Blog

Be Selfish If You Donate Your Rental

Published on 04/19/04 by May, William Victor — New owners of Vacation Rental homes quickly learn how many friends they really have. And I don't just mean cousin Jenny and her 12 screaming kids who would love to spend every week end at your lake house this summer chowing down on your hamburgers and chips. No, I am referring to all the truly great read more

Lau Lau for Christmas Dinner

Published on 12/22/03 by May, William Victor — It was six years ago on Christmas day. My then eight year old son and I were snorkeling about 40 yards off shore at Poipu Beach Kauai. Having taken weekly swimming lessons since he was just 9 months old Taylor felt safe swimming with me out and around a point in hopes of seeing one of the endangered read more

Christmas in Hawaii

Published on 12/15/03 by May, William Victor — Mele Kalikimaka Haouli Makahiki Hou (Merry Christmas Happy New Year from Hawaii). There are many wonderful reasons for owning a vacation home. But my favorite is the way ownership allows people to make another place home. And I don't mean just a nice place to eat and sleep. Instead, if you are read more

The Art of Getting Your Email Read

Published on 12/01/03 by May, William Victor — Almost everyone loves email but spam makes it difficult for legitimate messages to get noticed. Users scan dozens if not hundreds of emails every day without much of a glance. There are some tried and true rules you can adopt to make sure your important message doesn't get tossed in the can. Almost read more

Are You Paying Enough Tax?

Published on 11/03/03 by May, William Victor — If you think the law is supposed to be based on logic and reason you may be sadly mistaken. In many jurisdictions the rules, regulations and laws affecting your right to rent out your abode are illogical, unreasonable and sometimes downright stupid. And if you don't know the ropes you could get hung read more

How to use the world's best sales tool

Published on 09/15/03 by May, William Victor — The fear strikes everyone - owner and property manager alike. No one wants to pick up the telephone to sell people things. If that's how you feel, I'd like to give you some tips that will not only make it easier, but will actually make it fun. Pure enjoyment, really. Last week's newsletter harped o read more

The Joy of Vacation Rental-ing

Published on 08/25/03 by May, William Victor — If you think the newsletter is late this week -you are right. Because this week I sampled the joys of staying in someone else's vacation rental home. I'm actually supposed to still be on vacation but just had to drop a line to all the nice VROA folks I'm hearing from. BACK TO THE BEACH. So I read more

Little ways to cut rental expenses

Published on 08/04/03 by May, William Victor — Vacation home owners have a number of pretty big concerns. But there are few nagging little ideas I hear from owners about saving money that might be worth sharing in case you're not already on top of them. Here they are: - SIMPLE THERMOSTATS: I mentioned these a month ago and had lots of feedback. read more

Don't burn down your Vacation Home

Published on 07/21/03 by May, William Victor — Vacation homes are somewhat more susceptible to fire than full time residences for several easy to avoid reasons. FIRST, they sit vacant much of the time. You might think that the more any home is used the greater the chance it will be misused - that occupants may leave a fire burning in the firep read more

How to select the best Vacation Rental Websites

Published on 06/30/03 by May, William Victor — You may have one or a few vacation rental websites that you love. But In case you haven't noticed there are hundreds of such sites on the Internet. And it seems that more are being added every day. So how do you know which ones are any good? Well, in short you don't. If a site is well designed, read more