from Sleepless Nights:

1.  Document everything that is said by both you and the tenant. Email is one of your best friends to have for documentation.   

2.   Have tenant sign a lease agreement, incoming and outgoing  inspection form, do a credt and landlord check on the tenant.    Get a video of your premise along with the tenant walking throughout it doing your incoming inspection. 

3. Make sure that your smoke detectors are serviced  and working and have the tenant sign paperwork with you as a witness, stating that the smoke detectors are in working order. 

These are some of the management must do's in order to not have problems with you tenant. 

Now if you own a vacation rental you can use some of this paperwork and management strategy to keep your vacation rental safe from unruly guests. 

Happy investing. 

Maria Rekrut

Http://realwealthrealestate.com

Why Owning a Vacation Rental will Build Wealth

Owning a vacation rental may be one of the most important decisions you ever make toward building your retirement nest egg. 

Why do I say that?  It's because owning a second home gives you the flexibility  to make money not only as a long or short term rental. 

But you can also refinance your 2nd property and pull out equity.  

You can take this equity and you can pay off debt or use it as a down payment for your next real estate purchase. 

You also will have a vacation home that you can use anytime of year. 

Rule to follow in real estate in order to be successful:  make sure the house pays for itself don't put any of your hard earned money into carrying the mortgage.  

If your house can't do this for you and make your life easier then don't purchase it no matter how much you love your "dream vacation home".   

I'd love to hear about what creative ways you purchased your vacation rental home.  

To find more vacation home ownership tips go to my website:  http://realwealthvacationrentals.com

Happy Investing

Maria Rekrut

Differences Between Vacation Rentals-by Maria Rekrut

Building Real Wealth with Vacation Rentals

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Airbnb Share 2014 Upcoming Summit

Airbnb just sent me a invitation to attend their summit in San Francisco in December 2014 and this is a free event!' 

What great news but despite the expense of travel and taking time away from my businesses.  I very rarely travel now for seminars or workshops.  It's just too costly and time consuming. 

I sent Airbnb an email suggesting that they televise the event online  so that I along with other vacation rental owners can be part of their Inaugural event.  

I'm sure this summit be very revealing to old timers like myself.  I like the Airbnb model of doing business and am starting to enjoy using their booking model. 

I'll keep you in you in the know about this event. 

Happy Investing 

Maria Rekrut

Http://realwealthvacationrentals.com