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The Oracode lock has been on the market for over 7 years and with over 12 000 locks installed in North America it is a proven and unique product which does not require any software.

It consists of a proprietary web based application that manages your lock from a distance from anywhere in the world once we program it for you prior to shipping.

I will be happy to answer any further inquiries you might have regarding our product,

Regard;

Vanessa Pavillet

When I first started renting and had a hard time keeping my condo booked, I would rent to the 21-25 crowd with a larger deposit.

Would you rent to anybody in this picture?

Maybe it’s my old age and the fact that I don’t want to deal with the hassle anymore, but I do not rent to anyone under 25 and haven’t done so in about 5 years.  I focus on families only and require someone over 25 to pickup the key.  Sometimes that means my condo sits empty a week in March during the college spring break period.

I am curious – Do any of you rent to the “under 25″ crowd?  Does it work for you?  How do you handle the deposits?  Can you keep a housekeeper more than one season?  Is it worth it?

This is an interesting topic with the economy making many owners nervous about maximizing bookings.  Plus, many of us know that after the holidays starts the rush of emails & inquiries and need to decide who we are going to cater to.

Post your comments below.

Anytime I receive an email inquiry, I make an effort to respond immediately, even if I don’t have availability.  A good response, with maybe even some suggestions for other rental units that you know of that might be available can go a long way to securing a booking the next year, or later that same season.  I’ve even had renters delay their trip to a date that I had available after I responded courteously and promptly.

Although you do not want to give renters over to your “competition”, it may come back to you in the form of good karma and you’ll get a booking in return.  For example, I’ve referred people to our Panama City Beach Vacation Rentals page to find another vacation rental when mine is not available and they can’t change their dates of travel, and I’ve received calls from those other owners thanking me.  And, yes, I’ve even gotten some reciprocation.  Everyone can win, here.

I think all owners can agree it’s bad for the industry as a whole that renters feel like booking a vacation rental is such a huge hassle.  Thoughts, anyone (See feedback text below)?

“>>I could not find ANY that were actually available for the dates of
>>3/13 to 3/20, even though they were listed as available. I contacted
>>over a dozen condo owners and I’m very disappointed that they do not
>>care enough to update their availability calendar.
>>
>>It’s not a problem with your website, I think the site is pretty good.
>> It’s the owners that list their properties. It seems to me that they
>>don’t really care whether or not they are wasting time because they
>>only care about getting their condos booked — not about the
>>vacationer who is trying to find out what is available.”

We had a whole bunch of folks that came in from different parts of the globe to celebrate the event with us.  Being the owner of a vacation rentals by owner website, I asked most of them where they were staying so I could compare notes.  Our extended family stayed in a nice vacation rental right on the beach, a few stayed at resorts, and a few stayed at local hotels.

Here’s the hard data on the major expense items for the  trip, excluding rental car and airfare:

Hotel / Resort (Standard Hotel Room, Queen Bed, 1 Bathroom):

• Maximum Occupants:2
• Per Person, Per Night Rate: $175.00
• Per Day, Per Person Average Food: $125.00
• Per Day “Resort Fee”:  $25.00
• Per Day Parking:  $20.00
• Total Cost Per Person, Per Day: $322.50

Vacation Rental (2 BR / 2 BA Condominium on the Beach with Queen Sleeper Pull Out):

• Maximum Occupants: 6
• Per Person, Per Night Rate: $28.00
• Per Day, Per Person Average Food: $65.00
• Per Day “Resort Fee”:  $0.00
• Per Day Parking:  $0.00
• Total Cost Per Person, Per Day: $93.00

The vacation rental was extremely economical for three reasons.  1) It could accommodate a lot more people.  A family of 5 could all fit into one place that cost on average $140.00 per night.  That averages out to only $28.00 per person, per night.  The Hotel and Resorts that others stayed in cost around $350.00 per night, and it could only fit two people in it, so it ran $175.00 per person, per night.  That is a huge difference.  2) Most resort hotels charged huge daily fees for parking and resort fees, which were non-negotiable.  That added another $50/night in most cases.  Most of my wedding guests found out about that as they were checking in (they neglect to tell you stuff like this when you make the reservation).  It was too late then to re-book.  No such issues with the vacation rental.  3) Having meals in with the family was a very nice break from eating every meal out.  It was a heck of a lot more economical as well.

And, last, the other major expense item was the amount spent on food per day.  My extended family took a short trip to the grocery store and had breakfast, lunch and a couple of dinners in over the course of the week that we were there.  They went out for nice dinners a couple of times, but in a place like Maui where a basic entree can often cost $50.00 or more, eating some meals in for a family of five really starts to make some  sense.

As my fellow vacation rental owners are speaking with  prospective renters that are having trouble deciding between your rental or a hotel, make sure you remind them about ALL of the costs associated with your typical resort hotel.  Advising your renters as to the true cost of staying in a hotel may keep them with you at your vacation rental.  Not to mention the many other benefits that we all know about!

