So you bought your first vacation rental property. Congratulations!! We, at Sunset Properties, are very excited for you. It’s a pretty cool thing to be able to own a second home in a vacation paradise and be able rent it out to guests when you can’t be there. Renting your vacation home to tourists can help pay the mortgage, HOA fees and maintenance costs. It’s really a win-win situation. But how do you go about doing it? Most of us have rented a vacation property before. We decided to take a trip, called up someone, booked a place and went on vacation. It’s likely that you rented a place in Gulf Shores, Orange Beach or Fort Morgan before you bought yours. That whole rental process looks easy enough. Just market the property. Find some renters. Fill out some paperwork. And tah-dah! The rent money rolls in! Right? Maybe. But what if you’re wrong? What if there are factors you haven’t considered? What if issues with your vacation property arise and you can’t quite tackle them from your home? Then what?
Here are 5 Reasons to list your vacation rental property with Sunset Properties instead of trying to rent it out on your own:
- We Have Experience
Experience goes a long way. We have been in the vacation rental management business on the Alabama Gulf Coast since 2001. A lot has changed since 2001, but our commitment to our clients and staff has not. Our clients are the reason we strive so hard for excellence. Our staff is our client’s first impression of us. Because of this unyielding commitment to excellence, our staff has been extensively trained. We attend meetings, classes, and seminars with others in the rental management industry to discover best practices and apply them to our business. We have faced a few interesting scenarios in the last 17 years. Some of them turned out to be serious and some quite funny. The thing is, if you would have told us back in 2001 about some of the unexpected things we’ve managed since then, we probably would have said: no way! But we’re here to tell you: yes way! Crazy, unexpected things happen! We have gained invaluable experience by resolving a variety of issues. Experience comes from doing and learning and doing again. We want to offer you our experience and hopefully save you from having to deal with some of the goofy unexpected things we have. We’ve learned a lot these past 17 years and we continue to learn with each passing day.
- We Know Our Area and Our Market
We know you already love our island paradise. Why else would you have bought a second home here? But do you know our area? I mean really know it? We can honestly say we do. Sunset Properties is a member of the Coastal Alabama Business Chamber , our local chamber of commerce. We are also a partner of our Gulf Coast Convention and Visitors Bureau. We maintain these affiliations so our owners and guests don’t have to. We partner with other local businesses to ensure our whole island benefits. By allowing us to manage your rental property, you get the benefits of these partnerships without having to do anything. It is these relationships that allow us to know our market, as well. We know what marketing trends are working and which ones are obsolete. Additionally, we are in constant communication with other island businesses keeping ourselves current on local events. We actively participate in the events that attract guests to our area. We not only want to manage your rental property once guests arrive, we want to help be the catalyst that draws them here. Again, you benefit without having to do anything.
- We Know Our Clients
Because we are a small local family-owned company, we really do know our clients. We form relationships with them long before we see them face to face. We know them by name. Many times we know several of their family members’ names before they even arrive to check in. We begin to build a rapport the moment they reach out to us to inquire about any of our properties. We are available to our guests and can be reached through our website or by phone 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. We don’t ignore calls or email. We consistently call or email back if a message is left. If you’ve tried to manage your own vacation rental, you know people sometimes start looking for vacation homes late in the evening and sometimes in the middle of the night. This can be a real challenge. We have an overnight team and we are ready to respond. We respond in a timely manner and begin building lasting relationships right from the start. These relationships often last for years. Often they branch out beyond that first guest to their friends and family. Many of our clients have been our clients since 2001. Many of them are not just our clients, they are our friends.
- We Know Our Maintenance and Cleaning Teams
Things break and things need cleaning. It is part of managing a vacation home. When you are managing your vacation home remotely, you can ask someone else to make necessary repairs or to clean your property. You pay a contractor to do these things and you believe they’re done. That is until your guest calls and they don’t have enough towels or sheets or the coffee maker is broken. Then what do you do? You’re hours away and who do you call? Do you refund some of your rental money to your guest? No matter how you manage to resolve it, it is not a good situation. At Sunset Properties, we know our maintenance team and we know our cleaning team. We are close enough to each vacation home to be able to go see if the requested tasks were completed. Remember our commitment to excellence? This is also true with how we maintain the vacation rental properties we manage. If a guest has an issue with a property we manage, we handle it immediately. If your vacation home needs a repair, we make sure it’s done in a timely manner. Your guest is our client and we want everyone involved to be satisfied.
- We Know How to Help You Make Money
The last point we want to make is we know how to help you make money. If you take all the previous points and add them together, you get a steady rental income. That income can help you offset the costs of owning a vacation property. Isn’t it time you started making some money off your investment? We’re ready to help you do just that. We will market your vacation home to an age appropriate renter. We will allow pets if you want pets in your home. We will make sure your home stays in good repair and is kept clean between guests. We will keep an open line of communication with you, just like we do with our tourist clients. We will work with you to make sure your unit is available when you want to visit the Alabama Gulf Coast. We want you to be as satisfied with our services as our guests are. And we want you to make money.
Managing a vacation rental home can be as fun and rewarding. If you’re doing it on your own and are successful, we applaud you! If you’re doing it on your own and are a little stressed out, we invite you to give us a call. At Sunset Properties, we believe owning a vacation rental home should be a pleasant experience. We love what we do and we are ready to show you.
So go ahead, reach out to us. Let’s just have a conversation about how we can help you. Let’s talk about what your wants and needs are and how, together, we can meet them. And you can rest assured your vacation rental home will be in good hands because at Sunset Properties, we treat your investment as if it were our own.
251.543.1370
