Barefoot Technologies Blog- Vacation Rental Industry News

When HomeAway announced that it was being acquired by Expedia in November of 2015, one of the first things that was discussed was the plan to add traveler’s fees to their pricing model for the vacation rental management portal.

2016 is going to be a year of significant change in the vacation rental industry.

During the course of the day, I visit Barefoot partners to answer client questions or to provide links. Visiting websites, I can be distracted and I end up checking out their Blogs where I learn more about their company, vacation rental industry news and enjoy some of the fun “stuff” they have created.  Today’s search for a particular channel on a new partner’s website, Rentals United, led me to this fun poster of the Rental Guest Manifesto that they had made into a refrigerator magnet for the 2015 VRMA. The last part of the manifesto made me think about my vacation home rental experiences and what made them extraordinary.

Barefoot would like to thank their payment processing partner Ascent Processing for this informative piece about chargebacks.

Have you ever watched Marcus Lemonis in a television program called “The Profit”?  Lemonis is an entrepreneur that invests his time, expertise, and yes, money to assist in turning around struggling companies.  He takes ownership of a portion of the company, but, as he says, “He is 100% in charge”.   I would recommend this program to any business owner looking for ideas to improve their business. You can watch episodes of the show here.

Recently I sat down with Barefoot client, Greg Hart, President of Folly's Beach Rentals. Greg shared a great idea with me and other Barefoot customers when we were having a social. He would like to establish a new group of innovative vacation rental management company owners to get together and share ideas. To learn more about this concept, read our interview below.

We are starting to hear that states are using vacation rental companies as a hub to get information both directly and indirectly that affect taxes, insurance and workmen’s comp issues. 

Consider this. A state revenue agent knocks on your door. They require you to provide data of reservations and that you trust accounts are correct.  In doing so, they capture owners who work with you.  They then have the ability to monitor the owner’s income to see if they are including that for tax purposes. The Revenue Agent also ask you about how you do cleaning and property management, if they are in house staff, they look to see if you fall in or out of insurance guidelines. If cleaners and property managers are independent contracts, they know who they are (thanks to you) and they track them down to see if they are filing taxes and more importantly, if that independent provider is hiring assistants that may fall into insurance and workman’s comp issues.   

Well, it has taken me over a week to recover from the annual work and fun visit with everyone attending the Vacation Rental Management Association’s conference. As usual, I have some takeaways to share.

Barefoot Partner LeisureLink authored this blog post. Thank you Michael Charalambous!