Cheers to All,
Jon Ludwig, Owner, FindVacationRentals.com

• How far away from the beach is your unit?
• How do I get to your property?
• Where is the nearest grocery store?
• Do you have a map of the area?

Community Walk (www.communitywalk.com) provides a great utility to build custom maps that showcase

Sample Community Walk Custom Map

your property, easily allow guests to generate driving directions, and highlight local point of interest.  These custom maps even let you filter the points of interest and let visitors make comments.  I’m confident anyone who owns a vacation rental property, would find this tool very as a marketing tool to add to your web sites or listings but also in communicating with booked tenants.  It is very easy to set up!  You can add points of interest by doing searches, entering street address or using longitude and latitude.  For each POI can you can catagorize, add a photo, inster links to web sites and modify many other details of the POI or customize how  it is displayed.

There are ads but they are very discrete!  You can purchase the maps if you would like to not have ads.

Enjoy,

Andrew M. Seward

Late last week, FindVacationRentals.com released a completely revamped website with new features designed to attract and keep renters attention.  It also offers new ways for owners to market and promote their properties.  And the best part – this comes with no price increase to our owner community.  Some of the highlights of the new site include:

• New “Owner’s Specials” section.  This allows owners to promote short duration discounts on  properties to enhance the utilization of their vacation rental.  Discounts seem to work pretty well with renters in this economy – people are still taking vacations, but they want better deals, and this section of the site speaks to that: http://www.findvacationrentals.com/cheap-vacation-rentals.html
• New “Vacation Themes”, which are linked all over the site using recognizable icons.  This includs disney, golf, beach, pet friendly, cabin, and ski focused vacations. We created custom inventory for these “theme” pages that highlights vacation rental owners that have rentals in those areas to give them more exposure.  We are also using these themes to create custom email programs, so we send renters alerts periodically that generate even more traffic for owners.  Some sites do this to some degree, but I think FindVacationRentals.com is pushing the envelope a little further by having special landing pages and promotion of specific owner properties.
• New search functionality.  Every page on the site displays the “quick search” box on the top left.  The quick search now has “autocomplete”, so if a renter types in “D…Å…Y…”, it will display options in a drop down box like “Daytona Beach” directly underneath the search, kind of like Google does.  FindVacationRentals.com also offers a completely revamped advanced search page: http://www.findvacationrentals.com/vacation-rental-search.html
• All of the pages across the FindVacationRentals.com website, including country pages, state pages, region pages, city index pages, etc, have been polished and updated to a new design that was created to attract and keep a renters attention.  The city and country index pages that display summary listing information are also much improved.  There are now visible icons for “pet friendly”, and “smoking/non-smoking” displayed with the summary data for each vacation rental listing, as well an additional icon to draw attention to those listings with owner’s specials posted so renters are attracted to those.

We would love to get some feedback from both owner’s and renter’s on the new design.

Cheers,

Jon Ludwig, Owner, FindVacationRentals.com

This week I was amazed by how much attention has been paid to the fact that Barack Obama selected a vacation rental to stay in for the Obama family vacation in Kailua, Hawaii.  Initially, the focus seemed to be on how he paid for the vacation rental – you know, what is that campaign money or a kickback from a large contributor or whatever.  But, fortunately, that seemed to lead absolutely nowhere.  As it turns out, after a week of hawking it, all the press could come up with is that Mr. Obama found the vacation rental using an online website, and he paid for it using “personal funds”.

It’s very interesting how these very small things can call attention to a niche industry that we all depend upon to sustain our own vacation rentals by owner.  I have had friends that don’t know that I run a vacation rental website come up to me recently and ask me, “Did you hear that Barack Obama just paid cash for some place he’s never been to before?”, or “What is a vacation home rental?”.  I was puzzled at first, but then it dawned on me that they had never had any travel experience other than staying in a hotel.

Admittedly, HomeAway has the most listings in the vacation rentals industry.  They have bought up VRBO, VacationRentals, CyberRentals, GreatRentals, etc, etc.  It is undetermined as of yet whether or not their roll-up strategy will work financially, but if they are successful in making the term “vacation rental” or “vacation home” something that “most people” consider when they are booking their next vacation, smaller independent sites like mine at www.findvacationrentals.com will also benefit.  All of us as vacation rental owners will benefit.  So, even though they operate websites that are competitive to my websites, I am cheering for them in their quest to build an iconic travel industry where they was once only a small niche within a niche.

The fact that Barack Obama decided to stay at a “risky” vacation rental and that so many people (and the press) are talking about it is also good for all of us.  It’s good for vacation rental listing sites like FindVacationRentals.com, it’s good for all vacation rental owners, and it’s good for the vacation rentals by owner industry.

