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Rentors.org News #18 May 4, 2004
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Expert Tips and Tricks for Vacation Rental Homeowners from
the founders of Rentors.org:

http://www.a1vacations.com/
http://www.cyberrentals.com/
http://www.greatrentals.com/
http://www.vrbo.com/

This newsletter is e-mailed every 5 weeks to owners of
vacation rental homes who have registered for a free
Universal Availability Calendar and/or Guest Book at:

http://www.rentors.org/

-- # Members: 27,579
-- # Calendars: 36,245
-- # Guestbooks: 12,290

In this issue:

1 - Please Update Your Calendar and Guest Book Today
2 - High-Value Amenities
3 - Tips on Buying a Second (or Third) Home
4 - "Showing" Your Property When It's Occupied
5 - Keeping Your Finger on the Pulse from Miles Away
6 - Why Plain Text is Still the Best
7 - Making Sense of Taxes for Vacation Rentals
8 - Get More Rentals with Visa/MasterCard
9 - CLASSIFIED ADS
10 - More Vacation Rental Tips
11 - Rentors.org Sponsors Information
12 - Please Refer a Friend to Rentors.org
13 - How to Cancel This Newsletter

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1 - Please Update Your Calendar and Guest Book Today
====================================================

Your self-service Universal Availability Calendar at
Rentors.org has no value if it isn't kept up-to-date. Please
follow the link below to login to Rentors.org and update
your vacation rental calendar today.

RENTORS LOGIN: http://www.rentors.org/login.cfm

If you've forgotten your Rentors.org password, check the
bottom-left text in the yellow box at the login screen.

While you're there, be sure to set up a vacation rental
Guest Book. Renter comments in guest books add credibility
to your vacation rental and help you to stand out from your
competitors.

And remember: As the owner, you can type in the comments
made by guests in your paper guest book (or sent to you via
e-mail). You don't have to rely on former guests to key in
their own comments, although they can do so online if they
want to.

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2 High-Value Amenities
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Does your vacation rental include at least a few "high-
value" amenities? High-value amenities don't cost a lot, but
they make your property look like an especially good value
to rental prospects comparing your rental to others nearby.

If your property is on the water, a canoe or kayak might
rent locally for $35/day, but you can probably buy one used
for $300-$400. Your included watercraft could easily add
$100 to the perceived value of your vacation rental, and
help you to book an extra rental or two each season.

If you accept toddlers, baby gear is a big attraction for
families trying to travel light with a little one. Other
high-value amenities include bicycles, a DVD player, video
library, golf privileges, last year's computer, high-speed
internet, coffee grinder, videogames, telescope, pool table,
ping pong table, lobster pot, and beach gear (folding
chairs, beach blankets, boogie boards).

Be sure to list your special amenities prominently on your
website, where rental prospects can be sure to find them.
And remember to update your liability insurance to include
any unusual amenities (like watercraft).

-- Brian and Lisa Raub, A1 Vacation Rentals


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3 Tips on Buying a Second (or Third) Home
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Do you own (or are you thinking of buying) a second or even
a third home? If so, you're part of a major trend.

According to a report issued by the National Association of
Realtors, interest in using vacation homes as investment
properties is growing. In 1999, 20% of second-home buyers
surveyed expressed this interest. In 2002, the figure had
nearly doubled to 37%. No wonder that approximately 6% of
the six million-plus single-family homes sold each year
(some 360,000) are second homes.

So, what should you think about before taking the plunge?

All of the budgetary and affordability considerations that
apply to your first home certainly apply to your second. But
you may find that a lender will want to charge you a higher
interest rate for a mortgage on a non-owner-occupied
building. If you plan to rent the property when you're not
using it, you may be able to eliminate that higher rate. In
any case, be sure to check with your tax accountant or
financial adviser to get a full overview of your options.

If your second home is in a resort area, and if you are
counting on rental income to help pay the mortgage, there
are additional considerations. For example, is there a lot
of construction going on in the area--construction that
might lead to a glut on the market, forcing you to lower
your rental rates to stay competitive? Or is the location
pretty much "maxed out," making each existing property more
valuable than ever?

