Free Consultation to Find out if Owning a Bed and Breakfast is for You!!

Want to find out if purchasing a Bed and Breakfast is for you?  Then schedule a free consultation at: http://realwealthrealestate.com/motivational-speaker/marias-booking-calendar/

Baby Boomers Investing in a Bed and Breakfast

Yes you can start your home based business from your own home today!!

The smart way of doing it is start to rent out rooms in your home if you want to get a feel if you like his type of real estate investment. Why spend a lot of money on a hunch that real estate investing is for you. 

Buying and selling real estate is easy. What makes the difference between having a successful real estate business is the management and marketing of your business. 

Everywhere I go, once people hear that I'm a real estate investor, or that I own a vacation rental business, or that I run a Bed and Breakfast.  People state "I always wanted to do that it must be easy!"

People seem to think that owning real estate or running a Bed and Breakfast or vacation rental is easy and that we owners are millionaires!!

The one thing I don't hear from these people is the main question "what is the down side of being a real estate investor" or how much work does it take to become an "overnight success". 

Real estate is just like any other business it takes endless hours of study, sleepless nights worrying about where the next tenant is coming from. 

The one thing I learned very quickly is that in order to be successful I would need a mentor or coach who was already successful in real  estate.  

So I got a coach in both my vacation rental business and real estate. Having done this at the same time as starting my real estate investing saved my butt many times. 

It's not easy if you want to become a Real Estate Millionaire, you will have to overcome a million problems.  The more money you want to make the more problems and hurdles you'll have to overcome.  

Understand this rule at the very beginning of your investing will prevent you from loosing your shirt.  

Just because you buy a Bed and Breakfast or any type of real estate investment doesn't guarantee success. 

What guarantees success is your willingness to learn, grow and ask for assistance and guidance from investors or mentors or coaches who are more successful than you are.  

Tell me about why you'd like to open a Bed and Breakfast and what are the steps you're taking in order to start. 

Happy Investing

Maria Rekrut

Http://realwealthvacationrentals.com

Henry Ford's - Famous Quote

"When everything seems to be going against you, remember that the airplane takes off against the wind, not with it." –Henry Ford"

Vacation Rental Guest Expectations

Oh the wonderful world of vacation rental ownership.  It's getting more complicated and harder to meet guest expectations.

Why is it becoming harder?  It's because guests expect a vacation rental to be up to hotel standards.  Sometimes this can be easy and sometimes this can be difficult.   

As owner of an authentic hand crafted historical cottage rental I find that it's either a love or hate relationship my guests have with my cottage rental.  

One set of guests will say that they didn't like the cottage and were disappointed in the state of the cottage and then I get another set of guest who arrive the very same day and say the cottage is so very cute and looks even better than the video or photo that I sent to them.   

I suspect that such a big shift from one set of guests to another set of guests is that each set of guest has different  expectations. 

Also this huge swing in likes and dislikes derives from the guests not reading the description or studying the videos or photos carefully enough. 

Guests expect a circa 1871 cottage to be blemish free.  You'd be surprised what guests complain about. At times it's laughable.  They complain about the floors having small holes (this is where the knotty pine has been exposed) I find this quite charming and authentic.  

I have an old gas stove that's at least 70 years old that is  now left in the kitchen and is being used to store pots and pans and can be used to rest pots and tea kettles while cooking. 

I didn't have the heart to part with it. When I first purchased my vacation rental in 1988  I used to cook on this wonderful old antique stove.  

I decided to not let my guests use this gas stove and had the gas disconnected since not all guests are comfortable cooking with gas. 

So I disconnected the stove and am using it as an antique piece while my guests use an electrical cook top.  

When I move back into the cottage I plan on continuing to cook on  my gas stove and will have it hooked up again to a gas source.  

There are so many other things I could share with you and will, but for now this is good enough.   

I'd love to hear from you and hear about your experiences of owning an historical vacation rental and what your guests complain about and how you've educated them.  

Happy Investing

Maria Rekrut

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

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.

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