Incidentally, FindVacationRentals.com has the listing for the beachfront vacation home in Kailua, Hawaii selected by Barack Obama on our site, and we happen to perform better in Kailua related Google searches than any of our competitors.  Small world, I guess.

Cheers,

Jon Ludwig, Manager, FindVacationRentals.com

As a vacation home rental owner and operator of a vacation rentals by owner advertising website, I have been following the situation closely with regards to the recent sharp decline in both real estate prices (commercial and single family homes) and the stock market.  Like a lot of investors out there that I have spoken with, I pulled my savings out of the stock market a few months ago (phew…) and have been wondering what to do with my investment capital.

I recently read an article on the RIS Media site at the URL http://rismedia.com/wp/2008-07-16/the-upside-of-a-downturn-buyers-get-more-house-for-their-money/.  This was an interesting read – their main point was that housing prices in many markets have declined significantly in the last several months, making it a good time to consider investing in real estate.  Based on my own experience, this is especially true in real estate markets where one tends to find a lot of vacation rentals.  Those markets seem to be driven by speculation as opposed to serious longer term investors.

Based on that, I did some reasearch of my own to verify that was I suspected was true was actually true.  I looked at some of the inventory on my vacation rentals advertising website, including the markets I am most familiar with. This included Kissimmee FL, Destin Beach, FL, Lake Tahoe, CA, Breckenridge, CO, and Las Vegas, Nevada.  I looked at how many listings we had in each of those markets, and I looked at general real estate data showing foreclosures and overall pricing levels.  What I found was that while our number of active listings in each of those markets either stayed about the same or increased in the past several months, those markets were extremely hard hit with the recent decline in overall real estate prices.

Assuming vacation rentals owners are rational, they will not continue to pay to advertise their vacation rentals if there is no demand for their vacation rentals by renters.  In my own vacation rentals in Florida and Tennessee, I have seen farily steady demand.  I have had to offer some discounts, but that is mostly because everyone that is traveling seems to think that it should be at a greatly reduced price due to the overall economy being where it is.

So, all that said, I have concluded the following:

• I am still very nervous about re-investing in the stock market; real estate is looking pretty much like it is at a bottom right now.
• The demand from renters for vacation rentals is still pretty strong.
• By picking up vacation rentals investment properties for up to 40% less than what they sold for a year ago, my mortgage payment will be lower, which will increase my potential cashflow from the vacation rental.
• I am going to look for some really good deals on properties in markets that have been hit pretty hard by sharp price declines due to the speculators getting flushed out of the market.
• I am going to get creative on the discounting of my vacation rentals so if I do happen to pick one up in this buyer’s market, I’ll be sure to keep it as utilized as I can so I can cover my costs.

Best of luck to the rest of the owner community out there,

Jon Ludwig, Owner, http://www.findvacationrentals.com

Vacations for Veterans

Regardless of your views on our foreign policy, I think everyone can agree that what our veterans do for our country is incredible honorable and they are not recognized enough for their service.

As vacation rental owners, we are in a unique position to offer our homes up and to give our wounded veterans a brief respite when they need it most.  If you do offer your vacation rental, you have the final say on what dates your unit will be available.

On a personal note, I had the opportunity to offer one of my beach condos to a veteran a few months ago.  VFV does the work to verify the Purple Heart status of the veteran and, if you wish, will put you in contact with the veteran directly.  It was immenesly gratifying to not only offer my condo up to this veteran and his family, but to receive the thank you note from him and his wife after their trip.

This holiday season, please think about giving back to this outstanding organization.  FindVacationRentals.com, FindBnB.com, and VacationSpaces.com are proud corporate sponsors.

Please visit VacationsForVeterans.org for more information on this organization and to learn how you can help.  And while VFV needs inventory, they also are in need of financial donations which go directly to support the travel expenses of those veterans in need of financial aid.

Submitted by Jon M, http://www.FindVacationRentals.com

Perks - They're Grreat!

When I used to travel for a living, I enjoyed the perks offered by the airlines and the hotels.  Upgrade to first class?  Sure!  Upgrade hotel room?  Don’t mind if I do!

Everyone likes perks and incentives not available elsewhere.  For your vacation home, perks make your rental stand-out.  They can make things easier on your renters so they enjoy their stay more.

You can provide perks for your guests and increasing bookings at the same time.  Here’s some ideas:

Upgraded bedding

Have you noticed that hotels now all have their exclusive one-of-a-kind bedding system?  They might be on to something.  If you go the extra distance with a nice pillow-top bed and nice sheets/comforter/duvet, let everyone know!  Putting this information on your vacation rental listing and telling prospective renters might just close more bookings.

Free Internet Wi-Fi

Get DSL or a cable modem for your rental.  When you sign-up, ask for a wireless modem so renters don’t have to plug-into your network.  If you live in a condo or other dense housing, see if your association will vote for wi-fi access for everyone (so you don’t have to maintain it).