Also, what impact will the commissions you'll have to pay to
property management companies and rental agencies have on
your revenue and cash flow? Can you eliminate or
substantially reduce those commissions by marketing the
property yourself? (Gentle plug: Each situation is
different, but many owners have been able to save thousands
of dollars in commissions each year by listing their
properties on the four sites operated by the founders of
Rentors.org.)

Most important of all, once you've identified a particular
location, take the time to get to know it before you
seriously consider buying a property. Rent a place for
several days. Explore the area. Ask those who already own
property for their opinions and advice. In short, do your
best to assemble the kind of knowledge about your
prospective second-home locale that you have about the
location of your main home. That means developing the same
kind of sense about what a given property "should" go for.

For a good book on the subject, take a look at *How a Second
Home Can Be Your Best Investment* (McGraw-Hill, 2004).
Written by Tom Kelly, a nationally syndicated real estate
radio host and columnist, and John Tuccillo, former chief
economist for the National Association of Realtors, this new
book presents a common-sense approach to finding and
financing a second (or third) home and using the property to
build long-term wealth.

-- Hunter Melville and Dave Bollinger, CyberRentals

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4 "Showing" Your Property When It's Occupied
==============================================

"Uh, hello?" the voice on the telephone says. "We just saw
your property on the Net, and it looks absolutely charming.
We love the area and are planning on renting a place for an
entire month."

"Great," you say. "What dates did you have in mind?"

The caller gives you the desired dates. And you're pleased
to be able to say that those dates are open. But as you move
on to the next phase of taking the booking, a problem
arises.

"We'd really like to see the place before we confirm the
reservation," the caller says. "We'll be in the area next
week. Can we arrange to stop by and do a walk-through?"

You check your availability calendar. Drat! You're booked.
(Well, not "drat!" exactly, because you ARE booked, and that
means rental income.) But what can you do? You've got a
rental prospect who's within a cat's whisker of booking for
an entire month, but you can't show the place because it's
occupied. What to do?

The one thing you must never, ever do is violate the privacy
of your current renters. An unannounced walk-through is
absolutely out of the question.

You might be tempted to explain the situation to your
current renters and try to work out a deal. But put yourself
in their shoes. Would you want that kind of interference
with your vacation? And how can you be sure that the place
will really "show" to your advantage--that the beds will be
neatly made and the kitchen and bathrooms sparkling clean?

And don't forget that your new hot prospect will be
thinking, "Gee, if this owner will inconvenience a current
renter to show the place to me, what will happen when I'm
the current renter and someone else wants to see the place?"

Fortunately, technology has a solution. And for once, it's a
really great solution. If you have made the proper
preparations, you can say, "I'm sorry, but our property is
currently occupied, so I can't show it to you. But I can do
the next best thing. Let me send you a CD..."

That CD could contain an auto-run slide show consisting of
pictures you've taken with your digital camera showing every
nook and cranny of your property, including your own audio
narration! It could even offer a 360-degree "virtual tour"
with up to five rooms or scenes. (Total cost to you: $60 to
$120 from companies like CirclePix and iPix.)

None of this is difficult to do. But if you feel that it's
beyond your computer skills, you can probably find a high
school or college student who can handle everything for you.
After all, they've grown up on this kind of thing.

The key point is to be prepared. Get your "ducks" (your
slide show or virtual tour) in a row before you get the call
from a prospective renter who wants to see your property
while it's occupied.

-- Jan and Pat VanVoorhis, Great Rentals

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5 Keeping Your Finger on the Pulse from Miles Away
====================================================

It doesn't matter whether you think of your second home as a
genuine "home" or as an income-producing vacation rental
that you and your family use now and again. It doesn't
matter where it's located or how many hundreds or thousands
of miles away it may be. The fact is that you want to stay
in touch. You want to remain plugged in to what's going on
in the community when you're not there. Think of it as
keeping an eye on your investment.

