In the past months we have been trying to keep you aware of the scams in the industry. Several have come from company sites like Homeaway and Vrbo.com while others have come from less reputable sites like craigslist. The one thing that all of these scams seem to have in common is that no one will claim any responsibility. A previous blog we did described a scam done through VRBO.com where the site only claimed to be the introduction point for the 2 parties and claimed no responsibility.
1 in 30 homes home in the United States is a second home according to the US Census. That’s 3% of the 115,904,641 homes in the United States. In some states however this number jumps as high as 15.6% of homes. How many homes are in your area and of them how many get rented out? Imagine the potential business that you have yet to reach out to. These homes are investment or vacation properties in most cases, and sales are only expected to rise. This video by Cotton & Company gives some insight into current market speculations.
The final installment of our software blog will discuss the CRM aspects of our software and how it can directly increase your revenue. Customer Relationship Management, or CRM, is one of the current evaluators used to determine a company’s potential success. Gone are the days that big companies can abuse their customers with huge and frequent mail blasts. With social media and the internet, customer relations have become an integral part to the success of any business. The question for most is how to convert those relationships into revenue.
Who created the software your company runs on? What qualifications do they have? Are they even in the industry? These are some immensely important questions to be asking about your vacation rental software. In December, I wrote a blog about the lessons I learned at the Triple Play Realtors Conference, one that resonated with me was that software is often written by people outside the industry. What if Enzo Ferrari had never driven, would we have these luxury cars today?
In Hawaii, a bill is currently under legislation that will allow the state to collect an additional $35 million in tax revenue. Currently, if a Hawaiian property is owned by a non-resident and additionally, rented by an out-of-state company the taxes due from the rental are difficult to track down. With states looking for additional revenue, this has been low hanging fruit and a loop hole in many states lodging tax models. Barefoot has written a blog about several cases in Colorado where VRBO homes have been rented without paying the proper taxes, seriously limiting the money collected. For example, Breckenridge Colorado has estimated that it has lost over $1 Million in taxes and fees based over the past few years because of this loop hole.
For years out of state owners have rented out their properties under the radar of state lodging tax laws, but with the introduction of large online travel agencies and vacation rentals becoming more main stream these transactions are now out in the open. The taxes structured around all lodging are designed to help with the wear and tear on the environment and infrastructure in the area as well as to pay for tourism marketing programs. The question is how does a state manage this efficiently.
Over the past few months we have brought you many stories about scams and how renters have been trapped by them. Almost all the scams we have found highlight a significant weakness in for rent by owner. The bottom line is that a company that is brick and mortar, can take credit cards, has a legal contract and insurance and knows what they are doing is a significant advantage over an owner who does this part time. The only thing that the owner might have is price and possibly the uniqueness of their property. As you have read in our blogs in the past, scams abound, and main stream media is just starting to pick these up. This potentially helps the managed properties, but it also hurts everyone in rentals as not everyone understands the difference between a FRBO and a managed property. For those in the managed property business, understanding these articles is very important, it is a tool that can assist you in targeting your owners and potential owners and it is a marketing reality that needs to be address for tenants. We will continue to provide you these articles as we come across them.
Image Courtesy of Gold Beach Real Estate
Barefoot Agent Software Part 3- Tenant Net
If you read last week’s blog’s then you read all about the importance of social media and the connections that you can make through these free simple mediums. Y Partnership has some interesting statistics that, when paired with social media tools, could yield some amazing results. These stats are collected from the 2011 VRMA conference.