Exercise room access or complimentary gym visitor membership

I don’t go on vacation to exercise.  But, some folks don’t want to miss their workouts – and this is a great perk for those people.  If they can have access to run off those extra calories, they may book your place rather than the unit across the street without gym access.

If your resort / community does not have an exercise room, call around to local gyms and ask them how you can get your renters access during their stay.

Tickets to shows/parks

If you are near a theme destination such as Disney World, Pigeon Forge & Gatlinburg, or Branson, you might want to offer free or discounted tickets to your guests.  Chances are, they are booking a rental in your area for a reason.

Beach Chair Rental

If your beach condo has access to beach chair rental, talk to the company that does the rental.  They will often cut you a deal for the entire summer for some chairs.  Your renters will love it!

Gift basket

Okay, maybe this isn’t something that will close a sale.  But, I have learned that first impressions for renters make all the difference.  When your guests walk into the condo, they will probably smile if there is a nice little gift basket waiting for them.

The basket can be pretty simple (some snacks, etc) or can be above & beyond (some beers or champagne might be a nice touch).

Gift Card (Gas, Groceries, etc)

If competition is tough, you might score with some small perks such as these.  Everybody complains about the gas prices!

Free nights

Maybe not a perk exactly, but offering a free night if someone books a minimum stay with you might just help increase your bookings.  This is especially helpful during the off-season.

Repeat Customer Discount

I offer my past renters some sort of discount.  Past renters are less likely to cancel on you and they are easier to manage since they’ve stayed with you before.  Any way you can increase bookings from past guests should be in your vacation rental advertising arsenal.  You can make the security deposit smaller, offer free nights, or simply discount their stay.

I’m sure there are plenty of others I’m missing.  What kind of perks do you offer your guests to increase your bookings?

Posted by Jon M of http://www.FindVacationRentals.com

If you want to maximize bookings, make sure to put phone number on your vacation rental listings and do your best to answer the phone.  Face it, some folks want to talk to a person before they commit to loading up the family truckster and taking the family on vacation:

You have a few options when it comes to your bookings over the phone.

1. Your Home Phone
This is usually the first setup for new vacation home owners.  Not bad, but not the best option.

Pros:

• Easy, Cheap, Already Setup

Cons:

• You’re probably not home all the time.
• Late-night calls (people will call at all hours).  Heck, I even post hours next to my number to call between 8am and 9pm Eastern and receive calls very late at night on occasion (but I don’t use my home phone number).

2. Second-Line / Distinctive Ring
This is an excellent option, especially if you are home often (telecommuting, etc).  Distinctive ring is a feature from the phone company that assigns another phone number with a different ring to your existing phone line.  When the phone rings, you know by it’s ring if it’s a renter or a personal call

Pros:

• Distinctive Ring is usually cheaper than a second phone line.
• A second line allows you to put the phone in the “office” of your house.  This is a little more helpful if you want to ignore it during dinner and when you are asleep.
• A second line allows you to have an outgoing message directed toward renters.

Cons:

• Same as above: you have to be home to get the call, and renters might call you at all hours.
• Second line requires your house to be wired with the second line, which is not a given for older homes.

Camera Phone

3. Your Cell Phone
This is a good option.  In this day and age, you typically carry your phone with you everywhere.  If you are at work and can take calls, you can close more bookings.  A mobile phone makes it easy to check your voice mail during lunch and call back those inquiries.

Pros:

• Always with you
• You can turn it off at night

Cons:

• Renters know your cell phone number.  To keep things separate, you might want a “vacation rental” cell phone and a separate personal cell phone.

4. Internet Phone

This relatively new technology is my current choice.  Voice-Over-IP (VOIP) is a fancy term meaning you can talk using your Internet connection.

If you go with a provider such as Vonage or ViaTalk, they give you a phone adapter that you plug into your cable modem or DSL modem, then you can plug a phone into the adapter.  They assign you a local phone number and you use it like any other phone.

4 A. GrandCentral

GrandCentral, by Google, is a great option if you’ve been lucky enough to get a phone number from them. They can forward calls to your cell, home, or work based on who is calling.  Unfortunately, this is in beta from Google and they aren’t setting up new accounts at the moment.

Pros:

• Allows you to have a separate number for renters.
• You can choose to have it ring your cell/home outside of work hours.

Cons:

• Google seems to have suspended new accounts for now.  No word on when they will resume.

4 B. ViaTalk

I use ViaTalk.  The funny thing is, I don’t actually use it to talk over the Internet.  ViaTalk has an amazing feature that allows you to setup call-follow, call-hunt, and do-not-disturb rules based on schedules.

I have a local phone number provided by ViaTalk.  When a renter calls, ViaTalk hunts me down at home or on my cell depending on my schedule (it can even simultaneously call both my cell & home).  This is a great feature, especially if you move or change cell providers, since you can keep your VOIP phone number for as long as you need and never change the number.