In the past, the best way to do this was to subscribe to one
or more local newspapers and have them mailed to your home.
By reading the local papers--and making occasional phone
calls to friends who are year-round residents--you can stay
abreast of all the latest news and information about your
second-home community.

Subscribing to newspapers and talking to friends are still
perfectly good ways to stay on top of things. But you may
want to use the Internet to supplement those efforts. Today,
there's a good chance that even the smallest, small-town,
resort community newspapers can be read online. And most can
be searched. So if you're following the lake-dredging
project or some new occupancy tax proposal, you can look for
just those articles.

In addition, you can set up your own free "electronic
clipping service," courtesy of Yahoo or Google. Yahoo
(http://alerts.yahoo.com/) covers many leading national
publications and newswires but only about a dozen local
newspapers and radio stations.

The Google News Alert feature
(http://www.google.com/newsalerts/) is technically in its
"beta test," and very few details are given regarding the
universe of publications it searches. However, in a non-
scientific month-long test, it delivered articles from a
wide range of local newspapers across the country.

You'll want to conduct your own tests, of course. But you
may find that these two free search engine features offer a
valuable supplement to your efforts to keep in touch with
your second home location.

-- Dave and Lynn Clouse, Vacation Rentals by Owner

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6 Why Plain Text Is Still the Best
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With computers, it's the little things that trip you up.
Disasters--like a persistent "blue screen of death" and no
response from your computer when you turn it on--are easy to
deal with. You simply call a technician.

But what do you do when everything's working fine, and you
e-mail out a confirmation form, and your renter messages you
back that the file is a pig's breakfast? Completely
unreadable, could you send it again? This is the kind of
annoyance that can cause inveterately kind people to
suddenly start kicking puppies, grinding their teeth, and
glaring at small children.

After 25 years of the personal computer revolution, you
would think that you could send out a nicely formatted
confirmation form to a renter anywhere in the world without
any kind of problem. After all, isn't Microsoft Word the
global standard? Why can't you create a cleanly designed
confirmation form in Word, judiciously using different-sized
fonts and other features to make the form both attractive
and clear, and send it to someone as an e-mail attachment?

Unfortunately, there are all too many reasons militating
against this. First, you can't count on one version of
Microsoft Word, whether for Windows or Macintosh, being able
to import a given file with complete accuracy. (This isn’t a
problem most of the time, but it’s a potentially big problem
when rental details are involved.)

Second, the computing skills of a good many people are still
relatively limited, and opening e-mail attachments is
baffling and even a bit scary to some, because of concerns
about viruses.

Third, AOL, one of the country's largest Internet Service
Providers (ISPs), is famous for not being able to handle e-
mail attachments. And the company wonders why subscribers
are deserting them in droves. (Okay, there are other reasons
as well. But to be unable to handle the most common types of
e-mail attachments at this stage of the game is pretty
pathetic, in our opinion.)

Thus, as a vacation rental owner, your best option is to
prepare and transmit your confirmation forms, rental
agreements, and other important documents as plain text (no
bold, italics, or other formatting), in the body of an e-
mail message, rather than as an attachment.

Plain text is the most common of all common denominators in
computer communications. It isn't as pretty or elegant as an
MS-Word document. But, as you can see from this newsletter,
it can be used quite effectively to create a clear
presentation.

For an example of the plain-text confirmation form we use
and recommend to our readers, go to our Web site
(http://www.fullybookedrentals.com/) and click on "Vacation
Property Owner’s Toolkit CD."

-- Alfred and Emily Glossbrenner

Authors of *How to Make Your Vacation Property Work for
You!: The Quick & Easy Guide to Advertising, Renting,
Managing, and Making Money from your Second Home* (320-page
book/CD package with convenient forms and software). Mention
Rentors.org and we'll include a FREE half-hour phone
consultation with purchase. Special offer good through
06/30/04.

For more information, visit:

http://www.fullybookedrentals.com/

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7 - Making Sense of Taxes for Vacation Rentals
==============================================

Recently, a vacation rental homeowner asked "Has anyone
compiled a list of the various types of taxes that rental
home owners are faced with, by state and locality?"