Pros:

• Cheap
• Can forward calls to your home/cell/work based on your schedule
• Maintain a separate voice mailbox for renters

Cons:

• Requires high-speed internet at home (not bad, but not a gimme)
• Must setup the phone adapter on your home router to talk over the Internet

Have I missed an option that you use to communicate with renters?  Let me know in the comments below…

Submitted by Jon M., FindVacationRentals.com

Why “cost”, “comfort”, and “convenience”?  Cost is a pretty simple argument.  A typical family of four planning a vacation is probably going to require two hotel rooms, one for mom and dad, and one for the kids.  A decent hotel room generally costs $150/night, depending on the location.  In the high season in many hot vacation destinations, hotels can cost up to $300 or more a night.  If you multiply that times two for two rooms, you are looking at $300 to $600 or more per night.  In most cases, that same family of four can find a great vacation rental property with far more amenities than a boring hotel room for half of that price.

The other important aspect to the cost argument for vacation rentals versus hotels is the fact that almost 100% of vacation rental properties have kitchens with a complete set of appliances and cutlery.  This gives a family on a vacation the option of cooking meals in, which can save a tremendous amount of money.  A family of four would probably be looking at a budget of at least $150 a day in food if they had to eat every meal out, whereas utilizing the kitchen in an average vacation rental would allow them to save at least half of that figure by cooking a few meals in.

Comfort is a very important draw for a vacation rental versus a hotel.  Since many vacation rentals are individually owned and represent a families second residence, they typically have comfortable furniture, DVD players, music systems, nice kitchens, and comfortable beds in the bedrooms.  A hotel room exists to make money for its owners.  It is a safe bet that these owners have never spent a night in the hotel, and never will.  Typically, any comfort items in a hotel are looked upon by its owners as expenses that need to be minimized, not as items that the owner might themselves use from time to time.  This difference in philosophy creates a more comfortable atmosphere for the renter of a vacation rental; you are truly staying in someone’s home, and that is generally a far more comfortable experience than the clearly temporary surroundings offered by the average hotel room.

The convenience features of a vacation rental are often overlooked by the owners when they advertise their vacation rentals online.  For example, if you owned a vacation rental near the beach in Destin, Florida, it would likely come stocked with rafts, beach towels, children’s beach play equipment, a DVD player, a decent television, and a variety of specialty appliances in the kitchen, including everything from coffee makers to can-openers.  The average hotel has none of these things, so a family would have to go out an buy rafts, beach towels, beach toys, etc, they would have to haul it all along with them, or they would have to go without.  It is much more convenient for the traveling family to have these things available as part of the vacation rental’s standard amenities.

Being in the vacation rentals by owner advertising business, we have looked at a lot of advertisements that owners have posted for vacation rentals.  While many of them are good descriptions of the basic features of the property, it is too easy to lose site of the advantages that your vacation rental provides for the traveling family when you are trying to distill your vacation rental down to a basic set of features.  We suggest that you focus the text of your advertisements on the “Three C’s” advantages your rental has.  If it has a closet full of rafts, snorkeling equipment or beach gear that the renter can use, make sure to state that.  If it has a heated garage space for ski equipment so the renters boots will be warm and dry the next day, that’s important to mention.

It’s important to remember that your primary competition in the vacation rental business is not really other vacation rentals; it is hotels.  Yes, hotels are easier to book than vacation rentals.  Yes, they are less risky than vacation rentals.  But, they cannot compete when it comes to the “three C’s”, and we suggest that you push those advantages of your vacation rental in all your online advertisements.

• Renting out your vacation home less than 15 days a year
• Renting out your vacation home as much as possible while never using your vacation rental for personal use.
• Renting the home more than 15 days a year and staying in it less than 15 days a year
• Renting the vacation home more than 15 days a year but also staying in the unit more than 15 days a year.

Keep in mind, the days you are staying at your home but doing some material work (like repainting, restocking, cleaning, etc) are not considered personal leisure days.

One premise in the article that I do not agree with is that you certainly can expect to make money on your vacation rental.  Let me clarify: I agree that not every rental makes money, but with some shrewd decisions on marketing and managing (such as advertising your vacation rental by owner rather than through a property management company), you can certainly turn a profit.

Of course, talk to your accountant about this stuff – don’t get your tax advice from a blog on the Internet!

Read the full article here.

Why does this Nigerian have a loaf of bread on his head? Click the image for entertaining stories.

If you’ve been around the internet for any period of time, you’re well aware of the scams arriving by email informing you of the vast sums of money you have won.  Or, if you help the Nigerian Princess move money out of her country, you can have a cut of it.

These scams have permeated the web so much that they have a name: 419 scams.  419 is the Nigerian Criminal Code that deals with fraud.  Most (but not all) of these scams originate from Nigeria.

If you read the Wikipedia entry linked earlier, you should take away two points:

1. These scams have been around a long time.  The originated in the early 80′s and were run via letters, faxes, telex.
2. These scams come in ALL shapes and sizes.  If a scammer can come up with a way to scam someone, they will try it over the Internet.

While there are countless variations of the 419 scam, I want to explain the version I’ve seen that targets vacation rental owners.  Read on to make sure you don’t fall victim to a scam.

Nigerian scams are as old as this Telex machine from the early 80s

Imagine you make a booking for someone who pays you via a cashiers check.  They accidentally overpay and when they find out, they ask you to send a refund via Western Union.  Guess what?  You’ve just been scammed!

As it turns out, the cashiers check is fake and it often takes your bank weeks to determine that it is fake.  By then, the scammer has their money via Western Union, and you are left with nothing from the cashier’s check except possibly a fee from your bank and a lesson learned.  Good times.

Don’t worry – it’s pretty easy to protect yourself.  You just need to know how these scams work so you know what to look out for.

These scams work like this:

1. The “renter” pays you money (rent)
2. The “renter” ask for some amount of money back.  The reasons are endless: Accidental overpayment, medical emergency, they want to cancel the booking.

If they’ve paid by check, money order, or cashiers check, you simply need to ask your bank to make sure it’s cleared and is not a fake before you issue the refund.  If the “renter” asks for a refund via Western Union or other wire service, it’s a scam.

If you end up in this position, do not refund any money until the bank confirms the check isn’t fake.  The renter will play on your emotions, telling you they need the money for medical bills or something horrible.  Unfortunately, you cannot trust them.

These scams are so common now and so hard to prosecute, that the scammer will likely never be arrested for what they have done.  However, if you find a scammer trying to scam you by booking your vacation home, please do the following:

• Cease communications with the scammer
• Notify the FBI here
• Notify the vacation rental listing website they used to contact you.  That will allow the website to conact other owners that also were contacted by the same individual.
• Notify the scammers email provider.  This can usually be done by sending an email to “abuse@” and then putting the domain name for the email provider.  For example, abuse@gmail.com or abuse@yahoo.com.  The provider will usually shut down that email address which may help other owners.

If you’ve been contacted by a scammer and can add anything from your experience, please comment below.

Submitted by Jon M., FindVacationRentals.com

Your Vacation Rental Cash

Increase your vacation home bookings by accepting forms of payments that aren’t cash.  Below is a list of some popular options.

1. Personal Check

As long as you have enough time before check-in, this is usually your #1 option.  Since the renter has to send you the rental agreement anyway, have them drop a check in the same envelope.  Just make sure not to refund any money in the case of cancellation until the check has cleared and been in your account for 4 weeks (see the scam in the next section for why).

2. Cashier’s Check & Money Order

These instruments are as close to cash as there can be.  Accept these with open arms.  However, make sure they clear before issuing refunds of any type.  Beware the popular 419 Internet scam involving fake cashiers checks and fake personal checks!

3. Western Union

This might be fine.  I’ve actually never had someone pay me this way.  The fees are pretty crazy.  I’d prefer a renter to overnight a money order before going this route, I think.

4. PayPal

I accept PayPal as an easy way to accept credit cards (Visa, Mastercard, Amex, Discover).  Paypal is owned by eBay and is an relatively secure way for renters to pay you immediately with a credit card.  The card is charged by Paypal and then Paypal gives you the money, minus any fees (you do not get access to the renter’s credit card information).  There are no monthly fees with this option.  The fee works out to about 3% of the transaction.

When I reach agreement with a renter, I offer this payment option as a convenience.  If a renter opts to pay this way, I require on a 3% “convenience fee” (which basically goes to pay the Paypal fee).  If a renter is booking last minute, I require them to pay via PayPal and waive the fee.

5. Google Checkout

I checked into this alluring option.  Alas, Google does not allow vacation rentals to be charged through their service.  Oh well!

6. Credit Card Merchant Account (through PayPal)

An often unnoticed feature from Paypal is their virtual terminal service.  This is different from the normal PayPal service.  For about $30/month plus a 3.1% fee, they will give you a “virtual” swipe machine.  Basically, you get the renter credit card details over the phone and enter them into the PayPal “virtual terminal” web page and submit the information online.  PayPal will process the payment and provide you a confirmation number.

7. Credit Card Merchant Account (through a bank)

You can check with your bank or search online for credit card merchant providers.  If you want to operate like a business by taking credit card information over the phone, you can sign up for one of these merchant accounts.  You will be provided with a website that acts as your “virtual terminal” to enter credit card details.  This is pretty similar to #6 above.  Prepare to pay $30-$50/month plus fees.