Well, as a matter of fact, HotSpot Management has. We
currently have a fairly comprehensive list of the most
popular localities in the U.S. And, if we don't have a
specific location, we will research it and find out the
details.

Each location is different, and taxes can apply at the
state, county, and/or city level. The types of taxes also
vary. They can be sales taxes, accommodation taxes,
transient taxes, special district taxes (i.e. police
district taxes), etc. Your particular situation really
depends on your property's location. Not only are there a
wide variety of taxes, rates, and rules, but it's often
difficult to extract the correct information from the tax
authority.

To take the worry out of those issues, HotSpot Management
offers a service to vacation rental owners allowing them to
remain compliant with very little effort. We will handle
registering you with the correct taxing authorities, getting
you the necessary licenses, and informing you of the
specific taxes you’re required to collect. We’ll also
complete the forms and submit them with your tax payment for
each period.

All you have to do is report your rental income to us. We
handle the rest. The typical cost for vacation rental owners
is roughly $100 a year plus the initial license registration
(if necessary). Pricing is dependent on your specific taxing
requirements.

If you mention Rentors.org and this article, HotSpot
Management will reduce your annual fee by 50% for the first
year. Call HotSpot at 877-589-0207 or see:

HotSpot Tax Info:
http://www.rentors.org/redirect/hotspot.cfm

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8 - Get More Rentals with Visa/Mastercard
=========================================

You'll rent more often by accepting major credit cards for
your vacation rentals, through a program created by
Rentors.org -- designed especially for vacation rental
homeowners and their agents. See:

http://www.rentors.org/redirect/paradata.cfm

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9 - CLASSIFIED ADS
==================

Your classified ad can appear in the next issue of
Rentors.org News. Rates are $25/word (10-word minimum). URLs
count as 2 words. ALL CAPS are forbidden. Sorry, we do NOT
accept ads from vacation rental advertising services, and we
reserve the right to reject ads for any reason. Ads appear
in first-paid, first-listed order. Our next issue's payment
deadline is exactly 2 weeks from today. Contact:

admin@rentors.org

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10 - More Vacation Rental Tips
==============================

If you would like to read more vacation rental tips, you can
refer to articles that were featured in previous issues of
this newsletter at:

http://www.rentors.org/archive/

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11 - Rentors.org Sponsor Information
====================================

Rentors.org is sponsored by these experienced vacation
rental advertising services. As at least one authority has
said, "There are literally hundreds of vacation rental
property Web sites, but only four that really matter." Those
four are the founders of Rentors.org, and each will be
pleased to help you maximize the rental income your property
generates each year by advertising it on the Internet. All
charge a flat annual fee. There are no commissions or other
nonsense.

The Rentors.org Availability Calendar and Guest Book work on
all four sites, so you will have just ONE calendar and/or
Guest Book to maintain!

A1Vacations - A1 Vacation Rentals
Home: http://www.a1vacations.com/
Join: http://www.a1vacations.com/advertise/

CyberRentals
Home: http://www.cyberrentals.com/
Join: http://www.cyberrentals.com/signup.html

Great Rentals
Home: http://www.greatrentals.com/
Join: http://www.greatrentals.com/Admin/Posting/Post.html

VRBO - Vacation Rentals by Owner
Home: http://www.vrbo.com/
Join: http://www.vrbo.com/global/owner.htm

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12 - Please Refer a Friend to Rentors.org
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This "Tips for Vacation Rental Homeowners" newsletter was e-
mailed to members of Rentors.org -- which offers FREE online
availability calendars and guest books for vacation rental
property homeowners and property managers.

Please refer a friend to:

http://www.rentors.org/

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13 - How to Cancel
==================

To cancel your newsletter subscription, please log in to
your Rentors.org account and then select "Delete this
Account." Your free calendar(s) and guest book(s) will be
deleted, and you will no longer receive this newsletter.

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Copyright (C) 2004 Rentors LLC, 95 Westlake Rd. Suite 205,
Hardy, VA 24101 USA Advertise: 540-375-3633
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