One word of caution: chargebacks in the travel industry are some of the highest in the industry.  If a renter is unhappy after their stay, they can easily call their credit card company and dispute the charge.  If this happens, be prepared to fight for your money and possibly lose your rent.  Credit card chargebacks do not happen if you simply cash a check.

Every email you send out to renters or friends should have, at a minimum, your contract information.  Include the following:

• Your name
• Your email address
• Your inquiry phone number
• Your listing website address from your favorite vacation rentals by owner website.
• If possible, insert a one-sentence blurb about your rental.

You never know who will read your email and decide to book!

As you may know, my email of choice is the free GMail from Google.  Setup an email signature by clicking “Settings” and look for the “Signature” option on the “General” tab.

I’m not entirely sure what experience everyone out there is having with keeping your rentals booked with the touch economic times, but I am sure about one thing: the two most popular adjectives attached to all search traffic on the Internet are “cheap” and “discount”.  In general, everyone likes to think they are getting a great deal, no matter what they are buying.  So, they put the word “cheap” or “discount” in front of whatever it is they are looking for, and see what Google spits out.

Realizing this, I did a bunch of research on Google search traffic in the vacation rental industry specifically related to the phrases “cheap” and “discount”.  I was not surprised to find that “cheap vacation rentals” and “discount vacation rentals” are two of the more popular search terms in the entire vacation rentals by owner online industry.  On our website, http://www.findvacationrentals.com, we put up a speical website section called “Owner’s Specials“.  Our customers can log in to their Owner’s Corner and post an owner’s special anytime they want.  This immediately places their vacation rental on our special “Owner’s Special” section, giving them extra exposure and helping them to increase their inquiries and bookings.  We also make our Owner’s Specials available through a RSS feed, so anyone that finds our Owner’s Specials mini-site can elect to receive instant updates on their mobile phone, or can even have our owner’s specials on their “My Yahoo” or “iGoogle” page automatically.

Yeah, I know.  “Cheap” doesn’t sound like something you want to associate with your vacation rental.  But these days, I’m not as proud as I used to be.  I really need to keep my place booked, and advertising a special so that someone selects my vacation rental versus the many other choices they are going to have is a competitive advantage.

Another thing that owners can do is put the keyphrases “cheap vacation rentals” or “discount vacation rentals” in their actual online advertisements for their vacation rentals.  “Discount” probably sounds a little better than “cheap”, but either way it should increase the exposure to your individual listing.

If you are a customer of www.findvacationrentals.com, you can log in to Owner’s Corner if you want to make any adjustments to your listing text.

Cheers,

Jon, Owner, www.findvacationrentals.com

Again, this isn’t for those who are lucky enough (or unlucky, as it may be) to meet the renter in person as they check-in.

1. Snail-Mail the Keys

When I first started renting about 6 or so years ago, this was my solution.  I had a desk full of keys that would make my high school janitor proud.

Two weeks before check-in, I’d put them in an envelope and mail them off and let the renter know that it was their responsibility to call me if they didn’t get them.  After check-out you can have the renter mail them back or have them leave them for the cleaning crew.  With the cleaning crew method, they could collect a few bookings worth of keys and mail them back at once.

Expect to lose lots of keys this way.

2. Use the on-site office

For many of us with a rental in a resort, complex or community, there is usually an on-site office that handles the property management for most of the units for that complex.  Talk to them about the possibility of having them give the keys out.  Be prepared to pay 10-20% for the “service.”

Also, as part of this service they usually collect payment.  This might be good for you, but let me tell you a true story…

I walked into the office in my condo building to sign some paperwork.  While I was in there, some renters were checking into a condo they had booked through the owner.  They were checking in and paying at the office.  They went up to the condo, weren’t happy with something small and called to complain.  Guess what the first reaction for the office was?  You got it, they moved the renters into another condo!  Can you believe it?  Just like that you lose a booking and the office probably makes more money since they likely moved the renters into a condo they manage and make full commission on.  Ouch – that’s an expensive lesson for that condo owner!

3. Use a lock box

This is a good cheap, low-tech way to get keys to your renters.  These boxes either hang from the door-knob or mount beside the door.  Give the renter the combination and they can get the keys themselves.

The drawbacks include the previous renter not putting the key back, the renter not remembering the code, or not being able to see the lockbox if they arrive at night.  Make sure to have a back-up solution if one of these things happen.

4. Use a electronic keyless lock

A more 21st century approach is to allow your renters to enter a code.  The big box stores offer a variety of solutions here.

Another solution in this area is to link the keyless lock to a service so that you can set codes remotely.  This sounds very cool, but it certainly comes at a price.  I found one here, but haven’t tried it out so I can’t vouch for it.

I had all sorts of problems with the eletronic keypad I bought from Home Depot.  From battery issues (renter arrives to a dead keypad – yikes!) to simple overuse over the course of a summer, it became so I could not trust the keypad.  Plus, having a condo at the beach, I am sure the salt air didn’t help.

5. Use an off-site office

As a personal preference, I like this the best.  If you don’t have someone local to management your unit, consider calling around to see if you can find someone.  Ask your rental neighbors at an annual owners meeting.  Call around to independent realtors with offices near you (not the franchise realtors, as they will want a hefty fee for this service).

If you are lucky enough to find someone that charges a flat fee to hand out keys, you might want to consider that.  Having someone local means that your renter can get in touch with them if there is a mixup or a problem.

Do you have a solution I’ve left off?  Please leave a comment below…

Up until now I have used the Firefox extension Signature, which allowed you to store “canned respones” on your computer and just right click and insert a response in an email.  I have “responses” for inquiries, whenever I email a rental contract, whenever I receive a payment, etc.  You get the idea.

The problem with that is you have to use Firefox and the responses are stored on your computer.  If you travel and use another computer, you are out of luck.

Gmail users, I present to you canned responses.  Now you can keep all these generic responses inside your gmail account.  Hooray!  Now, wherever you are, if you are logged into gmail you can respond to your inquires quickly and easily.  Good job Gmail team!

• You have rental expenses on your tax return.
• You have large amounts of itemized deductions on your tax return.
• You claim tax shelter investment losses on your tax return.
• Your business expenses are large in relation to your income on your tax return.

Yikes!  That’s me!  To be fair, the odds of an IRS audit are low (like less than 1 out of 100 people low).  There just aren’t that many agents to read through everybody’s return.

However, as a vacation rental owner, you have immediately put yourself into a category of filer that will trigger an audit more often than the average American (we’re still only talking 1 or 2 out of every 100 people).  Don’t panic – I’m here to help!

Being a vacation rental owner offers you many tax breaks unavailable to most folks.  Heck, that’s part of the lure and financial perks you are entitled to!  So don’t worry, you just need to keep records of your expenses so you can take your legitimate write-offs and, if the tax man ever comes knocking, you can sit back and relax.

I’ll cover more of the financial setup of a vacation home owner in other blog post (keeping separate checking accounts, using software such as Quickbooks), however this post is about keeping proof of those expenses.  If you are audited, you will need receipts of your expenses.

You can hand the auditor over a box full of receipts for him to pour through, but unless you have a smile like Maggie Gyllenhaal that can persuade Will Ferrell to just ignore this audit, you’ll want to organize and save those receipts.

Here are solutions I’ve tried:

1. The Envelope Method

Keep receipts in a big envelope/box labeled “Condo Receipts 2008″ and put your receipt in there every chance you get.  This is fine, but suffers from a few issues.If you need to go back a month or so later to review a receipt, it’s a little cumbersome.  Another issue is lack of backups.You might as well label the box “Receipts 1982″ because this method is so 1980′s.

2. NeatReceipts

Scan your receipts and store them on your computer.  About 3 years ago I tried NeatReceipts for about a year.  While it is great in theory, I found the software pretty slow and bloated.  Way too many features for my needs and I felt it actually kept me from scanning my receipts too often.

Waiting for the software to load just to scan a single receipt was excruciatingly slow.  Slow like waiting on a contractor to finish that bathroom remodel he said would only take 2 weeks.  Riiighht.

Backup the NeatReceipts database on your computer with backup software such as Mozy for when (not if) your computer crashes!

3. PaperValet

I found this nice little tool after getting frustrated with NeatReceipts.  PaperValet is a very basic piece of software for about $25 – it scans a page and puts it on your computer as a PDF organized by category and date.  Perfect!

I actually used the scanner that came with NeatReceipts since it’s perfect scanning receipts.  I then created folder called “Condo Receipts” on my computer with categories and PDF files in those folders.

Backup that folder with backup software such as Mozy.  Unfortunately, this solution suffered from the same issues I had with NeatReceipts: I am lazy and wouldn’t scan the receipts.

4. ShoeBoxed

Hallelujah!  My current and favorite solution is Shoeboxed.  This is a receipt scanning solution sent from heaven!  You simply pay a flat annual fee and mail your receipts to them.  They scan them and put them online.  Wow!  This is the part of Web 2.0 that makes my life easier.

I’ve used this for a few months and I am already sold on this service.  The OCR is amazing – all of my receipts have been perfectly organized and tallied (I’m not sure if they have humans double-check each scan or if their OCR is that good).

Shoeboxed is making backups of your receipts, so you don’t need to worry about that.  However, you can always download a PDF or spreadsheet of all your receipts at any time.  Once a month I download all my receipts as a PDF just for piece of mind.  Oh, they’ll also send you a CD/DVD of all your receipts as well.

One other cool feature I like about Shoeboxed: If you use a single credit card for all your rental expenses (which you should), then Shoeboxed can immediately show you all your receipts from that single credit card.  Pretty spiffy!

What other methods have I missed?  Leave your comments below.